Illinois is the most nuclear state in the union, as well as the home of the first manmade nuclear reactor. I grew up very near the forests where they buried that reactor, and never got any powers from it. A high school friend was named after the Byron, Illinois nuclear plant, which his father had worked on.

Meanwhile, in Utah:

> NuScale Power (SMR.N) said on Wednesday it has agreed with a power group in Utah to terminate the company's small modular reactor project, dealing a blow to U.S. ambitions for a wave of nuclear energy to fight climate change and sending NuScale's shares down 20%.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/nuscale-power-uamps-...

Nuclear energy is so economically inefficient that the biggest political scandal in Illinois this decade is about the nuclear company bribing political leaders for subsidies. Their former CEO is going to jail over it. The long time political boss was finally indicted over it. Hard to comprehend how blatant bribes have to be in this state to be prosecuted.

I'd love to see expanded nuclear, but if that requires corruption it's a tough pill for me.

Great, because we could really use some modern nuclear power plants here. We do not have the natural resources to provide power base with wind/solar alone and in all likelihood even with large storage banks it would be very hard to compete with what amounts to an atomic battery in nuclear fuel rods.

Excellent news! Clinton should be receiving a second on the site as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_Power_Station

Illinois and other former industrial states badly need this having lost much of their manufacturing base to southern states, Mexico, etc. The exodus has been accompanied by migration from these states, elsewhere. Anything that creates an economic incentive for good paying manufacturing jobs to return to these states - even if its a decade away - needs to happen.

In the early 80s, the field trips to the station at Cordova included a tour of the control room. I'm guessing times have changed?

I live in Illinois, and we have the exact same GE design that was used in Fukushima on the banks of the Mississippi.

Anything that we build in the future must be walk-away safe, a Gen4 reactor or better. There can't be any question of exploding cooling ponds or other surprises with (design) flaws in safety systems. This obviously rules out diesel generators in the basement.

Over the years, there have been nagging stories of drones that overfly reactors. We have no idea who is collecting this data or what they want with it. We have to reach much higher safety standards than the elderly fleet of reactors that remains with us.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2020/09/07/dozens...