The nation’s nuclear power regulator says it has chosen to be picky about which designs for small reactors it will license, citing budget constraints.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Stephen Burns said Tuesday that the commission is committed to pursuing smaller, less expensive nuclear reactor designs known as small modular reactors.
But the commission will choose designs in a way that could be seen as picking winners and losers. Burns said the commission cannot afford to be “forward leaning” in advancing the latest power plant concepts and will stick with what it knows.
The nuclear panel has chosen the “light-water” reactor designs developed by companies such as NuScale, which use normal water as the coolant. But that leaves other reactor designs that are not light water likely to be rejected.
“Because most [small modular reactors] being considered are based on light-water reactor technologies, the agency is well-postured to accept and disposition applications based on these technologies,” Burns said.
The reactors are seen as the next evolution of the nuclear power industry, where the behemoths of the past have become too expensive and unpopular to site, fund and construct.
The smaller models “offer the advantage of lower initial capital investment, scalability, and siting flexibility at locations unable to accommodate more traditional larger reactors. They also have the potential for enhanced safety and security,” according to the Department of Energy’s website.
But the industry has had a long struggle to get the commission to approve the designs and license the concepts before they can provide power to consumers.
The reactors that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be examining are similar to their conventional nuclear power plant counterparts, just smaller. They do have safety features that make them more attractive, but are not significantly different in how they handle and cool fissile material using water.
Non-light water reactors include a variety of designs that use liquid metal to cool the core, which also has safety advantages. But developers say they can reduce the size of them to fit in the back of, say, a pickup truck, making it ideal for the military.
Given the regulatory hurdles, however, liquid-metal developers have stayed out of the U.S. market, observers say, even though the concepts for some of the smallest power plants being developed anywhere are coming from Energy Department labs, like Argonne.
At first Burns sounded optimistic about these reactors, saying, “With respect to non-light water reactor technologies, though I am confident that the NRC can effectively manage an application, I do recognize that vendors interested in developing such technologies may be interested in greater clarity regarding the application requirements and the standards for review.”
Then he presented the hurdles.
“However, without a specific applicant, and with intense pressure on resources and budget, it is challenging for the NRC to be too forward leaning and expend significant resources on the development of a new regulatory framework.”
