New submitter ghack writes “NuScale power, a small nuclear power company in Corvallis Oregon, has won a Department of Energy grant of up to $226 million dollars to enable deployment of their small modular reactor. The units would be factory built in the United States, and their small size enables a number of potential niche applications. NuScale argues that their design includes a number of unique passive safety features: ‘NuScale’s 45-megawatt reactor, which can be grouped with others to form a utility-scale plant, would sit in a 5 million-gallon pool of water underground. That means it needs no pumps to inject water to cool it in an emergency – an issue … highlighted by Japan’s crippled Fukushima plant.’ This was the second of two DOE small modular reactor grants; the first was awarded to Babcock and Wilcox, a stalwart in the nuclear industry.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

See the article here:
NuScale Power Awarded $226 Million To Deploy Small Nuclear Reactor Design