Smaller reactors bring nuclear power closer to fulfilling its promise
Small modular reactors (SMRs) promise cheaper, faster nuclear power, with test units under construction in the US and Europe. Using fuels like TRISO pebbles and coolants such as molten salt or liquid sodium, they offer inherent safety features and could power rural areas or data centers. Critics question their cost-effectiveness and safety, but government funding and private investment are driving development.
“You can throw the keys away, walk away and not worry about a progression towards a severe accident like a Fukushima or Chernobyl,” Brown says.
- hwillis
And a contrasting article from IEEE: https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-forgotten-history-of-small-nuc...
> Samuel B. Morris, the general manager and chief engineer of Los Angeles’s Department of Water and Power, traveled all the way to Geneva in 1955 to attend the first International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy. There, he made a case for small reactors, arguing that because the “number of small units…is many times the number of large units,” there could be “economy in development and repetitive manufacture” of the small units.
> But nothing in the history of small nuclear reactors suggests that they would be more economical than full-size ones. In fact, the record is pretty clear: Without exception, small reactors cost too much for the little electricity they produced, the result of both their low output and their poor performance.
For me, SMRs don't pass the smell test. Buying one big plot of land for a reactor, building one power interconnect, having a localized water impact is way easier and cheaper than many. Even if its cheaper to build small reactor vessels, MANY of the other costs become more expensive in larger numbers. Costs that you can ignore while you're just building a prototype.
If it's so much cheaper to build multiple small reactors, just build one big plant with 24 small reactors. Thing is the nuclear reactor part is only 10-15% of the plants full cost: https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspec...
- marcosdumay
Just worth remembering that the cost/W of steam generators decrease quickly (almost linearly) with size up to ~1GW. What in reverse also means it increases quickly with reduced size, down to the point you can order them 3D printed on the internet (what is around a couple of kW).
And also that steam generators alone have a really hard time competing with solar nowadays.
- hvb2
> but SMRs should be cheaper and easier to construct.
The word should is doing some real heavy lifting there. Especially given the subject.
I guess we'll know in 2030 when one should come online.
- samizdis
Hmmmnnnn. I remember getting excited reading a Wired article "Let a thousand reactors bloom" [0] - but that was back in 2004. I'm still waiting for a "pizza-safe" pebble-bed reactor.
- DanTheManPR
A lot of people are betting serious money that they will cheaper, more flexible, faster to build, and safer. Including me - I'm working in the industry, and I think they might very well be future backbone of energy production.
But there's a real possibility when all this shakes out that SMR's only advantage will be their flexibility. And that might be enough. A major issue with gigawatt scale nuclear is that it's frankly too big for most markets. Only very large electric markets can can easily digest a new always-on 1000 megawatts of electricity, and you need to be building multiple plants at a time for this all to be economical. That's why the nuclear power rollout of the 60s through 80s worked, and why China and to a lesser extent India's nuclear industry is thriving presently.
With an SMRs smaller scale, there are just way more available projects where nuclear is feasible, and so a more consistent workload can keep everyone employed and subcontractor's backlogs filled. The flexibility in scaling lets you reclaim the benefits of having an experienced workforce and that knows how to build nuclear power plants, something we lost in the west when we stopped building them.
- hn_submit
Although generally safe these reactors aren't totally safe.
I'm concerned lax physical security will allow miscreants to blow them up and spread nuclear materials over a wide area. The ensuing panic would totally destroy any goodwill nuclear power has gained over the last 20 years or so.
I'm also concerned these things will mostly be used by Big Tech for their A.I. data-centers playing the Good Samaritan with their claims of "Carbon Neutral Environmentally Friendly A.I."
- comrade1234
Seems like you'd end up with even more waste in the end. For example, the navy's nuclear reactor graveyard:
https://interestingengineering.com/military/trench-94-the-ee...
You could probably just sink it all in the ocean near a subduction zone.
- CrzyLngPwd
Literaly, designed for datacenters