One size doesn’t fit all: Social priorities and technical conflicts for small modular reactors

Risk, innovation, electricity infrastructure and construction cost overruns: Testing six hypotheses

“…If one wanted to look at how learning curves would work for the steel-plate, modular construction methods used in the AP-1000, probably the best place to look will be the Finnish ship building industry, which uses the same methods to manufacture and assemble large cruise ships, rather than older reactors. Newer reactor designs, moreover, are trying to learn from the benefits of scalability and decentralization, especially the push for "small modular reactors" and high-precision, high quality fabrication into more controlled factory settings [27]. In short: history may not be the best guide for what future construction risks will confront the electricity industry.…”

A civil super-Apollo project in nuclear research for a safer and prosperous world

“…Approaches such as the Electron Machine with Many Applications (EMMA) could lead to accelerator driven subcritical reactor systems in which a non critical fission core is driven to criticality by a small accelerator [25] (see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMMA In) the last few years, the nuclear industry has been advocating the 'new' technology of small modular reactors, on the claim that it could overcome previous economic failures of nuclear power. However, recent studies suggest that enormous efforts are required to reverse the severe disadvantages that small modular reactor technology may face in the future [15,26]. This field therefore needs more vigorous research.…”

“…This is the only logical way to address the dual problem of the unreliability of human management and the presence of critically dangerous long-lived wastes. This requires directly attacking the key social problems confronting nuclear power, which are poor economics, the possibility of catastrophic accidents, radioactive waste production, and linkage to nuclear weapon proliferation [15]. By making clean civil nuclear energy a priority, we ensure the necessary development and sustainability of the technological and human skills.…”

A Civil Super-Manhattan Project in Nuclear Research for a Safer and Prosperous World

“…This is the only logical way to address the dual problem of the unreliability of human management and the presence of critically dangerous long-lived wastes. This requires directly attacking the key social problems confronting nuclear power, which are poor economics, the possibility of catastrophic accidents, radioactive waste production, and linkage to nuclear weapon proliferation (Ramana and Mian, 2014). By making clean civil nuclear energy a priority, we ensure the necessary development and sustainability of the technological and human skills.…”