The following statement may be attributed to Judi Greenwald, President and CEO of the Nuclear Innovation Alliance regarding the release of the new Nuclear Innovation Alliance (NIA) report, “Right-Sizing Reactors: Balancing trade-offs between economies of scale and volume,” by Dr. Jessica Lovering.
“The 1970s saw a boom in commercial nuclear power around the world, and nuclear technologies similarly grew in size. Today, as we see a resurgence of investment, new companies, and projects breaking ground in the U.S., but there are two seemingly divergent paradigms for the deployment of nuclear energy technology: very big or small and modular.
“The successful completion of the two AP1000 reactors at Vogtle in Georgia did little to resolve this question. Some energy experts think that the best next step would be to keep building AP1000s, to leverage the experience gained from the first two rather than start over with a new design. Others see much greater promise in small, modular, and even micro-reactors. To resolve this question, this report dives into the literature on economies of scale in nuclear power and provides insight to consider how best to “right-size” reactors for the future.”