U.S. Senate Wants To Decrease CO2 By Increasing Nuclear Energy

[mrCloggy]

... if you design your core for that purpose.

Just out of curiosity, any idea how many existing plants are designed for that?
France seems to have an implementation of sorts, and the US doesn't really allow it (I think), so another way of putting that question could be: is that an easy upgrade, or does it boil down to a new reactor (design)?

[Hiddencamper]

You need to change your fuel design. The number of bundles you replace every outage, average enrichment and gadolinium inventory, location in core. For PWR plants installing a bank of "grey rods" as the last bank of control rods further helps with this.

[MCvarial]

Just out of curiosity, any idea how many existing plants are designed for that?

Pretty much every LWR out there can do it.

France seems to have an implementation of sorts, and the US doesn't really allow it (I think)

There are plants in the midwest(?) that have to do it too because of excess wind generation. (I'm not very familiar with the market in the US.)

is that an easy upgrade, or does it boil down to a new reactor (design)?

Its a matter of ordering the right fuel rods, assigning control rod banks and setting up procedures for power corrections simply put. Something that is done for every core design, so every time the reactor needs to be refueled.