Reply #12: This is weird - they got a grant from the Virginia Tobacco Commission

[bananas]

Why is the Virginia Tobacco Commission funding this research project?
Are these things going to be regulated by the BATF instead of the NRC?

http://www.roanoke.com/business/wb/283030

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Experimental nuclear reactor gets $5 million in Virginia funds
The Bedford County site is getting money from the tobacco commission.
By Brian Kelley
981-3116

An effort to finish a scaled prototype of a new, smaller version of an electricity-generating nuclear reactor in Bedford County has received a $5 million grant from the state's tobacco commission, officials announced Monday.

Babcock & Wilcox Co. is building a test facility at the Center for Advanced Engineering and Research beside U.S. 460 in New London. The prototype will be powered by electricity, rather than generating it through nuclear fission.

But company officials hope to use it to test the reactor's design and safety performance as B&W pursues a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a next generation of nuclear power plants with what the company calls mPower reactor technology.

The Virginia Tobacco Commission last year awarded a grant of $2.4 million to support construction of the test facility. The $5 million announced Monday will pay for testing components that will be necessary for the day-to-day operations at the facility, company spokesman Jud Simmons said.

The building with the B&W facility also includes a section where another nuclear technology company, Areva, will conduct research into its fourth-generation reactor with digital controls.

The building is slated to be finished by the end of May, and researchers will move equipment in during the summer.