Here is a video promoting GE's latest nuclear reactor concept:
I doubt we'll see very many of these built in the US.
To put things in perspective, in a former life I worked for GE Nuclear, was a qualified participant in GE's Senior Reactor Operator program, and wrote documents for the certification of an earlier SBWR design. I know a bit about their program.
While it's true the BWRX-300 might not need external cooling for a week (or so) following an accident, it still has the basic flaw possessed by all such reactors. Sooner or later, any accident-damaged core in a breached containment will require additional water to be pumped in to cool the core, and that water will become HIGHLY radioactive. And there will be no place to put it, except in temporary storage tanks of the type which now clutter the Fukushima site in Japan.
The US really has little capability to cope with the spent fuel and high level waste produced by its nuclear reactors, and we're totally unprepared to deal with the horrendous mess which a major accident would cause. Unless we establish such capability, building more nukes of any kind would be a foolish idea.
And by the way, there is no way to make these things idiot proof. I have seen highly trained and experienced operators knowingly violate safety limits, unthinkingly conceal failing test results for critical plant systems, falsify operator logs, sleep while on watch, and fail to recognize critical plant design errors even when presented with as-built schematic diagrams which clearly show such errors. Bottom line - humans cannot be trusted to safely operate nuclear reactors. And I doubt anyone can program computers / AI to safely operate them, either.
We don't need the energy that badly. It's not worth the risk.
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