Some leading nuclear countries, including Canada and the US, have SMR projects working their way through the planning process
“While renewables are useful – especially wind in Ireland and solar in brighter countries – they cannot on their own solve the growing energy and emissions problems,” says“Small, modular reactors are possibly the most important response by the energy and science communities to humanity’s increasing difficulty in guaranteeing a supply of clean affordable energy for the planet.
These advanced SMRs are much smaller than the typical idea of a nuclear reactor plant, says Norma O’Mahony, an Irish nuclear fuel engineer working on a new-build nuclear plant with Horizon Nuclear Power in the UK. “They [SMRs] are modular, which means they can be put together in a factory and then rolled out wherever you want to build them. You can build them in a lot more places, but also save a lot on construction costs.”
“We could immediately close our dirtiest power stations on a like-for-like basis. We could start with the coal and peat stations, which are the dirtiest in Ireland, and then replace the gas stations, which emit half as much as coal.”The claims that SMRs are safer than existing nuclear reactors, that the waste they produce is not a major safety concern, and that they can produce plenty of reliable, cheap electricity is challenged by some.
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