Rob Nikolewski writes about wind and solar but opines on nuclear. The scientists and engineers at General Atomics think the future of nuclear energy is coming on the back of a flatbed truck. And the leadership at the San Diego-based company, which has been developing nuclear technologies for more than 60 years, has already spent millions in the expectation that its plans for the next generation of reactors will actually work(What ?). We have technology that we think is going to qualitatively change the game, said Christina Back, vice president of nuclear technologies and materials at General Atomics. Called the Energy Multiplier Module, or EM-squared (EM2), the concept still in the development stage promises to produce electricity more cheaply, safely and efficiently than the current fleet of nuclear plants across the country. And it is designed to produce a reactor that is so compact that the company handout material shows it being transported by tractor-trailer.
But EM2 is still a long way from becoming a day-to-day reality in a fast-changing energy landscape. Just building a prototype, Back said, is at least 10 years away and, they are looking at 2030 or so before a commercial reactor could be up and running using EM2 technology. And there are no guarantees the design will work (What?), although Ted Quinn, a former president of the American Nuclear Society who lives in Dana Point, said of the 30 to 40 independent designs underway in the U.S. today, EM2 is among the most promising. It has strong merit and deserves attention, Quinn said. The technology can work great. EM2 aims to tackle a number of chronic issues that have long plagued the industry (what?). Nuclear power plants are big and they are expensive (what?) The price tag for two new standard units at the Vogtle plant in Georgia, the first to be built in the U.S. in 30 years, has grown to $16 billion. But Back estimates the cost of a plant using EM2 technology at $4.6 billion. [Notice bias in article....].
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