// Markets · 02 · Nuclear
Small Modular Reactor Construction.
A modular reactor is built one heavy pick at a time. We plan, rig, and set every one of them — to nuclear load-handling standards, with the iron and the crews on our own payroll.
// The Corridor Is Going Nuclear
The build-out isn't coming. It's breaking ground.
For the first time in a generation, advanced reactors are under construction on American soil — and the center of gravity sits squarely in the corridor we work. When the first commercial advanced reactor in the United States broke ground at Kemmerer, Wyoming in 2026 — on the strength of the first NRC construction permit ever issued for a non-light-water design — it became the proof, not the promise. It's a half-day's haul north of our Cheyenne yard.
Idaho National Laboratory has become the proving ground for the next dozen designs. Light-water SMRs have cleared design approval. The order book is filling across power utilities, the federal demonstration program, and a wave of data-center developers buying baseload by the gigawatt. Every one of these plants is built the same way: in factory-fabricated modules that have to be received, rigged, and set with zero margin for error.
// Why the Lift Is the Build
Modular means the crane is the
critical path.
SMRs trade stick-built construction for modular assembly — that's the entire economic case for them. It also moves the crane from a support trade to the critical path of the whole schedule. Reactor modules, containment sections, and structural assemblies arrive fabricated and are set through open-top construction: hundreds of tons at radius, lowered into tolerances measured in millimeters, frequently over or adjacent to safety-related structures.
There is no "good enough" on a nuclear pick. The load path is engineered before the crane is mobilized, the rigging is proof-tested before it's hung, and the lift is documented before the hook ever leaves the ground. A missed pick on a reactor build isn't a delay — it's a regulatory event.
// The Standards That Govern the Hook
Nuclear load handling is a documented discipline, not a habit.
Every reactor pick we plan is built around the load-handling framework the work demands:
NUREG-0612
Control of Heavy Loads
Safe, engineered load paths; exclusion of loads over safety-related equipment; redundant and single-failure-proof handling where required.
ASME B30.5
Mobile & Crawler Cranes
The operating, inspection, and qualification standard governing every machine and operator we put on a site.
ANSI N14.6
Special Lifting Devices
Design, load rating, and proof-testing of the lifting devices and below-the-hook rigging used on nuclear loads.
ASME NQA-1
Quality Assurance
The traceability and documentation regime nuclear-grade work is measured against, from procedure to executed-pick record.
// Lifts We Make on a Reactor Build
Nuclear island to turbine hall.
// 01
Reactor Module Placement
Setting factory-built reactor and power modules through open-top construction, to position and elevation tolerance.
// 02
RPV & Steam Generator Setting
Reactor vessels, steam generators, and pressurizers — the heaviest single forgings on the site — landed and aligned.
// 03
Structural & Composite Modules
Large pre-assembled structural, rebar, and liner modules that build the nuclear island faster than stick construction.
// 04
Containment & Shield Building
Containment vessel courses, shield building rings, and polar-crane components set in sequence.
// 05
Turbine Island
Turbine, generator, and condenser setting on the conventional side — the same discipline, the same fleet.
// 06
Long-Lead Component Receiving
Offloading and staging oversize forgings and vessels off rail, barge, and heavy haul before they're ever picked.
// How a Critical Lift Gets Made
Engineered on paper before it's lifted in steel.
1
Lift study & rigging design
Load case, crane selection and configuration, sling and spreader design, and finite-element verification of lift points and below-the-hook gear.
2
Ground & crane-pad engineering
Bearing-pressure analysis, mat and cribbing design, and settlement checks so the machine is as solid as the pick.
3
Safe load path & exclusion zones
Routes engineered to NUREG-0612 principles — the load never travels over what it isn't cleared to pass over.
4
Proof-tested, redundant rigging
Single-failure-proof arrangements where the load class requires it, with lifting devices rated and certified to N14.6.
5
Documented execution
Pre-lift review, exclusion control, and a recorded pick — the paper trail QA expects, generated as the work happens, not after.
// The Iron That Sets the Module
Owned crawlers. No rental house on a nuclear site.
Module placement is crawler work — high capacity held out at radius, on tracks that walk the load into position. Our flagship is the Liebherr LR 1600/2, a 600-tonne lattice crawler configured for exactly this kind of heavy, precise, at-radius setting, backed by the LR 1500, the LR 1300 SX, and the full support fleet behind them.
Every one of them is owned, not rented. On a reactor build that isn't a line item —
it's risk control. The same machines, the same crews, the same QA records, job after job. No third-party crane house learning your site on your schedule, and no finger-pointing when the window is measured in hours.
// The Numbers
600T
Flagship crawler (LR 1600/2)
1,000 US-TON
Top of the owned fleet
100%
Owned & self-performed
0
Subcontracted critical picks
// Tell Us About the REACTOR
Got a module list and a set date?
Send the heaviest pick, the site, and the schedule.
We'll engineer the lift plan, lay out the safe load paths, and put a number on the nuclear scope.
