A new report has assessed the feasibility of deploying small modular nuclear reactors to meet increasing energy demands around the world. The findings don't look so good for this particular form of energy production.

[T]he report’s executive summary certainly gets to the heart of their findings.

“The rhetoric from small modular reactor (SMR) advocates is loud and persistent: This time will be different because the cost overruns and schedule delays that have plagued large reactor construction projects will not be repeated with the new designs,” says the report. “But the few SMRs that have been built (or have been started) paint a different picture – one that looks startlingly similar to the past. Significant construction delays are still the norm and costs have continued to climb.”

  • mindlight@lemm.eeEnglish
    10·
    5 months ago

    I’m pretty sure they essentially are “one time use” only.

    Extremely simplified:

    They run for 20-30 years without refueling, which means the reactors/system could be built more compact, a higher level of safety and require less maintenance / monitoring / fine-tuning.

    All those parameters are connected in an equation which means if you want higher safety you have to make another parameter “worse”. By making the system “one time use” you set the “refuelability” and “repairability” parameters to the lowest and can therefore up the other parameters.

    Also, military requirements are very different from civilian.