Small modular reactor

As humanity resets its gaze toward Moon, British aerospace company Rolls-Royce Holdings is continuing its work on developing nuclear power sources for spaceflight and exploration. Today, the company announced funding from the U.K. Space Agency to further research and develop a nuclear reactor that’s meant to power a future base on the Moon.The U.K. Space Agency provided Rolls-Royce Holdings with £2.9 million, which isabout $3.5 million USD, according to a press release from the agency. Rolls-Royce elaborated in its…

A group of cities in the Western U.S. have voted to move ahead with a new nuclear project that could help revolutionize how clean power is generated in this country—despite sharply rising costs for the project.On Tuesday, a group of 26 cities in Utah, Idaho, New Mexico, and Nevada saidthey wanted to continue with their investment in what could become the U.S.’s first cluster of small modular reactors. NuScale, the company behind the project, told the group in January that costs for the energy generated by the planned…

The U.S. has just given the green light to its first-ever small modular nuclear design, a promising step forward for a power source that remains controversial among some climate advocates but is experiencing a popular renaissance.The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the design, which was published Thursday in the Federal Register, from NuScale, an Oregon-based reactor company. The publication of the design in the Register allows utilities to select this type of reactor when applying for a license to build a new…