January-February 2019 NPJ

Nuclear Plant Journal, January-February 2019 NuclearPlantJournal.com 31 (Continued on page 32) Daniel T. Ingersoll Senior Technical Advisor, NuScale Power LLC. Nuclear Engineering Ph.D. and M.S. from University. of Illinois; Physics B.S. from Miami University. He is an expert on radiation transport phenomena and advanced reactor analysis. He previously held several organizational and programmatic leadership positions at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, including Technical Director for the Small Modular Reactor Program. More recently, he served as Director of Research Collaborations at NuScale Power and authored the book Small Modular Reactors: Nuclear Power Fad or Future? He is a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society. Not only does this improve productivity and reduce construction risks, it permits parallel construction of the NSSS, thereby giving confidence that construction schedules can be shortened to as few as three years. The completed NSSS can then be shipped by rail, truck, or barge for assembly at the plant site. In short, the NuScale approach to nuclear plant design accomplishes a complete “paradigm shift” when compared with historical practices. There are numerous misconceptions about this shift in nuclear plant construction. The emphasis on factory manufacturing has led some to conclude massive numbers of NuScale Power Modules ™ must be built in dedicated facilities to achieve the economic benefits of factory construction. ix While such a dedicated facility would ultimately add efficiencies, NuScale economics have never depended upon a dedicated manufacturing facility with high volume production. NuScale has worked with numerous domestic suppliers to validate fabricability of the NuScale Power Module ™ in existing facilities, recently announcing the selection of BWX Technologies (BWXT) as the lead manufacturer. BWXT has been a leading supplier of nuclear components and fuel for both the U.S. government and the commercial nuclear power industry and can meet NuScale’s manufacturing needs in existing facilities. It is expected that Nth-of-a-kind NPM economies can be approached by the production of modules 8-10, which would occur with the deployment of the first 12-module NuScale plant. Licensing Progress NuScale, the first SMR to ever undergo licensing in the United States, formally began its engagement with the NRC in 2008. The NuScale Design Cer- tification Application was accepted as com- plete and docketed for review in March 2017. In April 2018 the NuScale design completed the most comprehensive and challenging phase of NRC reviews ahead of schedule. During this process there were approximately one-third the num- ber of requests for additional information (RAIs) than with previous certification experiences, which can be attributed to extensive pre-application engagement with the NRC and the plant’s design sim- plicity. NuScale now expects to receive its NRC Final Safety Evaluation Report by September 2020 with design certifica- tion in January 2021. Licensing Validation of Safety Advances One of the most important aspects of this review was a validation of the unique safety features of the NuScale plant. The NuScale plant design offers a dramatic advance in nuclear plant safety. x The reactor is designed such that no design basis accident can ever uncover the fuel. Table 1. Updated NuScale Cost Estimates.