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New Energy World™
New Energy World™ embraces the whole energy industry as it connects and converges to address the decarbonisation challenge. It covers progress being made across the industry, from the dynamics under way to reduce emissions in oil and gas, through improvements to the efficiency of energy conversion and use, to cutting-edge initiatives in renewable and low-carbon technologies.
Will the US nuclear industry bet on smaller reactors?
1/3/2023
8 min read
Feature
As the first new nuclear reactor unit in over three decades comes online in the US, some operators are banking on a new generation of smaller reactors for the future. Energy writer Stephenie Overman in Washington DC reports.
With the US looking to replace fossil fuel consumption in its energy sector, its nuclear industry has ‘no appetite’ for building traditional large-scale nuclear reactors because of the delays and the cost overruns on such projects, says Jacopo Buongiorno, a nuclear energy expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
However, according to Buongiorno, there is plenty of enthusiasm for smaller modular reactors that can replace older CO2-emitting fossil-fuel plants. ‘There’s a lot of excitement to replace coal with nuclear,’ comments Buongiorno, the TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT. He is also Director of the MIT Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems and Director of Science and Technology at the MIT Nuclear Reactor Laboratory.
‘The industry is betting on intermediate-scale reactors that can be constructed onsite and connected to the grid,’ he adds.