If you are designing a new car, there are certain decisions you make before the first sketch is finished. It needs wheels, and they generally need to sit at the four corners. You can change the engine, the shape, the materials and almost everything else, but the basic architecture is remarkably settled.
Nuclear reactors are different. There is no single blueprint for how one should be built. Inside the race to develop small modular reactors, engineers are pursuing a surprisingly wide range of designs, cooling systems, fuels and technologies, each claiming a different path to making nuclear power cheaper, safer and easier to build.
At least 12 out of as many as 80 designs are now competing in the small modular reactor (SMR) field in America. “Mine is best,” say serious engineers who seriously believe in their technologies.
Historically in America, nuclear reactor developers have been punished in the market for stepping out of line.
When the Nuclear Navy under the legendary Adm. Hyman Rickover decided that the way ahead was light water, it became the technology of choice for the civilian nuclear power industry in the United States and much of the world. With light water reactors (LWRs), water moderates the nuclear reaction and provides the steam to turn the turbine.
In the 1960s, the U.S. industry went into high gear to build nuclear reactors ranging in power from under 800 megawatts to over 1,400 MW. The unwritten rule was they had to be light water reactors, abiding by Rickover’s fiat which became U.S. policy. The majority of these civilian reactors used pressurized water technology.
While gas-cooled reactors were hailed as competitive, only one large one, Fort Saint Vrain in Colorado, was built. It had mechanical problems and had to be abandoned.
Canada took an alternative route with its natural uranium Candu reactor, but only sold reactors to six countries outside of Canada. It never made it into the U.S. market, despite excellent performance history.
The only departure from pressurized water was the General Electric design for a boiling water reactor (BWR). This design allows water to boil in the reactor core, unlike the pressurized water reactor (PWR) where the water is under pressure and doesn’t boil.
The boiling water turns the turbine — whereas in pressurized water reactors, there is a secondary loop creating steam to turn the turbine.
The other three vendors at the time, Westinghouse, Babcock & Wilcox and Combustion Engineering all favored pressurized water technology.
Ninety-six of those original reactors — 31 BWRs and 65 PWRs — are still producing power. Some have had their operating licenses extended to 80 years. An unusual life expectancy in any industrial plant.
The industry and the government are betting on small modular reactors to power what is frequently referred to as the “Nuclear Renaissance.” It is a time of huge electricity demand and shortfalls are predicted.
The rule of one technology that fits all has been abandoned and a profusion of designs, technologies and power outputs are being offered by up to 12 vendors with three leading the pack.
The presumption driving the SMR enthusiasm is that they will be built in factories, mass-produced to standardized designs and, as a result, they will be cheaper, safer, easier to site, and less distorting of the grid systems where they will be located.
None of those assumptions have been tested and proved. They are just assumptions.
Only one company, NuScale, uses traditional pressurized water technology. So far, NuScale hasn’t secured a U.S. customer. There is a tentative agreement with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and with Romania.
There is no clear leader in the SMR stakes, but the three most often identified as being out front after NuScale, are GE-Hitachi, TerraPower, and X-energy.
The GE joint venture has an agreement to build a reactor at a TVA site and another is under development in Canada. It has boiling water in its DNA.
TerraPower’s Natrium reactor is a sodium-cooled design, backed by Microsoft’s Bill Gates. The company is doing site work at an abandoned coal plant in Wyoming.
X-energy’s X-reactor is a well-financed concept which is based on advanced gas-cooled technology — akin to technology originally used on larger reactors in the United Kingdom.
It is hoped that data center hyperscalers will provide the market for the first SMRs. They have shown a keen interest, but they have also shown caution. Significantly, Elon Musk has opted for dedicated natural gas generating at his massive xAI data facility in Memphis, Tennessee.
China and Russia have SMRs which may be appealing in the global market.
American utilities have chosen to take a cautious approach to new nuclear power. They fear cost overruns and are reluctant to commit deeply to technology that is unknown.
Cost and performance are open issues. A senior Washington utility lawyer says, “There’s no on-ramp.”
Expect the first commercial sale of an SMR to be dedicated to AI via a data center.
Llewellyn King is the Executive Producer and Host, “White House Chronicle” on PBS, PEG and SiriusXM Radio’s P.O.T.U.S., Channel 124; Executive Producer and Host,”Active Voice” on YouTube Commentator, SiriusXM Radio Columnist, InsideSources SyndicateContributor, Energy Central; Tremr.
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