Small Nuclear Reactors

Some of the money in the $1.2 trillion infrastructurepackage just signed into law by President Biden will be used to support advanced nuclear technologies. The package provides $21.5 billion in funding for clean energy demonstrations and research focused on next generation technologies needed to achieve net-zero by 2050. According to the department of energy some of the money will be used for:

• $2.5 billion for advanced nuclear, which would provide 24/7 clean electricity when the sun is not shinning and the wind is not blowing.
• $1 billion for demonstration projects in rural areas and $500 million for demonstration projects in economically hard-hit communities.
• $6 billion over five years for a new DOE credit program to keep struggling nuclear reactors afloat.

Southern Company,  the nation’s third-largest utility is currently in the middle of the nation’s lone nuclear construction project, Plant Vogtle, in southeast Georgia. The twin reactors are the first to be built from scratch in nearly 30 years and are essential components in Southern’s plan for meeting its net-zero carbon goals. Unfortunately the project also highlights one of nuclear power’s biggest problems: cost and cost overruns. At last report the reactors are now twice their original $14 billion budget and are more than six years behind schedule.

When Georgia originally approved the Vogtle 3 and 4 in 2009, the two 1,117-megawatt Westinghouse designed reactors were expected to cost about $14 billion in total and enter service in 2016 and 2017. Now the estimate is around double and they are not expected to be in service for another year or two. So, the solution seem to be small modular nuclear units or Advanced Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). These units are a key part of the Department of Energy goal to develop safe, clean, and affordable nuclear power options. 

From DOE website NuScale SMR

NuScale’s SMR, developed with the help of almost $300 million from the Department of Energy can be used for power generation, process heat, desalination, data centers and other industrial uses. Their first unit is a 50 MW reactor a small fraction of the 1,117 MW of each of the Vogtle plants. NuScale believes it can avoid the dramatic cost overruns and years-long delays that have plagued construction of traditional nuclear power plants in recent decades. A utility could combine up to 12 SMRs at a single site, producing 600 MW of electricity—enough to power six data centers or a small city. The ability for incremental power additions and the ability to have their cost allocated to the projects that need them rather than the region as a whole. 

Southern Co. Company is also working on SMR systems. They have announced plans to build an experimental nuclear reactor in Idaho using technology from TerraPower, a company backed by Bill Gates. They will build the SMR at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory as part of a collaboration that includes the Electric Power Research Institute and 3M. The Department of Energy will fund 80% of the $170 million project, with Southern, TerraPower and the other partners financing the rest.

The Department of Energy states that: “government support is required to achieve domestic deployment of SMRs by the late 2020s or early 2030s.” The  Department of Energy has partnered with NuScale Power and Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) to demonstrate a first-of-a-kind reactor technology at the Idaho National Laboratory.

Supporters of this new generation of reactors argue that they will be able to operate at lower temperatures, have a less volatile radioactive environment and have fewer challenges with spent fuel than traditional generators. However, the permanent disposal of spent fuel and the groundwater contamination from uranium mining are still major environmental issues to be solved. Nuclear power always seem to be just on the brink of success, but we are not there yet.