Part One of three parts:
I have blogged about small modular reactors (SMR). This type of nuclear power reactor generates less than three hundred megawatts by definition. They are to be built in modules in factories on a production line and then transported to the site where they will be operated. This is supposed to allow economies of production scale to lower costs. Despite much design and development work, none of the new SMRs have not actually been built yet. Most of the new SMR designs being discussed are based on the current popular full sized light-water reactors. The global nuclear industry is trying to sell SMRs as the economical answer to power needs and the need for low carbon emissions.
The basic idea of a small nuclear reactor has been around since the 1940s when the branches of the U.S. military started research and development of different small reactor designs. Between 1946 and 1961, the U.S. Air Force spent over a billion dollars trying to build a small nuclear reactor that could be used to power a long-range bomber but they failed.
The U.S. Navy, on the other hand, was successful in developing small reactors to power aircraft carriers and submarines. The requirements for naval reactors are quite different than the requirements for the SMRs that are being designed today. The naval reactors have to be build to withstand great stress and to be able to generate fast bursts of power for maneuvering. Naval reactors also do not have to compete in a market with other types of energy generation. The Navy did build a land-based small reactor in Antarctica called the PM-3A. It had to be retired in 1972 after leaks developed in the coolant pipe system and the containment vessel. These leaks caused "significant" contamination at the operating site.
The U.S. Army worked on small reactors that were more like the today's SMR designs. The Army managed to build eight small power reactors. Some were located in the same sort of remote areas which are being suggested as good prospects for today's SMR designs including Antarctica, Greenland and other remote army bases. Unlike the proposed Air Force reactors and the Naval vessel reactors, there are other forms of electrical generation such as diesel generators that could compete with land-based Army reactors. The Army cancelled its small reactor program in 1976.
An Army report at the time of the cancellation said, "that the development of complex, compact nuclear plants of advanced design was expensive and time consuming…that the costs of developing and producing such plants are in fact so high that they can be justified only if the reactor has a unique capability and fills a clearly defined objective backed by the Department of Defense…(and that) the Army and the Pentagon had to be prepared to furnish financial support commensurate with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission’s (AEC’s) development effort on the nuclear side."
(See Part Two)
PM-3A Navy Reactor in Antarctica:
