SMALL MODULAR REACTORS | POWER MARKET DEVELOPMENTS


McCombie Consulting Charles McCombie


Robert Budnitz


Staff scientist (retired), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory


Noura Mansouri


Research Fellow, King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center


H-Holger Rogner


Emeritus Research Scholar, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis


Robert Schock


Senior Fellow, Center for Global Security Research


Adnan Shihab-Eldin


Senior Visiting Research Fellow, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies


SMRs: a big game changer?


Could small modular reactors be a game changer in nuclear energy’s contribution to tackling climate change? Charles McCombie, Robert Budnitz, Noura Mansouri, H-Holger Rogner, Robert Schock and Adnan Shihab-Eldin examine the market, barriers to deployment and what is needed to overcome them


TODAY 10% OF THE WORLD’S electricity (and 26% of its low-carbon electricity) is generated by nuclear power plants. The present and potential future contributions of nuclear power to combatting climate change have been documented and acknowledged by national governments in many countries. Although the final communique from COP 26 in Glasgow contains no mention of nuclear power — as with all earlier COP conferences — most scenarios looking to a low or net-zero carbon future include a important nuclear contribution. However, in existing nuclear power nations and in many potential newcomers, there is


significant public scepticism or even opposition to more nuclear plants. What new developments might enhance public acceptability of the technology? Today, over 60 new reactor designs are under development whose common feature is their small size. These small modular reactors (SMRs), which typically


have capacity of less than 300MWe per module, are based on a wide range of technologies, some of which have never been deployed commercially. Some SMR designs are in advanced stages of development, and the first few are being deployed. U


www.neimagazine.com | April 2022 | 19


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