Which Nuclear Pathway Best Fits Utah's Grid?
Turning a statewide energy question into a traceable systems engineering decision.
³Ô¹Ï¹ÙÍø Systems Engineering Senior Project Spotlight
Operation Gigawatt · SE 6510 Senior Capstone
Students evaluated nuclear generation as a candidate subsystem within the Utah Power Grid.
The team compared capacity, reliability, licensing, schedule, water, environmental impacts, cost, grid integration, and public accountability rather than treating reactor technology as an isolated decision.
Project Highlights
≥400 MWe
nearer-term dispatchable-capacity planning target.
~1 GWe
longer-horizon capacity objective.
8.45
AP1000 deterministic trade-study score.
Sep 2035
AP1000 Unit 1 planning-level commercial-operation milestone.
The Systems Decision
Why not just pick the reactor with the most power?
Because the strongest technology on one metric may still fail Utah's larger mission. The project treats schedule, licensability, grid integration, water, cost, supply chain, environmental stewardship, and public accountability as connected system concerns.
From Statewide Need to Defensible Pathway
How Options Were Tested
The team did not rely on a single score. Each analytical layer answered a different part of the decision.
1
Frame the mission
Treat the Utah Power Grid as the system of interest.
2
Compare pathways
Use deterministic criteria for timeline, power/scalability, and regulatory maturity.
3
Test the calendar
Build planning-level deployment schedules to commercial operation.
4
Add uncertainty
Use Monte Carlo screening to expose fragility and viable regions.
The Deterministic Down-select
AP1000 · 8.45
Highest score; strong regulatory maturity and large single-unit capacity.
VOYGR · 7.80
Credible modular secondary pathway with staged expansion.
Natrium · 7.20
Flexible advanced pathway with licensing and HALEU uncertainty.
MARVEL · 5.95
Useful research platform, not a gigawatt-scale grid solution.
The project identifies AP1000 as the strongest near-term fit under the stated assumptions, while preserving modular light-water and advanced pathways as alternatives as conditions change.
Then Uncertainty Was Allowed Back In
25,000 MONTE CARLO SAMPLES
The stochastic model sampled a broad parameter space including power, core-size/geometry, enrichment, cost, and fuel-supply availability.
4.5% ALL-GATE SUCCESS
Only a small portion of the deliberately broad design space survived all technical and programmatic gates, showing why uncertainty matters.
Why Systems Thinking Changed The Answer
Schedule
A technically strong option can still arrive too late for the planning need.
Water
Utah's drought sensitivity makes water use and cooling posture first-order constraints.
Safety + Licensability
Foundational safety, regulatory credibility, and governance are treated as gates.
Grid Integration
Generation must connect to EMS/SCADA, protection, interconnection, and operational processes.
Lifecycle + Sustainment
Outages, workforce, fuel, maintenance, public reporting, and decommissioning remain part of the system.
Uncertainty
A fixed ranking is stress-tested to see whether the recommendation remains defensible as assumptions change.
Where Students Learn These Skills at ³Ô¹Ï¹ÙÍø
SE 6010
Foundations of SE
SE 6020
Project Management
SE 6130
Overview of SE Processes
SE 6140
Design for Feasibility
SE 6370
Requirements
SE 6500 / 6510
Senior Design Project
Connect It To The Profession & Career Readiness
COMMON REFERENCES
- INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook
- ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288, 29148, and 42010
- Kossiakoff and Blanchard systems engineering texts
- MITRE Systems Engineering Guide
INCOSE VISION 2035 CONNECTION
- Model-based and data-enabled decision making
- Transdisciplinary systems engineering
- Managing complexity and risk across the lifecycle
- Systems engineering applied to major societal challenges
Keys to Capstone Success & How to Choose Your Project
Start with the whole system. Define success, trace the needs, compare the alternatives, test the uncertainty, and build a recommendation you can defend.
WEBER STATE UNIVERSITY | Systems Engineering Senior Project Spotlight