Sizing Up Small Nukes
In the 1980s, the Pentagon was so concerned about the ability of the military to maintain power essential for operations after a Soviet nuclear attack that it considered installing small nuclear reactors at bases around the world. More than 20 years later, national security threats have changed, but the idea of having military bases equipped with small nuclear reactors is gaining currency, and companies are touting their designs to the Pentagon.
“From a defense point of view, if you need a micro-grid to ensure defense [installations] have secure power, even if interrupted by man-made or natural events, small reactors might provide a role,” says Paul Genoa, the director of policy development at the Washington-based Nuclear Energy Institute.
But why go small? For many years, the trend in nuclear power plants was to scale up to maximize efficiencies. “The old concept of nuclear power has grown to the point where a nuclear power plant is as big as an airport and costs $8-10 billion to build, and no one can afford it,” says Paul Farrell, CEO of Radix Power and Energy Corp. in Setauket, N.Y. “The big talk now is small, modular reactors.”
A number of companies, including Radix, are looking at marketing small, modular reactors—typically under 350 megawatts—to the military. Westinghouse, Babcock and Wilcox, NuScale and Hyperion Power Generation are also actively marketing reactors to customers, including the Pentagon.
The small nuclear reactors under consideration come in three designs: light-water reactors, high-temperature gas reactors and liquid metal reactors. For now, light-water reactors, which are based on existing plant designs, are regarded as perhaps the best near-term option, but even for these, funding could prove an impediment. NuScale, one of the leading small-reactor companies, had to cut back operations in January after one of its main investors became the target of a Securities and Exchange Commission civil action (unrelated to NuScale’s activities).
The concept forwarded by Radix, a pressurized light-water reactor, would offer some additional benefits for the military, because of its potential ability to generate vehicle fuel and water, in addition to electricity. Radix’s Deployable Electric Energy Reactor, a 10-megawatt unit, could extract water from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and then, through a separate process, combine hydrogen and carbon monoxide to produce synthetic liquid fuel.
In landlocked Afghanistan, where supply lines are long and vulnerable to attack, the ability of such a reactor to provide power, fuel and water would be particularly advantageous. “It solves a big problem for the military,” says Farrell, whose company has received small business innovative research funding from the Army to look at energy systems that could be deployed to forward operating bases.
In the liquid metal reactor category, Hyperion has a design for a 25-megawatt reactor that can be deployed anywhere from “the Arctic to the Antarctic,” says CEO John Deal. Though Hyperion’s liquid metal reactor, which uses lead-bismuth alloy as a coolant, might face regulatory hurdles, Deal is confident in the design. “There are not too many technical challenges; we chose a design that was something that could be done in a reasonable amount of time,” he says of the “hot-tub-size” reactor, which is based on a Los Alamos National Laboratory design.
One of the hurdles to getting small nuclear reactors into use—not just for the military—but for the civilian world as well, is to receive approvals from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. (Though the military, in theory, could self-regulate the process, it is likely that a small reactor used to power a domestic base would go through NRC approval.)
“All of the current regulations designed to meet the NRC’s underlying safety and security regulations are based on large reactors and are inappropriate for small reactors,” Genoa says. “Small reactors will achieve the same underlying safety and security goals, but with a different configuration, so we need to work with the NRC to adjust guidance or change rules, or at least understand what the requirements are.”
Ultimately, however, the real challenge, at least for the military market, is to find a willing buyer. Though Congress, the services and defense analysts advocate looking at small nuclear reactors for the military, it’s not clear what the next step should be.
Deal says Hyperion has talked with all three services and has encountered enthusiasm and interest from base commanders, but the issue hasn’t gone much further. “We were told the Pentagon wanted to see the commanders request feasibility studies,” he says, “and not do it as a top-down push.”
Image: HYPERION POWER GENERATION
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