Nuclear fission is getting more time in the spotlight recently, as the true scale of the world’s projected power needs rises. Estimated increases in energy demand are fueled by developing nations’ need for accessible and cheap energy, the push to electrify appliances and automotives and the data-hungry AI revolution. Anyone crunching the numbers realizes that the math isn’t math-ing without input from a heavy hitter. Enter: nuclear fission.
Large nuclear power plants raise understandable concerns, but modular nuclear reactors have consistently demonstrated significant power generation and safety on a small-scale. Many vessels of the U.S. Navy have been running on similar technology – compact nuclear reactors – for decades with an impressive safety record. According to Forbes, it is safer to work on a U.S. nuclear submarine or aircraft carrier than it is to sit at a desk trading stocks, based on comparative hazard risks outside of combat.
Those working on nuclear-powered submarines and ships 24/7 have never registered radiation exposure doses higher than any federal limit. There has also never been an accident related to the small modular reactors that companies are beginning to use offshore in the United States.
Recently, some innovators have been working to bring these reactors onshore. Last Energy designed a reactor to operate within a 12-inch steel-walled container. The company claims there is no credible and reasonable mode of radioactive release, and radiation exposure in such an unlikely scenario would be less than 1/800 of a routine abdominal CT scan. Perhaps, technology is shrinking to a point where it could target remote well sites, bolster smaller power grids and bring cheap energy to less developed places where burning dung is still a main heat source.
Another concern is nuclear waste, but technology and innovation are progressing here, too. Canadian company Moltex Energy is refining methods to recycle transuranic elements – elements with an atomic number greater than 92, which are not found in nature and are radioactively unstable. The company recycles these elements from large commercial nuclear power plants in a four-stage process:
- There is an initial pre-treatment.
- The first step harkens back to your high school chemistry days with a redox reaction.
- Then, the process separates transuranic elements from uranium by dissolving them into molten salt while the uranium remains insoluble.
- The molten salt from the extracted transuranic elements has the fission products removed, refining it even further into a final salt mixture that can be adjusted to either chloride- or fluoride-based salts, depending on the receiving reactor.
Despite safety stats, innovations and possibilities, regulations make it nearly impossible to build a new nuclear power plant of any size on U.S. soil. Decades-old regulations require nuclear reactors of all sizes, regardless of actual safety hazards and power outputs, comply with the same licensing requirements: A reactor that generates only a few watts of energy for demonstrative purposes is subject to the same regulations as a gigawatt-scale power plant.
Braving the Risks
Some leaders are starting to navigate the landscape anyway. Many are pushing for a more nuanced federal regulatory structure in which large reactors, which could affect many unsuspecting Americans, should be subject to heavier federal oversight, but smaller reactors with a small risk-reward ratio should be under state regulation. A key hangup is that states don’t have the regulatory background experience with nuclear energy.
The United States is, however, beginning to push for increased funding of nuclear fission projects. The government recently reintroduced the International Nuclear Energy Financing Act, hoping to bring back financing for nuclear power at the World Bank and other international financial institutions. Policy pushes are under way as well. Republican U.S. Congressman French Hill of Arkansas noted that nuclear energy must be part of the energy mix approach, in America and globally.
Nuclear fission power plants have been around for more than 75 years, and there are lessons we can learn from projects abroad that can help reduce risks and maximize potential. Perhaps, we can start small and scale from there. There are still obstacles to overcome when it comes to modular nuclear plants, but the rewards seem more promising and real than with nuclear fusion.