Carnival of Nuclear Energy #18 at ANSNuclearCafe

Here are some excerpts from Carnival #18 at ANS Nuclear Cafe:

Brian Wang reports from Next Big Future that information on the General Atomic EM2 reactor was presented at the Blue Ribbon Commission meeting held in late August.  Nuclear and defense supplier General Atomics announced in February, 2010 that they would launch a 12-year ($1.7 billion) program to develop a new kind of small, commercial nuclear reactor in the U.S. that could run on spent fuel from big reactors.

Wang writes that NuScale, which is developing a 45 MW light water reactor, alsogave a presentation to the BRC.  The company’s initial pre-application review meeting was held with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on July 2008.  NuScale anticipates filing design certification application in 2012. NuScale forecasts the first plant can be online producing electricity from 2018.  NuScale’s reactor will be factory built.  The entire reactor will be prefabricated and shipped by rail, truck or barge.  It will weigh about 300 tons for each module for 60 foot long and 14 foot in diameter cylinder......

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Kirk Sorensen, who blogs at Energy from Thorium, also had a chance to speak to the BRC.  He told them thorium’s performance means that it is possible to build a reactor that, once started on fissile material, requires no additional fissile input and runs only on thorium. This has profound consequences for our energy future.

Charles Barton weighs in at NuclearGreen with a look at claims that nuclear energy bloggers are “shills” for the industry. For those not up on early 20th century idiom, a shill was someone hired by an aspiring opera singer to stand in the galleries and yell “bravo” at the end of a solo piece, or duet, to motivate audience applause and favorable write-ups in newspaper music reviews.  Barton, who is an opera fan, does not take the insult lightly.
_Much more at_ANSNuclearCafe

Hyperion is to build its first prototype small reactor at the DOE Savannah River complex in South Carolina, USA.

The parties aim to build an operational prototype by 2017 or 2018, said
Mike Nevetta of Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, which operates the Savannah
River Site. He also said Thursday that the demo reactor will not connect to
the grid but will produce electricity for internal use on site.

Constructing the Hyperion prototype will cost $50 million, which will
largely come from private sources, said Deborah Blackwell, Hyperion vice
president of licensing and public affairs.

She said Thursday that she is "confident" the company will secure the
funding but declined to give more details.

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions is talking with five or six other
companies about building prototypes at the complex "in which manufacturers of
small reactors can come and prove their technologies," said Nevetta.

He added that all the demo designs will use "plutonium, high-enriched
uranium and spent fuel," which means light water models will be excluded.

Brian Wang provides more details on the Savannah River small reactor plans