Small Modular Nuclear Reactors – A Big Part of America’s Energy Future?

August 6th, 2011 by Silvio Marcacci

America’s nuclear power renaissance has been just around the corner for years, it seems. Even though 20 percent of all U.S. electricity is generated by nuclear power plants, without any greenhouse gas emissions, safety and cost concerns mean no new plants have been built in decades.

But a new breed of nuclear reactor could unlock the power of the atom in a safe, affordable way. energyNOW! correspondent Daniel Sieberg explores the promise of small modular reactors (SMR) – simple enough to be scalable, powerful enough to power a whole town, and safe enough to be buried underground. To watch the full segment, click the video below:

Nuclear scientists at NuScale Energy in Oregon think they have figured out a way to realize the potential of SMRs without the concerns of traditional nuclear power. Their SMR is small, producing 45 megawatts (MW), enough to power 45,000 homes. That’s a far cry from the iconic 1,000-MW nuclear power plants we’re used to, but they’re designed to be mass-produced at the same cost of comparable forms of generation.

The secret is simple — an uncomplicated design. “The concept is just a reactor inside, essentially, a stainless steel thermos bottle, underwater, underground,” said Jose Reyes, NuScale’s founder. Reyes says NuScale will submit the design certification document to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in 2012, expect NRC approval by 2015, and could bring the first plant online by 2018.

SMRs hold the potential to make nuclear power cheaper and safer, and they could also help reduce the legacy of America’s nuclear arms race. One company, Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, has signed a deal with General Electric to use weapons-grade plutonium left over from the Cold War to power another SMR design. “Let’s get rid of our nuclear weapons,” said Eric Loewen of General Electric. “We see this reactor as a way to do that.”

Still, the story of nuclear power will always be inextricably connected to the question of safety — especially in a post-Fukushima world. This point does not go unnoticed by the environmental community. “The nuclear industry has done an excellent job of selling the concept of nuclear power as clean and green,” said Michele Boyd, of the Physicians for Social Responsibility. “If you ask people in general, ‘do you want one next to your house?’ the percentage of people who do decreases significantly.”

Reyes thinks SMR design is indicative of how the nuclear industry’s approach to safety is evolving. “We have online simulations which allow you to look at different events in the plant, as well as modeling events in advance,” he said. “These are assessments of every valve and component…it’s a much more comprehensive safety approach.”

And some international observers agree. The International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna predicts that by 2030, over 300 SMRs will be deployed globally. But like many other predictions about nuclear power, only time will tell if SMRs are the future of clean power, or just another nuclear renaissance that’s perpetually right around the corner.

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Tags: IAEA, NRC, Nuclear Regulatory Commissio, NuScale, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Small modular nuclear, SMR

About the Author

Silvio Marcacci Silvio is Principal at Marcacci Communications, a full-service clean energy and climate policy public relations company based in Oakland, CA.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_DIZK5EF4TDBLC6KXBNVEGAM7WY j

After reading the article and all the posts, I still am left wondering how it works?
How is the concept any better than a Thorium reactor, a Wastinghouse reactor or several other designs that are touted as being any better, safer or produce less waste.
Before anyone can make any realistic determination the matter of perfromance must be identified.
All I got is that this concept is smaller consequently many more could be spread all over the country.
Given the current lax, mismanaged and appearent disregard for public safety, is more better? I would be greatly concerned if I knew that Walmart, or hundreds of other facilities was operating a nuclear reactor.
Shecky Vegas

Thorium should be utilized in these new reactors. In fact, studies have shown that Thorium is actually more effecient when run in SMR designs.
As a safer form of nuclear energy, it could be used to help eliminate the nuclear waste build-up, (thus calming Bob’s fears) as well as generating non-proliferation waste with a much smaller half-life. Yucca Mountain could be re-opened as a storage site for low-radiation waste with a life span of about 500 years.
(Granted, 500 years is still a long time, but compared to a couple hundred-thousand with what we have now, it’s the much lesser of two evils.)
My two cents…
- Anonymous
  
  Why?
  
  Why do we want to even start down the nuclear path when we have no need to do so?
  
  We have the technology to provide all the electricity we want for less money than it would take to provide it with new nuclear. And we would bring about zero risk to ourselves if we go the renewable route.
  
  We don’t have to dry cask and dig underground bunkers for used wind mill blades. No one is going to contract cancer from eating beef raised where a wind tower toppled over in a freak storm.
  
  Plus, we don’t have workable thorium reactors. At this point they work only on paper. China says that it wants to build one, but wanting to and having done are two different ponies. China also tried building a pebble bed reactor and found that they couldn’t make it work (as an electricity producer).
  
  We’re 20 years away from demonstrated thorium reactors, even if they would work. And we don’t have 20 years to screw around hoping that they do.
  
  We need to get fossil fuels out of our lives right now and if we put our shoulders to the wheel we could move from fossil fuels to renewable energy in 20 years.
  
  Eat the ice cream cone you have. Don’t watch it melt while you hope someone will come along later and buy you a different flavor. The one you’ve got tastes great and there’s a good chance that new cone won’t appear.
  - G Richard Raab
    
    How odd. I could have SWORN that Ft. St. Vrain, a thorium reactor, DID run and work. And I could have sworn that not only was it cheaper, but solid in the reactor arena. It was only the low grade values, etc. that GA used that caused issues. But bob, I guess that you know more than everybody else.
Bob Higgins

Princeton may produce no more than a “grapefruit” of nuclear waste in a decade but somehow commercial nuclear power plants in the U.S. churn out about 3,000 tons of high-level waste every year.

Multiply that by a decade… and, that ain’t no grapefruit.
Anonymous

If nuclear plants weren’t considered safe 50 years ago, why were they built?
As we’ve come to learn all too well, it’s hard to believe what nuclear experts say.
- Anonymous
  
  As we can see from Fukishima some risks are considered by the decision makers to be too remote, thus not deserving the expenditure of money to prevent them from turning things sour. The top folks in Japan were clearly warned that earthquakes stronger than the one that happened this spring had occurred in the area before and were possible again.
  
  The decision makers gambled. And the Japanese people lost.
  
  Then, next level down, you’ve got the construction companies who build plants. Some are top notch and do great work. Others build hot piles of crap like Rancho Seco – so flawed that it got shut down after only a few years.
  
  And you get the “Oops”, like Humboldt Bay which was built, operated, and then found to be sitting on top of a significant fault – an earthquake waiting to happen.
  
  Finally you get the Homers. An engineer inspecting for leaks with a lit candle sets the plant on fire, safety valves remain broken for over a year without anyone noticing, entire shifts of guards sleeping on the job….
  
  On paper nuclear plants are very safe. Problem is, we don’t leave them on the paper where they need to stay.
- Tsvieps
  
  Agree that we need to be skeptical of experts. I have been considered an expert in a couple of fields (not nuclear) and know how limited my knowledge really was, even about those fields. But that is not the same as simply dismissing any proposal that has nuclear in its name.
  
  It is clear that at least in Japan there were scary safety faults that should be obvious even to engineers outside the field. For example needing outside electrical power to insure safety by pumping cooling fluids. It is possible to have smarter designs 50 years later. Reportedly, in some designs the physics of the materials shut off reactors with no outside intervention…from expansion of metals from heat. Some designs are reported to burn up large fraction of nuclear wastes from current generation of nuke power plants. Worth checking to see if these promises are potentially true…not the same as writing a blank check to start massive building of them just because a few champions of them with vested interests say it is good for us.
  
  We need to balance risks. Not having electric power when needed is risky also. Even having power that is just much more expensive adds risk to the lives of many. Burning coal and oil has risks. Our industrial base, even our electrical transmission lines have caused pollution, cancer and many other dangers. But still our industrial society and high tech tools have allowed life spans and good health to extend decades compared to 150 years ago. Our wealth and tools have also allowed much clean up of pollution. Compare smog in L.A. now to 50 year ago.
  
  As said elsewhere solar and wind can only supplement a base 24/7 supply of power and have environmental concerns of their own…some of course addressable.
Anonymous

I think the crux of the issue is, how long will that waste last for, though? Furthermore, people aren’t talking about just powering Princeton University (and not sure of the time frame you’re using there — one year?).

As far as coal, no one here is proposing we use coal or suggesting that there is any need to.
- Anonymous
  
  The flip side of your question is, “How long will our fear last”?
  
  Do you lie awake nights worrying about dying from smallpox, or the Black Death? Yet the latter killed at third of the population of Europe 750 years ago, and in India smallpox had its own goddess and killed a third of all children born up until less than 40 years ago. It wiped out the Inca civilization.
  
  What we fear from radiation is cancer. We are still at the beginning of a biotechnology revolution every bit as big as the electronic one triggered by the discovery of the transistor. Do you really believe that two or three centuries from now, cancer will be as feared as it is today? I think our 4th or 5th generation descendants will be robotically mining our nuclear waste repositories for fuel.
  
  Stone buildings routinely last hundreds of years. Plus, you should remember the small volume. To quote from William Tucker’s book “Terrestrial Energy”, the entire output of France’s nuclear power plants, which provide 80% of the country’s electricity, is stored in one big room.
  France reprocesses its nuclear fuel, which reduces its volume immensely. We use a “once-through” fuel cycle which is a holdover from Cold War nuclear weapons production, and is hugely inefficient.
  
  With respect to coal, China is building one new coal plant every week. Read the scribd link, and google the differences between “base load” power and intermittent sources. The power-grid technology behind our routine expectation that every wall plug supplies power at a uniform voltage as demand fluctuates is amazing. It handles fluctuations in demand with “peaking” plants, mostly natural gas, but it can only tolerate a limited fraction of highly variable sources of supply like wind and solar. Our 24/7/365 civilization needs reliable base-load power. We no longer all go to bed when the sun sets.
  
  The only base-load generators are fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas), hydroelectric (essentially all large-scale sources in the US already tapped), and nuclear. So coal vs. nuclear is a valid comparison, because we *do* need one or the other. Don’t kid yourself.
  - Anonymous
    
    I don’t lie in bed at night worrying about anything, including nuclear power.
    
    Correct me if i’m wrong, but has cancer not increased with the advancements of our civilization? I’m sorry, some have a utopian view of the future and immortal life.. i do not.
    
    bob has already responded to your coal fear and we have covered the topic many times. the possibility of providing our power needs 24/7 without nuclear or coal is something very possible NOW — have covered this numerous times before, so I am inclined to think you are not a regular reader.
    - Anonymous
      
      You’re right, I’m not a regular reader, but I am an electrical engineer.
      
      If I only posted on pro-nuclear sites, I wouldn’t change many minds. I think of this as missionary work. But give me a thread link or some search terms for one of the “numerous times” and I’ll be glad to take a look. Thanks.
      - Anonymous
        
        i probably worded the above wrong — we cover how solar, wind, tidal, storage options including EVs, geothermal, smart grids, energy efficiency, and more can be used or combined to create a completely satisfactory, reliable network in pieces — have not created a master plan on all this (that would be quite long). the best comprehensive piece i know of is: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030
        
        solar and wind are going up and projected to go up and a breakneck pace and the links in geothermal, tidal, storage, and smart grid development to make the need for baseload power from nuclear or nat gas are already available and moving forward at a fast pace as well.
        
        the time and investment needed to make nuclear fit that gap doesn’t seem to compare.. so, while it may not be as harmful as old nuclear, it’s really not needed or time-wise or financially responsible from what i can tell
      - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_NDA7UFIGEKF7FSM6IRJUS4B6CM give chants a chance
        
        There is another aspect about nuclear power that is generally ignored. The Homer’s and Homies of the future may not be able to responsibly deal with it. I work in the craft hijacked by the alien. I see here in L.A. who is having babies, who in graduating (or not) from high school. Civilization terminators will NEVER stop until the Malthusian collapse, then they’ll just start over. We can widen the freeways, generate a thousand terawatts, etc, etc, but we’ll never keep up with the growth of the people who only need a bowl of corn flakes to have a baby. Until we separate church and state, until we separate charity from reality, until we require Norplant for government assistance, there is no hope, all is in vain. Still I like the idea of smothering live plutonium for electricity. May reduce the incidence of the “Pakistan Syndrome”.
http://www.facebook.com/jeff.limon1 Jeff Limon

Bob,

There is a solution for radioactive waste – Yucca mountain, for which taxpayers have already spent 40 billion dollars. Also, the radioactivity comes from the earth. After most of it is used up in power plants, the spent fuel is returned to the earth.

Do you have a better solution? Should we burn more coal? Ask BP to drill some more in the Gulf?
- Anonymous
  
  Yucca Mountain is not a solution. It’s just a temporary storage solution with a longer time frame than on-site dry cask storage.
  
  Yes, we have a better solution.
  
  No we should not burn more coal. No, we should not seek burn more oil.
  
  We have far more wind, solar, tidal, wave, hydro, biomas/gas and geothermal energy available than we could possibly use. Many, many times more than we need. We have the technology to transform that energy into electricity today. We are already using electricity produced by all the renewable sources except wave.
  
  If we look at the cost of ‘new’ coal or nuclear, both are more expensive than wind, PV solar, geothermal and biomass. If we include the hidden costs of existing coal then all coal, along with new nuclear is the most expensive electricity we could use.
  
  If you aren’t acquainted with how much renewable power we have available and what it would take to get essentially 100% of all the world’s electricity, heating, and transportation switched to non-fossil sources give this a read….
  
  http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030&page=5
  - http://bobhiggins.wordpress.com/ Bob Higgins
    
    Excellent reply.
    
    We have a giant, incredibly reliable fusion reactor parked at a perfectly safe distance. It spews enough energy on us in six hours to fulfill all our power needs for a year and requires no insurance underwriters. Just glancing at the sun should make the idea of reinventing the nuclear wheel completely laughable.
    
    The sun not only bombards us with a constant source of energy with its radiation, it imparts and stores vast amounts of usable energy in the winds, tides and waves you encourage us to recognize.
    
    Building more fission powered teakettles in our neighborhoods and drilling holes miles below the ocean floor is akin to tripping over a thousand dollars to pick up a penny while the sun shines peacefully down on our folly.
  - Tsvieps
    
    Abstract at your link, but full article does not seem available. Maybe you can check. I have current SA subscription…maybe does not get me access or old issues.
    TSvi
Garybarbour

There are 200 million people in India without electricity AT ALL. Demand for coal in China is so high right now we are EXPORTING WV and Power River Coal OVERSEAS. Wake up people. We are not living in the world you are dreaming about, where dangers don’t exist. We are living in a world that is is demanding more CLEAN electricity, in LARGE QUANTITIES, with or without side affects we can control. We need to ‘do the best we can’, and that’s what we’re doing. Do have a solution to car pollution? I suggest you go stand on street corner and start protesting there if you want to be so intellectually pure about your arguments.
- Colm McGinn
  
  To whom or to which comment is your comment addressed? It can be read in diametrically opposite ways.
  
  (“We need to ‘do the best we can’, and that’s what we’re doing. Do have a solution to car pollution?”)
http://www.facebook.com/people/Bruce-Miller/100000952005408 Bruce Miller

5000 Years Ago, Moses Said To Israel, “Pick Up Your Shovels,Mount Your Asses And Camels, And I Will Lead You To The Promised Land.”

When Welfare Was Introduced, Roosevelt Said, “Lay Down Your Shovels, Sit On Your Asses, And Light Up A Camel, This Is The Promised Land.”

Today The Government Has Stolen Your Shovel, Taxed Your Asses, Raised The Price Of Camels And Mortgaged The Promised Land To China
Evelyn Roach Smith

Google Tsinghua University, China, pebble bed gas reactor, to see where Yankee Doodle got this idea, Old hat in Asia!
China is spending on research on Thorium fueled LFTR reactors that produce no plutonium, have waste products safe to humanity after only three hundred years storage. 10 x cheaper to build than American reactors proven faulty at Fuckoshima.
China Has engaged the brightest selected from the huge Asian gene pool, and have focused on government requirements, totally financed by government funds, and will not be blurred by corporate notions as all American work is.
Thorium for fuel: very plentiful, safe to transport, easy and safe to process, very cheap! All fuel is consumed in LFTR reactors, rendering waste products safer, lower level radiation.
Corporate America has failed the American people – In the following weeks, funding for corporate adventures in American will dry up, the markets will recoil, and interest rates will rise. America, credit seized up tight by corporate manipulations greed, and governmental follies, will face a very deep, very long, very dark depression. Until America can balance her books on the backs of a dwindling Middle Class, she will face a downward run. America’s greatest error? Mistreating her real wealth producers, her Middle Class, her Working Class, even her precariat, and occasional workers, while allowing White Shirts to manipulate money but produce no real wealth. This is essentially the imbalance of a totally, hard assed, unforgiving, relentless, Capitalist system.
- Colm McGinn
  
  http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?cid=1105&MainCatID=11&id=20110401000028
Anonymous

Rooftop solar.
Anonymous

We do not need to be messing with dangerous energy sources. Geothermal, solar, wind, tidal, and wave are all our civilization will EVER need. The risks of these reactors are not worth it. This is not about progress or sustainability or efficiency or safety or what’s best for human populations: this is about money.
- Anonymous
  
  I totally agree
Krein77

Two words. Groundwater contamination.
Colm McGinn

What is it your site, that you always look for and espouse high tech, probably dangerous, and certainly inappropriate ‘solutions’?

What is ‘Alternative Energy’ about a fission reactor, of any size? Where does the fissile material come from? Who makes these devices?

What is the (fossil fuel) embedded energy within them? And the environmental damage consequent, even before they are ready for use?
- Anonymous
  
  “What is it your site, that you always look for and espouse high tech, probably dangerous, and certainly inappropriate ‘solutions’? ” — i’m sorry, what are you referring to?
  
  we mostly write about solar and wind energy. here and there, about other technologies.
  
  in this instance, i don’t think the reporters are saying this IS a solution, just that some think it might be.. does note that others don’t at all. we mostly get criticized for not mentioning such technologies at all — i think 1 article out of thousands (not even pushing the technology but discussing it) is not what you are making it out to be.
  - Colm McGinn
    
    I acknowledge a certain amount of hostility present in my comment; this is because I see a 1st world population sleep-walking towards a cliff which will lead to, at the least, an extinction event of 85%+ of humanity, or at the worst, of nearly all of us, over a century or two.
    
    That doubtless seems extreme to most readers. However, we are inexorably heading towards a human population of ~ 10 Billion by 2050 (or thereabouts). We have 40 years to put measures in place that stabilise our numbers at that as plateau, subsequently leading to a gentle (I hope) decline in numbers. That number is the maximum this planet can sustain.
    
    However, even before we reach that time, or that number, we may find new and species threatening (of us) factors. E.g., new disease opportunists, against which our antibiotics are no longer are effective. Economic collapse, based on the fundamentally stupid economic system we currently have, which shows no sign of capacity to reform itself in this time of crisis. If we don’t have the money resources, we cannot engage in the necessary allocation of energy harvesting machines.
    
    The addressment of small nuclear, as other than a research project, with niche application for future space exploration (at least a century away, we’ll be too busy on this planet until that time) is a diversion from the necessary investment. To many 1st world people (esp. Americans), the parameters of the possible are only what suits their desires and lifestyle. That lifestyle, based on 25% of world energy (mostly fossil) being used by 5% of world population, is not possible, medium term. (Say 2050)
    
    The only measure that will control human population is access to wealth. That wealth, in an underlying sense, is based on energy, at a price cheap relative to one’s income. I say, that means a target price of <$0.05 per KWH, whether electricity, heat, encased in liquid fuel, or any other way.
    
    That energy cost determines the cost & availability of food, of clothing, of shelter, of essential sevices.
    
    Bringing it back to the behavior of 1st world citizens (us), trying to make yet one more high tech 'fix', does not do anything constructive, it is just delay, prevarication, wishful thinking. Those high tech devices MAY get made in a future not yet visible; for the moment, we need to conserve energy (e.g. buildings insulation, public transportation, high efficiency machines).
    
    The stories I've noticed in your blog include JAXA's excessively ambitious plan for space based solar and others that only tinker round the edges of energy use or distribution.
    
    I'd like to see a great deal more focus on e.g., solar harvesting, on devices in that area both medium & low tech, on carbon fibre transport vehicles, on HVDC transmission lines, on new economic models of distributed energy.
    - Anonymous
      
      Well, i fully agree and have the same concerns.
      
      Yes, the space-based energy stories and these are more scientific masturbation, but check out what the bulk of our stories are on — solar, wind, energy efficiency, and policy.. focusing on encouraging/advancing those three (i’ve got the total article split — looking at it now — if you’d like me to break that down for you). and, while we cover the scientific breakthrough and pie-in-the-sky ideas a bit, we try to cover the policy, the potential of these big 3, and urge adoption of truly clean, available energy more than anything else.
      
      that said, there’s always room for improvement and i’m happy you commented.
      thanks for chiming in on your preferences, too (solar harvesting, on devices in that area both medium & low tech, on carbon fibre transport vehicles, on HVDC transmission lines, on new economic models of distributed energy.) — i take such comments into consideration, truly
Anonymous

1. You do not have a solution for radioactive waste.

2. You would be spreading the potential targets for terrorists much wider, thus creating a new security headache.

3. You would be multiplying the probability that a Homer would screw up.

4. Unless there are a lot of these things made there would be no economy of scale. Each would be basically hand-built, just like other reactors.

5. You do not have a solution for radioactive waste.

—

We do not need to bring this additional danger into our lives, into our neighborhoods. This is a technology for which we have no need. We have the technology to provide our power from renewable sources with clean technology, load-shifting and storage.

We can build out clean energy for the same, or less, money than using nuclear.

We can build out clean energy faster than we can build mini-reactors and scatter them around our neighborhoods.

Did I mention you have no solution for radioactive waste?