NEA tracking 74 SMRs under development worldwide

The Paris-based Nuclear Energy Agency is monitoring 74 small modular reactors across the globe that are under active development and not merely paper projects, officials said Wednesday.

The Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), a branch of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), used an online webinar and press conference to show off its new digital dashboard for tracking small modular reactors (SMRs).

Internationally, NEA is tracking more than 120 SMR projects and at least 74 of these are “not simply on the drawing board, not simply concepts” in a lab but under development, said NEA Director-General William Magwood, IV.

Those figures reflect the situation as of mid-February, said Diane Cameron, NEA’s head of nuclear technology development. The 74 under active development are not mere “paper reactors,” Cameron said.

Likewise, NEA has identified the equivalent of (US) $15-billion in financing for SMRs internationally, mostly in the United States, Europe and Korea, Cameron said.

The NEA interactive dashboard is being updated  regularly with details on the project’s technology, location, licensing and financing, Cameron said. The development pipeline is steadily growing.

There are a couple of SMRs currently in commercial operation and producing electricity internationally, Cameron said. For example, there is one in China and one floating SMR on a barge in Russia, she added.

When asked, the officials on the call stressed most of the reactors in active development are sticking with conventional spent fuel management technology.

“We are seeing some interest here in the U.S. in using a closed-fuel cycle,” said John Kotek, senior vice president, policy and public affairs at the Washington, D.C.-based Nuclear Energy Institute. Developers are considering technologies developed at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory as well as high-assay low-enriched uranium, Kotek said.

“We have before us the opportunity to see nuclear energy finally fulfil the promise that was made many, many years ago when the nuclear age began,” Magwood said. Back in the 1950s and 1960s it was assumed nuclear plants would provide the world with electricity that is cheap and abundant, he added.