But if we hope to shift to cleaner energy sources, while holding down power expenses, NPPD and OPPD should invest in small modular reactors that are capable of generating electricity regardless of weather conditions and can be built for a fraction of the cost of a large power plant.
A small modular reactor (SMR) is designed to produce carbon-free electricity at a cost that’s competitive with solar and wind power, yet doesn’t require duplicative fossil generation or large-scale energy storage for days when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing — and thus its performance isn’t hampered by reliability problems.
An SMR, moreover, requires little land, since it’s one-third the size of a conventional nuclear plant and can be housed underground and within the boundaries of the Cooper and Fort Calhoun Nuclear Stations.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission soon will be authorizing SMRs for commercial production. Not long after, the first units — roughly the size of small reactors that have been used to power nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers — are expected to roll off the assembly line from a factory in Virginia.
They will be shipped by rail to a site on the Clinch River in Tennessee, where six SMRs will be assembled in a cluster and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority. These SMRs will use conventional light-water reactor technology, though other designs on the drawing board would make use of more advanced reactor technologies such as those based on liquid metal instead of water for cooling purposes.
