Nuclear energy hasn’t just been making a comeback in recent months.
According to many experts, including US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, we’re heading for a “long-awaited American nuclear renaissance.”
The US has mostly ignored or neglected nuclear projects since the end of the Cold War. But just last year, 25 states passed legislation to support advanced nuclear energy, including New York. Well over 200 bills have already been introduced this year that support or subsidize nuclear energy.
Utah Sen. Stuart Adams bragged that he wants Utah to be the “nation’s nuclear hub,” and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has declared that his state is “ready to be No. 1 in advanced nuclear power.” The race is on to be the country’s nuclear leader, and states are dropping millions to give themselves the edge.
It doesn’t hurt that public opinion about nuclear power is changing, or at least softening. Last year, Pew Research reported that the majority of US adults, or 56%, support expanding nuclear power in the country. Over a decade ago, in 2014, just 41% of Americans shared this view.
But this return to the glory days of nuclear energy won’t be business as usual. Instead of the mammoth reactors that dominated the last century, new reactors are being developed that are smaller, cheaper and equipped with safety measures that would’ve been unthinkable in the era of Three Mile Island.
There are at least 90 different nuclear technologies in various stages of development around the world, from advanced reactor designs to nuclear fuel and waste management solutions, according to the Nuclear Energy Agency.
The ones getting the most attention, and with the most potential to be the wave of the (nuclear) future are small modular reactors, or SMRs. They produce just a fraction of the energy produced by conventional reactors — around 300 megawatts instead of the 1,000 megawatts of a traditional reactor.
“They’re smaller and should be easier to make,” says Brendan Kochunas, an assistant professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Michigan.
“It’s like choosing between a huge coach bus that moves 70 people at a time versus several passenger vans that each move 15 people at a time,” says Kochunas. “The vans are easier to build and you can deploy them more quickly; you can run the number of vans you need for the number of people you have more easily.”
The technology is so promising that tech companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Meta are all investing in SMRs to handle their rising power needs. Last month, a Russian envoy suggested that his country would be willing to provide SpaceX CEO Elon Musk with a small nuclear reactor to help with his deep space ambitions. “We believe that Russia has a lot to offer for a mission to Mars,” Kirill Dmitriev declared.
The biggest selling point for smaller reactors is the price. “More of their components could be mass manufactured in factories,” says Michael Craig, assistant professor in energy systems at the University of Michigan. “Through mass manufacturing, SMRs could be cheaper and less prone to significant cost overruns and delays during construction than large reactors.”
The high costs of conventional plants means they can take years and sometimes decades to build. Two full-size reactors in Georgia, the first new nuclear plants to be constructed in decades, took 15 years to build, seven years behind schedule, and cost twice their $14 billion budget.
SMRs are especially useful for data centers. About 65% of the global center capacity is owned by just three companies: Google, Microsoft and Amazon. And that capacity is expected to double by 2027, reaching an estimated 122 gigawatts by 2030, according to Goldman Sachs research, or roughly 12 times what it takes to power all of New York City during the summer (when air conditioners are running).
It’s not just about rising costs of power — some reports predict we could see a 70% hike in electricity bills by 2030 — but that the demands for electricity are nonstop.
“There’s an expectation from consumers that the internet is always available,” says Kochunas. “You can shop at Amazon any time. These companies will save money by powering data centers with nuclear power rather than taking power from the electricity grid.”
Advances in AI are another big reason for the growing need for power. “Local and international electricity grids simply do not have the capacity to deliver the volumes of electricity that is being forecasted to fuel AI,” says Elsa Nightingale, a principal ESG analyst at global tech research firm Canalys. By 2030, AI is projected to account for 11.7% of US electricity demand. “Do we want a hypothetical future where technology companies are competing with hospitals for electricity?” Nightingale asks.
Other technologies are also on the horizon, like next-generation nuclear reactors which use molten salt as the primary fuel. “This allows the reactor to operate at higher temperatures, making them more efficient while also operating at a much lower pressure,” says Rusty Towell, Ph.D., the director of the Nuclear Energy eXperimental Testing Laboratory (NEXT Lab) at Abilene Christian University. They also contain a “freeze plug” in the reactor chamber, which allows the salt/fuel slurry to drain into underground tanks in case of power failure.
Towell is involved firsthand in the development of molten salt reactors. Last September, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a construction permit to Towell and his fellow researchers at ACU, allowing them to begin building the 1-MWt research reactor, the country’s first molten salt–fueled reactor.
But not everyone is impressed. The Union of Concerned Scientists released a report in 2021 suggesting that “advanced” nuclear technologies — like sodium-cooled fast reactors, high-temperature gas-cooled reactors, and molten salt-fueled reactors — “pose even more safety, proliferation and environmental risks than the current fleet.”
Even so, nuclear power advocates insist that it’s a far cleaner source of electricity than fossil fuels like gas and coal, as it produces no carbon emissions, and the evidence seems to back them up. In January, the Natural Resources Defense Council released an environmental assessment for SMRs, concluding that they “would not have significant cumulative effects” on air and water quality, local ecology and animal habitats.
But reassuring reports from environmental advocacy groups isn’t enough to put everyone’s mind at ease. They’re also unlikely to make many Americans feel OK with having even a smallish nuclear power plant in their backyards. The 56% who support nuclear energy didn’t say anything about a reactor going up down the street.
“Humans are not always great at assessing risk,” says Kochunas. “We can be afraid to swim in the ocean because we might get bit by a shark, but we are not at all afraid to drive in cars even though we are much more likely to get injured being in a car than from a shark.”
The challenge ahead, he says, is not just to make people understand that nuclear power is safe, “but to get them to feel that it is safe,” he says.
Matthew McKinzie, senior director for data and policy analysis at the Natural Resources Defense Council, is not yet convinced. He tells The Post that SMRs come with the same risks as other nuclear plants, “just in a smaller size.” He remains concerned about the safety features of SMRs and their potential environmental impact, “including the management of nuclear waste.”
Kochunas, however, insists that SMRs are “less likely to have a devastating meltdown like Three Mile Island.” It’s like the difference in a car accident involving a semi truck and sedan, he says: “Both are really bad, but the sedan is much smaller and will naturally do less damage.”
So far, there are only two SMRs operating globally, in China and Russia. Just two US companies, NuScale Power Corp. and Natura Resources, have received federal permits to build SMRs, but NuScale canceled their plans in 2023, citing a lack of interest from local power providers in Idaho, who were “unwilling to take on the risks associated with developing a first-of-a-kind nuclear project.” Natura is still on track to launch a test reactor in Texas in 2027.
Craig says he’s hopeful that nuclear energy will find its footing, “but not particularly optimistic yet,” he says. McKinzie is similarly reluctant to be too bullish. “The industry has promised that low-cost, safe, reliable nuclear energy is just around the corner for many, many years,” he says. “This time could be different, but I am waiting to see if the industry will deliver.”
But, Nightingale adds, they may not have much choice. Last year, the global consumption of electricity jumped by 4.3%, according to the International Energy Agency.
The power use in some parts of the country could outstrip supply within just a few years, warns management consultancy Bain & Company.
“The question isn’t so much about supply, it’s about demand,” says Nightingale. “The world’s largest technology companies must address the astronomical electricity demands of AI and innovate to dramatically reduce this.” For better or worse, nuclear energy may be our best and perhaps our only option.
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