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The end of Oppenheimer’s energy dream – modular reactors are supported by ideology alone

Allison Macfarlane 

Allison Macfarlane is the director of the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia and former chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 21st July 2023

Nuclear energy is both lauded as a baseload renewable power and decried as risky, expensive and outdated technology. Small modular reactors have received billions in venture capital and unprecedented media attention, but are they a red herring, with philosophy, rather than science, driving our fixation? Professor Allison Macfarlane explores the current sombre state of the technology, where it is falling short, and what philosophy is driving the interest in this unpromising tech.

From the inception of Oppenheimer’s harnessing of the power of the atom, first as a device for war, and later, as a means of peaceful energy production, nuclear energy has possessed both promise and peril. With large nuclear power plants struggling to compete in a deregulated marketplace against renewables and natural gas, small modular reactors (SMRs) offer the promise to save the nuclear energy option. In the past few years, investors, national governments, and the media have paid significant attention to small modular nuclear reactors as the solution to traditional nuclear energy’s cost and long build times and renewable’s space and aesthetic drawbacks, but behind the hype there is very little concrete technology to justify it. By exploring the challenges facing small modular reactor technology, I will demonstrate that this resurgence in nuclear energy speaks to the popular imagination, rather than materializing as actual technological innovation………………………….. (Subscribers only) more  https://iai.tv/articles/the-end-of-oppenheimers-energy-dream-auid-2549

August 19, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized