Dr. Michael Rushton and Professor Bill Lee have had their latest article published in the Energy World magazine. The article is called “Doing more with nuclear” and can be found in the May 2021 issue (membership required).

Why stop at power generation? Here, Michael JD Rushton and William E Lee suggest that small modular and other advanced reactors could also be employed to generate heat for use in homes and industry, as well as to create clean hydrogen. Experience of both exists in Europe and Russia.

The co-authored article explains how large up-front costs and long pay-back periods of big nuclear has made attracting private investors a challenging task. It is argued that that ‘thinking big’ might not be nuclear’s answer. 

The SMR concept aims to address the issues of the current nuclear projects. The ‘small’ in SMR primarily refers to the electrical output of the reactor which is typically below 500 MW. SMRs aim to reduce up-front build costs and long build times. Hitachi GE has indicated that their BWR-X 300 SMR could be cost competitive with gas in the future and have set the ambitious target of $2,250/kW.

Does SMR technology hold the key to achieving the UK’s goals of Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050?

Read more at The Energy Institute.