Small modular reactors (SMR) are in the news a lot these days. SMRs are designed to produce three hundred megawatts or less of electricity from nuclear fission. They will be built in modules in factories and shipped to the site where they will be assembled and operated. NuScale Power of Portland, Oregon just submitted a twelve thousand page application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to license the manufacture of the first commercial SMRs in the U.S.
The NuScale SMR design is a sixty-five foot self-contained reactor that uses enriched uranium for fuel. The NuScale SMRs will be built in a factory and shipped via truck, train or barge to their operational sites. Idaho National Laboratory would be the first customer for the NuScale SMRs. The plan is to build twelve fifty megawatt SMRs and immerse them in a cooling pool with eight million gallons of water.
The facility at the INL would be owned by Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) which is an association of forty-five small utility companies in seven Western states focused on obtaining carbon-free energy sources. It will take years to plan and build the INL facility. The U.S. government is providing funding for planning and site development at INL. The U.S. government is supporting and encouraging the development of SMRs. New legislation has been passed by the U.S. House of Representative to make it easier to license SMRs.
Los Alamos County (LAC) in New Mexico is considering the purchase of a low power NuScale SMR. The model being considered would deliver sixteen megawatts of electricity. Eight megawatts would be used by residents and businesses of the county and eight megawatts would be used by the Los Alamos National Laboratory. LAC is a member of the UAMPS which is involved in the Idaho National Laboratory project. LAC has allocated fifty thousand dollars for a preliminary study of SMRs. County officials say that this is a very preliminary look at one of many possible future sources of low-carbon energy for the county.
LAC currently gets most of its power from hydroelectric projects on Abiquiu Lake and El Vado. It also gets a small amount from solar energy. The county wants to be carbon-neutral by 2040 and sees SMRs as one way of achieving that. The U.S. Department of Energy is expected to pay fifteen million dollars towards the research and planning phase of an SMR for LAC. Another seven and a half million dollars would come from NuScale with a final seven and a half million dollars from UAMPS for a total of thirty million dollars. The Department of Energy wants to have a low power SMR built and is willing to help with the upfront cost of the LAC SMR towards that end. There are "off-ramps" along the road to having an operational SMR in LAC if the county eventually decides that it does not want to have an SMR.
Supporters of SMRs for LAC point out that they are safer than conventional reactors because they shut down automatically if cooling systems fail. They are also cheaper to dispose of when their operational life is over. Critics in LAC point out that there are still security concerns and issues with disposing of spent fuel with SMRs. The critics would rather see the money invested in solar energy.
