Today’s Small Modular Nuclear Reactor (SMR) plans are retreads of old failed technologies

WHY SMALL MODULAR REACTORS ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM,

NOT THE SOLUTION Mark Cooper, Ph.D. Senior Fellow for Economic Analysis Institute for Energy and the Environment Vermont Law School May 2014

“……..EXHIBIT II-7: SMALL MODULAR REACTOR SAFETY CONCERNS

Shifts in General Approach

Preapproval and limited review

Static approach v. evolving standards

Wide Dispersal

Proliferation concerns

Close proximity to population centers

requires increased margins

Reduction of Safety Margins

Shrinking containment

Limitations of staff for safety and security

Consolidation of control reduces redundancy

Evacuation zones

Unique Challenges for Safety Oversight

Inspection

Manufacturing facilities problems and costs

Foreign sources

Access to below ground facilities

Repair/Retrofit/Recall

Integrated systems

Waste Management and Retrieval

Potentially higher levels of radiation

Flooding for below ground facilities

Common design creates potential “epidemic” failure

CONCLUSION

This section has examined the problems that affected the two major efforts to deploy

commercial scale nuclear reactors and has evaluated the prospect for the next technology that the industry wants to deploy at commercial scale. There are other technologies that the industry has touted that never reached commercial deployment. Some of these never got off the drawing board; others failed at the prototype phase. In fact, many of the concepts that have been incorporated into the design of SMRs are retreads of ideas that have been put forward over more than half a century, but failed to advance due to safety and economics problems. The failure of these technologies should also be recognized as part of the background for assessing the future prospects of nuclear

power and how much weight to put on it in the response to climate change, particularly where thesetechnologies exhibit characteristics or challenges that are similar to those of SMR technologies … http://216.30.191.148/Cooper%20SMRs%20are%20Part%20of%20the%20Problem,%20Not%20the%20Solution%20FINAL2.pd

May 19, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | technology

2 Comments »

Your lead-in headline is not correct. Hybrid-nuclear energy is a brand new, unique technology branch – there has never been anything like (which is why it is patented). The technology (which is technically an SMR) is also inherently competitive and is easily the most efficient method for using fossil fuels ever created. See hybridpwr.com.

Comment by kellermfk | May 20, 2014 | Reply
- actually it is old technology.. here is the future.. totally recyclable .. micro industry.. non toxic .. cheap as chips .. what are fossil fuels? things the cave men used 🙂 https://nuclear-news.net/2013/05/03/an-aluminium-fuel-cell-why-is-uk-government-blocking-it/
  
  Comment by arclight2011part2 | May 20, 2014 | Reply