TL;DR
Nuclear power has always meant giant plants that take a decade to build. A small company called Antares is trying to prove that a reactor small enough to build in a factory can make real electricity, and on Oct. 23 the Energy Department signed off on the safety foundation for its design, the Mark-1. It is a paperwork step on the way to permission to switch on, and it came with a second piece of news: BWXT will make the reactor's fuel, starting with 1 metric ton of uranium, ahead of a planned six-month run at full power in 2027. If that run works, mini reactors could someday power places that big plants and power lines never reach, from remote towns to mines to data centers, with steady electricity that does not depend on the weather. Our odds that Antares runs its Mark-1 microreactor for more than six months: 88%, likely by 2027. Subscribe for the full breakdown of those odds and a timeline of the steps that could put mini reactors in remote towns.
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