THE INTERVIEW | MIKHAIL CHUDAKOV territory available to expand this. There is no room
for a big station or even a small station. The Ministry of Energy is very interested in SMRs and also in floating NPPs and even underground SMRs – or maybe just buying electricity from their neighbours. Malaysia and Indonesia are planning to construct nuclear stations so Singapore will be surrounded by nuclear power.
NEI: The number of SMR projects worldwide is increasing. What are the prospects for their actual deployment? There are now many SMR designs in the world, including good designs. But governments must first construct a pilot SMR on their territory and make improvements based on this experience. So, in 10 or 15 years, of these 100 designs, maybe a dozen will be left. Only after the pilot, can they begin modular production. For example, that floating nuclear plant, Akademik
Lomonosov, has been operating for five years in northern Russian territory of Chukotka at Pevek supplying heat and electricity. Over those five years, they made a lot of upgrades using it as a pilot and first- of-a-kind project.
Below: China’s high temperature gas- cooled pebble bed reactor (HTR-PM) began operating at Shidaowan in Shandong province in 2023.
NEI: What kind of upgrades? First, they changed the steam generators because small modular reactors have a very complicated form of piping inside that is difficult to check using non-destructive testing methods in order to ensure the leak-tightness of the pipes. They replaced this using direct pipes of a smaller diameter in the heat exchanger area. They also increased the enrichment of the fuel for longer fuel
campaigns. They developed new methods of checking the seam valves on the ship using underwater equipment. This means it is not necessary to bring the vessel back to the Murmansk shipyard for overhaul every 12 years as originally planned. Now the vessel will remain at its mooring for almost the entire lifetime of new designs. They modernised the design during its first deployment. Now we have several new designs using larger RITM-200 reactors of 110 MWe and even one of 180 MWe. But such improvements would not have been possible without a first-of-a-kind or pilot reactor. This allows you to polish and modify the design. All countries developing SMRs should have a good design on paper. They need to construct a first reactor on their own territory before supplying it to the world. That’s how it works. I expect that in 15 years there may be only 10- 15 designs left that are being constructed because serial production is very different compared with the first reactor.
NEI: Which SMR technologies have the best chance of succeeding? Mainly I think these will be pressurised water reactors. This is a century of light water reactors – either boiling water reactors (BWRs) or pressurised water reactors (PWRs). Some 70% of the world’s power reactors are PWRs and some 15% are BWRs and for the next 50 years it will continue like this. There are some projects for high-temperature gas-
cooled reactors (HTGRs) and China has put such a plant into operation. Its high temperature gas-cooled pebble bed reactor (HTR-PM) at Shidaowan in Shandong province began commercial operation in December 2023. It involves
32 | January 2026 |
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