[ti:Are Very Small Nuclear Reactors the Future of Electricity Production?]
[al:Science & Technology]
[ar:VOA]
[dt:2023-02-20]
[by:www.voase.cn]
[00:00.00]New, very small nuclear reactors are changing the way people think about the complex form of renewable energy.
[00:11.41]Such reactors produce one hundredth of the electricity produced by nuclear power plants. 
[00:21.12]They are small enough to be moved on a truck.
[00:25.11]However, very small nuclear reactors can produce enough electricity to run a small college, a hospital or a military base. Some universities are taking an interest.
[00:44.85]"What we see is these advanced reactor technologies having a real future in decarbonizing the energy landscape in the U.S. and around the world," said Caleb Brooks.
[01:03.17]He is a nuclear engineering professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
[01:14.05]The small reactors have some of the same problems as the large ones.
[01:21.30]These problems include how to deal with radioactive waste and how to make sure they are secure.
[01:31.01]Supporters say those problems can be solved and that the benefits outweigh the risks.
[01:41.27]Some universities are interested in the technology because it could replace coal and gas energy. 
[01:50.82]They say those forms of energy cause climate change.
[01:56.00]The University of Illinois aims to develop the technology as part of a clean energy future, Brooks said.
[02:05.91]The school plans to ask for government permission to build a high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor developed by the Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation.
[02:20.67]The school aims to start operating it by early 2028. 
[02:26.72]Brooks leads the project.
[02:29.85]Jacopo Buongiorno is a professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
[02:41.68]He said these small reactors, called microreactors, will be "transformative" because they will change how power is provided.
[02:55.06]He said they can be built in factories and can easily be connected to a local power system.
[03:03.59]"That's what we want to see, nuclear energy on demand as a product, not as a big, mega project," he said.
[03:15.12]Marc Nichol is a director for new reactors at the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington, D.C. 
[03:25.67]He and Buongiorno consider the interest by universities as the start of a new movement.
[03:33.42]Last year, Pennsylvania State University signed a document to work with Westinghouse on microreactor technology. 
[03:46.18]Mike Shaqqo, the company's top vice president for advanced reactor programs, said universities are going to be "one of our key early adopters for this technology."
[04:02.42]Professor Jean Paul Allain is head of Penn State's nuclear engineering department. 
[04:10.60]He said the university wants to prove the technology so that industries, such as steel and cement manufacturers, can use it. 
[04:24.68]Those two industries usually burn oil or gas and give off, or emit, a lot of carbon gasses.
[04:35.45]Using a microreactor also could be one of several ways to help the university use less natural gas to reach its long-term carbon emissions goals, he said.
[04:52.90]About twenty U.S. universities have reactors for research.
[04:59.63]But using them for energy is new.
[05:04.43]The University of Illinois's Brooks said the extra heat from burning coal and gas to make electricity is often wasted.
[05:17.67]But steam production from the nuclear microreactor is a carbon-free way to provide heat for large buildings in the Midwest and Northeast.
[05:31.26]A college usually has hundreds of buildings.
[05:37.27]Washington, D.C.-based Last Energy has built a microreactor in Brookshire, Texas.
[05:46.32]The company is taking it apart and moving it to Austin for the South by Southwest conference and festival in March.
[05:56.83]Last Energy's founder Bret Kugelmass said he is working with officials in Britain, Poland and Romania. He aims to get his first reactor running in Europe by 2025. 
[06:15.45]He said the climate crisis is urgent so carbon-free energy is needed soon.
[06:23.06]"It has to be a small, manufactured product as opposed to a large...construction project," he said.
[06:32.87]Traditional nuclear power centers cost billions of dollars. For example, two additional reactors at a plant in Georgia will cost more than $30 billion.
[06:51.56]The total cost of Last Energy's microreactor, including all the required work is under $100 million, the company said.
[07:04.47]Westinghouse has been a major manufacturer in the nuclear industry for over 70 years.
[07:14.52]The company is developing its own microreactor called eVinci.
[07:21.63]The company plans to get the technology ready by 2027. 
[07:28.13]Also, the U.S. Department of Defense is working on a microreactor project at the Idaho National Laboratory.
[07:40.34]Not everyone supports microreactors, however.
[07:44.68]Edwin Lyman is the director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a non-profit group. 
[07:55.91]He called the movement "completely unjustified."
[08:02.74]Lyman said microreactors would require much more uranium to be mined and enriched for each unit of electricity than for normal reactors.
[08:18.33]He said fuel costs would be much higher, and microreactors would produce more uranium waste than full-sized reactors.
[08:33.17]A 2022 study from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California found that smaller modular reactors produce more waste than normal, or conventional reactors. 
[08:52.16]Modular reactors are larger than microreactors but smaller than conventional ones.
[09:02.31]Lindsay Krall was the lead writer of the study.
[09:07.66]She said the design of microreactors would make them produce more waste.
[09:16.40]Lyman said she does not support microreactors.
[09:22.77]Lyman added that he worries terrorists would target microreactors.
[09:29.48]He said some designs would use fuels that terrorists might want for simple nuclear weapons.
[09:39.77]Lyman's group does not oppose using nuclear power but wants to make sure it is safe.
[09:49.02]The United States does not have a national storage center for nuclear fuel waste.
[09:57.17]More microreactors, Lyman said, would only make the problem worse.
[10:03.76]But Kugelmass of Last Energy sees only promise. 
[10:11.39]Nuclear, he said, will be important to the world's "energy transformation moving forward."
[10:20.72]I'm Mario Ritter Jr. And I'm Dorothy Gundy.