IN the past week, there has been a fresh volume of news from the nuclear energy space, the latest bit of which was an opinion submitted by the Department of Justice to the Department of Foreign Affairs, verifying the legality of the 'Agreement for Cooperation Concerning Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy,' otherwise known as a 123 Agreement, signed between the Philippines and the United States last November.
NuScale's current design is for a unit of 77-MW capacity, which was scaled up from a 50-MW design after an economic analysis by the company determined the smaller design could not possibly be made viable. That smaller design had been granted what is called a Standard Design Approval by the NRC, which is quite a bit below full certification.