Construction has begun on the Western world’s first grid-scale Small Modular Reactor (SMR), though small is not what comes to mind, considering that the machine will fit on two soccer fields. According to AutoNotion, a 953-tonne slab of steel and concrete was lowered into a 35-meter shaft at Ontario’s Darlington New Nuclear Project site, “ending a decade of talk” about the new nuclear technology and ushering in a period of action. The slab is the base mat of the first BWRX-300 modular plant designed by GE Vernova —…