Forget Three Mile Island. Imagine, instead, a mini nuclear generator that operates like a battery. Plug it in and it runs for eight years until its fuel is spent
By Anya Litvak, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Westinghouse Electric Co. is scouting the former J&L Steel campus in Aliquippa;, Pa. as a potential home for a large manufacturing plant for its eVinci microreactors.
The Cranberry-based nuclear technology firm is in the process of licensing the eVinci design, which departs from current nuclear power plants in several key ways. It’s much smaller — Westinghouse advertises truck delivery — doesn’t require water or outside power, and comes pre-fueled to generate about five megawatts of power for eight years.
The company is aiming to have the first one up and running by the end of the decade, Leah Crider, Westinghouse’s vice president of commercial operations for eVinci, said at a recent datacenter and energy summit hosted by the Pittsburgh Technology Council.
“The good news about this is that we’re looking to do what Henry Ford did for automobiles with microreactors,” she said. “So, entirely built in a factory, delivered to the sites where they’re needed.
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