PWR3 Options
In March 2011 a safety assessment of the PWR2 design, by the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator in November 2009, was released under a Freedom of Information request. The Regulator identified two major areas where UK practice fell significantly short of comparable good practice, loss-of-coolant accident and control of submarine depth following emergency reactor shutdown. For the British replacement of the Trident system the option of developing a PWR3 plant based on current US design was under consideration, and in March 2011 Defence Secretary Liam Fox indicated this was the preferred option "because those reactors give us a better safety outlook".
In May 2011 the Ministry of Defence announced that a new design had been selected for the PWR3 "based on a US design but using UK reactor technology", at a cost of about £3 billion.
Read more about this topic: Rolls-Royce PWR