China connected its first small modular nuclear reactor to its power grid, making it the first country in the world to draw power from such a machine. Its small size allows for greater scalability as well as reduced operations and deployment costs.
The new modular nuclear reactor is the world's first pebble-bed modular high-temperature gas-cooled reactor. Instead of heating up water, it heats helium to produce energy. The machine is designed to quickly shut down if an error occurs.
The problem of turning off a nuclear reactor once it has been turned on is the biggest hurdle to small-scale deployment.