Writing in a series of comments on this blog, Mike McGough, Chief Commercial Officer, NuScale Power, (right) said Sunday October 11th that NuScale said that UAMPS will be the owner and ENW the operator of the firm’s first plant in Idaho.

“We are in site selection activities as we speak. While we do not yet know exactly where the best site will reside, we do know that the DOE INL site has been well-characterized and that we expect to find possible choices there, once the screening of the state is competed.

Our planned project in Idaho, known as the UAMPS Carbon Free Power Project, will be a full 12-module 600MWe (gross) NuScale plant.”

Update: 10/13/14: In a followup comment McGough stated, ” I did not say that we will that we will definitely locate a plant at the DOE Idaho national labs. I said that DOEs INL is a location that may have suitable sites within our site selection of evaluation entire state of Idaho. This is a very important distinction.”

UAMPS has entered into a Teaming Agreement with NuScale and Energy Northwest that outlines the parties’ intent to investigate the viability of developing a Small Modular Reactor (SMR) project, at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) near Idaho Falls.

A NuScale SMR project could consist of up to 12 50 MW reactors (600 MW total). Each reactor sits within a containment vessel measuring 76 feet tall x 15 feet in diameter. Each reactor and containment vessel operates independently of the other reactors inside a water-filled pool that is built below grade.

It is now only a matter of time until NuScale formally announces its intention to submit a combined construction and operating license application (COL) to the NRC. When it does it will be the first of a kind COL for an SMR in the US.

The original article posted on this blog on Saturday, October 10th speculated that the Idaho lab would be an ideal location for an SMR.

This blog post will be updated as new information becomes available.

Supplemental Note

In a press statement in May 2014, NuScale’s major equity investor Fluor said on its website, ” NuScale aims to submit its design certification application in the second half of 2016 with expected certification in 2020 if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s schedule is maintained. Over the last five years, NuScale has been engaged extensively with the NRC regarding the SMR technology and will continue to work closely to ensure the success of the project.”

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