...The Obama administration’s 2012 budget proposal will include a request for money to help develop small “modular” reactors that would be owned by a utility and would supply electricity to a government lab, people involved in the effort say...
The nature of said facilities requiring such an off-the-net power source? Classified, one is sure...
...The reactors would be built almost entirely in a factory and trucked to a site like modular homes.
In promoting the reactor, the administration’s immediate goal is to help the Energy Department meet a federal target for reducing its carbon dioxide emissions by relying more on clean energy and less on gas and coal. Like other federal agencies, the department is required by an executive order to reduce its carbon footprint by 28 percent by 2020.
Yet the longer-term goal is to foster assembly-line production of the small reactors at a far lower cost than construction of conventional reactors. The reactors could even replace old coal-fired power plants that are threatened by new federal emissions rules and sit on sites that already have grid connections and cooling water.
The costs of construction would range from a few hundred million dollars to $2 billion, as opposed to the current price tag of up to $10 billion for a twin-unit nuclear complex, which has an output 20 times larger than that expected for a modular reactor...
Yes, you got that right, the cost for a mini-nuke power plant they'd tow like a mobile home will be about 1/5 of a big plant for 1/20th the out put- which puts them about 4 times as expensive per watt capability.
Which is how the Laureate plans to save you money.
Pork barrel. Got it. How much are you asking GE for 2012, Barry?
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