. Under a new agreement announced in Washington, reactor vendor GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy will contribute $200-million toward the. Another $200-million in development costs will be split evenly between OPG and its new partners, the Tennessee Valley Authority and Synthos Green Energy, which previously announced plans to deploy BWRX-300s in the United States and Poland, respectively.
Lowering costs will be crucial if reactors are to compete with other generation technologies. Nuclear technology has enjoyed a resurgence of interest as countries commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Yet in its latest report on the nuclear industry’s status published in October, Paris-based Mycle Schneider Consulting found that for the first time in four decades, nuclear’s share of global electricity generation fell below 10 per cent last year.
Tennessee Valley Authority, for example, will run experiments with the U.S. Department of Energy on “steel bricks,” a steel-composite modular construction technique GE Hitachi plans to employ. Mr. Hartwick said OPG will send some employees on year-long secondments to the Tennessee utility, which operates light-water reactors that operate on similar principles to the BWRX-300.
Mr. Hartwick said the new Darlington facility will be designed to accommodate up to four BWRX-300 reactors. He acknowledged that the first will be the most expensive, but “not by a significant amount.” Since subsequent units would be substantially identical, getting additionalshould be straightforward. Furthermore, key aspects of the plant’s layout such as water intakes will already be settled.