To doubters of what the very near future holds for nuclear power be aware that:
The era of the small modular reactor (SMR) is here and now!
GE Hitachi’s BWRX-300 SMR is selected for electricity generation in Canada, the USA, Estonia, Poland and Sweden.
In Poland a consortium is to finance 10 BWRX-300s to decarbonise their energy-intensive industrial operations.
And now this - the US government is granting an award which supports a two-year, $3.3 million pre-feasibility study to assess the viability of a direct air capture (DAC) system powered by nuclear energy.
As part of GE Vernova’s proposed study, researchers will explore the feasibility of a novel DAC system design that integrates GE Hitachi’s BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR) and renewable electricity to enable CO2 to be captured from ambient air and stored underground or utilized as a value-added product such as a feedstock for sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). Integrating the heat and power from the 300 MWe BWRX-300 with the DAC system has the potential to achieve the lowest cost of carbon removal. When completed, the project could remove 1 million tons of CO2 from the air per year. That equates to the annual emissions from roughly 200,000 typical cars that get 22 miles per gasoline gallon. https://www.ge.com/news/press-releases/ge-vernova-selected-by-the-us-department-of-energy-to-lead-pre-feasibility