The Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry of Japan is to request pre-application reviews with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to locate a small sodium-cooled reactor in Alaska.
The 10 MW sealed, fast reactor would run almost unattended over its 30-year core lifetime and will not require refuelling.
The so-called 4S reactor, developed with Toshiba Corp, will be installed underground in the Alaskan town of Galena and is intended to replace diesel-fuelled generation.
The NRC encourages pre-application reviews prior to a formal license application to offer guidance and to identify and resolve potential issues early on. If approved, the reactor will be the first Japanese-made design run in the United States.
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