Modular Nuclear Power Units offer advantages, Dan Ervin (01 December 2011)

In the national debate over alternative energy sources, nuclear power stands out as clean, reliable and productive.

The 104 U.S. nuclear plants produce an enormous amount of energy from a small amount of fuel. They generate electricity more than 90 percent of the time, whereas solar and wind provide power intermittently -- and only when the weather is cooperating. Solar and wind will not give us anything like energy independence.

Nuclear power creates none of the air pollution associated with fossil-fuel plants, especially coal. A number of aging coal plants are expected to close rather than comply with upcoming EPA regulations for emissions.

Electric utilities in the mid-Atlantic region are counting on nuclear power to continue supplying clean energy well into the future. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has renewed the operating licenses of two-thirds of the nation's nuclear plants, including Calvert Cliffs, for another 20 years, and more plants are expected to have their licenses extended. Meanwhile, construction of nuclear plants in Tennessee and Alabama is being completed and ground has been broken for construction of new plants in Georgia and South Carolina.
But as important as large nuclear plants may be in providing reliable "base-load" electricity, we should realize that many utilities, especially those in smaller states as well as electric-power cooperatives and municipalities, cannot afford the high capital cost of building new reactors.

As utilities are learning, there is another option. A dozen nuclear companies -- including well-known names such as Westinghouse, GE and Babcock & Wilcox -- are developing small modular reactors, known as SMRs. Most are the size of a railroad car or smaller. Ranging from 25 to 125 megawatts, these modular reactors would be built in a factory and shipped to a nuclear site for a fraction of the cost of a large, 1,600-megawatt reactor such as the proposed unit at the Calvert Cliffs facility.

The great advantage is that modules could be added as the need for more electricity rises and financing becomes available. Located side by side, they could provide as much power as a large plant, but would cost much less. NuScale, a start-up nuclear company based in Oregon, estimates using SMRs with conventional light-water reactor technology to form a 540-megawatt plant would cost between $2.2 billion and $2.5 billion -- significantly less per unit of output than a large reactor.

The reality is the United States has been using small reactors successfully for more than a half-century to power nuclear submarines and, in more recent years, aircraft carriers. The Army deployed small reactors in the 1950s and '60s to provide electricity at remote military installations in Alaska, Wyoming, Greenland, Antarctica, the Panama Canal Zone and other places.

SMRs have many advantages. They could be located underground for added security. Many are gas-cooled and therefore do not need to be near a river, bay or the ocean for cooling purposes. They have simplicity of design, requiring fewer valves, pumps and pipes. They could be licensed faster than a large plant. Furthermore, they can be mass-produced with better quality controls than if built on site.
Construction of the first SMRs may not be far off. The Tennessee Valley Authority has signed a letter of intent to buy six SMRs, each providing 125 megawatts, from Virginia-based Babcock & Wilcox Co.

President Obama has earmarked $500 million over the next five years for the design and demonstration of SMRs using today's light-water reactor technology.

"SMRs could change the game and restore U.S. leadership in nuclear power," said Vic Reis, a senior adviser in the Department of Energy's Office of Science. "Nuclear power is essential to the administration's commitment to clean energy."

Nuclear power in the form of SMRs would offer a carbon-free alternative to fossil fuels. Nuclear power could give us an opportunity to limit atmospheric pollution and control our own destiny. Our nation's -- and indeed the world's -- well-being depends on it.

Dan Ervin is an associate professor of finance at Salisbury University.