This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.
Four nuclear reactors hit a big milestone in the US
—Casey Crownhart
I was really looking forward to July 4, and not just because I love a poolside barbecue. This year the American holiday also marked a big symbolic deadline for US nuclear power.
Last year the Trump administration set a goal to see three new microreactors achieve criticality, a technical milestone establishing that a reactor can sustain a chain reaction, by the nation’s 250th birthday. And just in time, not just three, but four reactors did so.
It’s a positive sign for nuclear technologies at a time of increasing need for electricity and emissions-free energy sources. But achieving criticality doesn’t mean a reactor is ready to provide electricity for the grid (or at all,
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