Designs for Newest U.S. Nuclear Plants Aim to Balance Safety and Costs

Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - 12:30 in Physics & Chemistry

The first new nuclear reactor ordered in the U.S. in roughly three decades is beginning to take shape near Augusta, Ga. Southern Company and its partners have dug 27.5 meters down to reach bedrock and are now refilling the hole to provide a stable, anchored foundation for what is likely to be the first of a new generation of reactors in the U.S.: two new AP1000 models at the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant that stand next to two older pressurized water reactors, which came online in the 1980s--the first of some 14 AP1000s and 20 new reactors in total that may be built in the U.S. in the next 15 years. [More]

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