The photo is sourced TerraPower
Instead of ordinary water, the role of coolant will be played by liquid metal sodium, which will make it possible to increase the reactor’s capacity to 500 MW during the hours of high demand. High-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) will be used as fuel, in which the concentration of the fissile isotope U-235 is 5–20% (versus 3–5% for fuel used in the majority of modern reactors and more than 90% for fuel used in nuclear submarine reactors). The use of HALEU will make it possible to reduce not only the fuel feed rate but also the size of the reactor fuel assemblies for thermal energy generation. As a result, the specific consumption of concrete during the construction of the reactor will decrease by 80% compared to thermal neutron reactors.
In many ways, the project will usher in a new wave of NPP construction in the U.S. The previous wave essentially ended in the mid-1990s: while 51 reactors with a total net capacity of 58.4 GW were connected to the grid in the U.S. between 1980 and 1996, only 3 reactors totaling 3.4 GW were launched in the next 28 years, according to the IAEA. Among these reactors were the second unit of the Watts Bar NPP in Tennessee, which was connected to the grid in 2016, and the third and fourth units of the Vogtle NPP in Georgia (2023–2024), which cost almost $14,000 per kilowatt (kW) of capacity (in 2023 prices).
The construction of the Vogtle NPP cost significantly more than all other reactors brought into operation worldwide in recent decades: for instance, the specific capital costs for the third unit of Japan’s Tomari NPP, the country’s last reactor that was launched shortly before the Fukushima Daiichi accident, was less than $4,000 per kW of capacity, while the second unit of France’s Civaux NPP (launched in 1999) cost about $2,000 per kW.
According to Global Energy Monitor, another three nuclear power plant projects are currently at the pre-investment stage in the U.S.: the Turkey Point NPP with a capacity of 1.25 GW in Florida and small modular reactor projects in Idaho and Tennessee, which will have the capacity of 77 MW and 180 MW, respectively.
