Energy & Science

Cities Snub Plan to Save Nuclear Power With Mini Reactors

  • Plan to buy power spurned by some cities citing risk, cost
  • Energy Department backs mini-reactors seen as wave of future

Source: NuScale Power LLC

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A project to revive nuclear power by demonstrating the viability of small, factory-built reactors has a problem: At least two cities that agreed to participate have pulled out and others may join them before a Sept. 30 deadline.

The defections from the group of 35 that had signed up spell trouble for Portland, Oregon-based NuScale Power LLC, which is developing the modular reactors with hundreds of millions of dollars from the U.S. Energy Department.