US funding for small nuclear reactors
The US will provide USD 14 million for the engineering and design stage of developing SMRs in Romania
Corina Cristea, 27.06.2022, 13:50
While in Germany at the G7 summit in Munich, the US president Joe Biden announced funding in the amount of USD 14 million for Romania. The money is designed to finance the preliminary stages, i.e. the front-end engineering and design study, for the small modular reactors developed in a partnership with the US. Romania will be the first country in Europe to use this American technology.
As the US president put it, in Romania, the US firm NuScale Power will be the one managing this first-of-its-kind small modular reactor (SMR). This will help us reach zero emissions faster, more cheaply and more efficiently. The US government has contributed in advance to the development of this innovative technology, to strengthen European energy security and create thousands of jobs in Romania and the US.
The US has already supported the development of SMRs in Romania, contributing to a detailed study conducted over 18 months. Following the study, a decommissioned thermal power plant in Doiceşti, Dâmboviţa County, in southern Romania, was identified as the location of the first of the 6 planned reactors.
Romania intends to become a regional SMR production and operation hub, and aims to build the first unit by 2030, the Romanian authorities announced last autumn, after announcing the signing of the agreement at the COP26 summit in Glasgow.
Decarbonisation requires nuclear power, which is why these investments are critical, the energy minister Virgil Popescu pointed out. He says now that the NuScale technology was certified by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in 2020, following a comprehensive testing process that took over 10 years to complete.
In Romania as well, Virgil Popescu added, all the relevant certification and regulation procedures will be complied with.
“We have over 25 years of experience in operating, at the highest safety standards, the 2 reactors in Cernavodă, which rank 1st and 3rd in the world in terms of productivity. We have an experienced regulatory commission, working closely with the regulatory commission in the US, with the Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna and with the highest-level nuclear energy organisations in the world. We have an opportunity to put this experience to use and to get involved in a solid project, which will give Romania clean and affordable energy, development for local communities, jobs, the training of a new generation of engineers, and will place Romania at the forefront of training future operators in the region and of the production and assembling of components,” Virgil Popescu posted on a social network.
In Bucharest, both the president and the PM of Romania welcomed Joe Bidens statements. Ensuring energy security is a shared goal of the Romanian-US strategic partnership, president Klaus Iohannis said. In turn, PM Nicolae Ciucă pointed out that using this new technology will contribute to strengthening Romanias energy profile, in line with the EU efforts to protect the environment and with the decarbonisation targets undertaken at EU level. (AMP)
