THE FORGOTTEN HISTORY OF SMALL NUCLEAR REACTORS > The dream of small nuclear reactors did not die with the 1960s. In the 1980s, the nuclear industry was reelin

THE FORGOTTEN HISTORY OF SMALL NUCLEAR REACTORS > The dream of small nuclear reactors did not die with the 1960s. In the 1980s, the nuclear industry was reeling from high cost and schedule overruns in reactor construction that had begun in the previous decade. And so, proponents of nuclear power circled back to the idea of going small. > A 1983 paper in the journal by analyst Joe Egan offered his vision of small, prefabricated reactors. “A novel, factory-based approach to manufacturing reactors under 400-MWe size may alleviate many of the pragmatic constraints on nuclear business,” he wrote, suggesting that “prefabrication and standardization of major plant components could lower dollar-per-kilowatt capital costs to levels now boasted by 1,000-MW models.” Such factory assembly could further reduce costs, he wrote, by reducing regulation, shortening construction times, and avoiding quality issues with components. > “The reactors, once assembled on barges (or even railroad cars, in one case), would be floated across oceans, up rivers, or be carted cross-country to operating sites,” Egan added. “There, purchasers would anchor the plants and simply ‘turn the key’ for 200–400 MWe of instant power.” > This vision never materialized. No turnkey reactors were carted cross-country or floated up rivers. Then, as earlier, they were deemed too expensive. Sadly, the nuclear industry continues to practice selective remembrance and to push ideas that haven’t worked. Once again, we see history repeating itself in today’s claims for small reactors—that the demand will be large, that they will be cheap and quick to construct. > But nothing in the history of small nuclear reactors suggests that they would be more economical than full-size ones. In fact, the record is pretty clear: Without exception, small reactors cost too much for the little electricity they produced, the result of both their low output and their poor performance. In the end, as an analyst for General Electric pronounced in 1966, “Nuclear power is a big-plant business: it is most competitive in the large plant sizes.” And if large nuclear reactors are not competitive, it is unlikely that small reactors will do any better. Worse, attempts to make them cheaper might end up exacerbating nuclear power’s other problems: production of long-lived radioactive waste, linkage with nuclear weapons, and the occasional catastrophic accident https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-forgotten-history-of-small-nuclear-reactors https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-forgotten-history-of-small-nuc... I wonder if this is simply a bid to keep a nuclear industry in Britain for the naval reactors and as a planting ground for people going into nuclear weapons research?