Are SMR's, Small Modular Reactors a Smart Choice for Fighting Global Warming?
By Nancy Williams and Michael Coppola
Greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase in the United States. If we want to keep the increase in global temperature from rising to the level that will make it very difficult to survive, shouldn't we be spending taxpayer money on the most cost-effective solutions; the ones that are already available and can be implemented the fastest?
We have to question the government spending $808,000,000 in grant money on a technology that will not be commercially available for almost a decade and will contribute little to the reduction in GHG emissions.
The Federal government is offering that $808 million as a grant to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) for the development of a nuclear reactor known as a Small Modular Reactor (SMR). There are several types of SMR's that are being investigated today. Some are designs that were rejected in the 1970's. The type that the TVA is betting our tax money on is a modified design of the reactors built in the 1970's and are in operation today- the Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) light water reactor. Their proposed unit would be a 300 MW unit, less than a third the size of today's BWR's. What the proponents of SMR's are claiming is that this smaller reactor can be built and go into operation faster and at less construction cost. They also claim it can operate more safely due to changes in design.
Because this SMR is a BWR it has the same problems and safety concerns of the current BWR's, namely, costly and energy intensive production of the nuclear fuel which result in large amounts of GHG and no safe permanent solution for the disposal of the highly radioactive spent fuel which has to remain onsite. The plan is to spread the SMR's in many locations where the electricity is needed most. This of course spreads the risk of terrorist attacks to many more places. Just as the current nuclear plants are threatened by increasing climate and weather problems it will be even worse for these by the time they on online. Additionally, smaller SMR units will result in lower efficiency and thus more costly electricity compared to larger nuclear power units.
The estimated cost to complete the project of building one SMR is $5 billion. It is highly unlikely that the financial institutions are willing to invest in an industry that has a track record of delays and budget overruns. If they succeed in getting the financing, how long will it be before they are commercially operating and what will it contribute to green energy production? The TVA expects its BWRX-300 SMR, a 300-MW reactor, to have a construction period from 24-36 months. TVA aims to begin nuclear construction in late 2028 and commission the plant by the end of 2032. If they were to meet their schedule it would be almost 7 years before any electricity would be produced.
What might be a better option for reducing GHG's then spending the initial grant of 808 million on the development of SMR's?
How about increasing the subsidy for residential solar systems to pay the full amount. The average cost for a residential house solar panel system is $30,000. You could install solar panel systems on 27,000 homes with that same amount of money. It takes approximate 4 weeks for the home solar system to go operational. There are approximately 11,772 businesses in the solar panel installation industry in the United States as of 2025. If each one worked on 3 jobs all 27,000 homes would be generating electricity in three months.
These households would produce about 10.5 Megawatt Hours (MWH) of electricity per year. After one year of operation the 27,000 homes would produce 284 MWH of electricity, the same amount of electricity as an SMR. In the seven years it would take to just bring the first SMR online the residential systems would have produced 2000 MWH of electricity. This would have been done without spending five billion dollars on 1 SMR with no cost for the sunlight that fuels the solar panels; no paying for the storage and handling of nuclear waste; no fear of terrorist sabotaging reactor cores or spent fuel pools or stealing radioactive materials for dirty bombs; and no mining and processing of nuclear fuel. The clock is ticking, and we need to think carefully how we use our time and money in our battle against climate change.
Comments
Post a Comment