Smaller reactors

Small Modular Reactors, SMR’s, offer a unique set of features designed to be nimble, safe and versatile.

  • Atomicrod visits Dot Net Rocks to chat with Carl and Richard

    On January 18, I joined Carl and Richard, the hosts of Dot Net Rocks, for an hour long conversation about nuclear energy. We spanned a number of topics including current light water reactors, breeder reactors, accidents, safety records, SL-1, NR-1, Mars Rover, pebble beds, IFR, and traveling wave reactors. Please go visit and listen.

  • Merchants of Doubt about nuclear energy

    The vast majority of technical specialists in the field of energy production favor the use of nuclear energy and recognize that it is a safe source of power that produces no direct greenhouse gases. Even when measured on a complete lifecycle basis, CO2 emissions from nuclear energy are roughly equal to the emissions from wind…

  • B&W mPower™ Reactor Control Room Simulator Begins Operations

    (CHARLOTTE, N.C. – December 4, 2012) – The Babcock & Wilcox Company (B&W) (NYSE: BWC) is pleased to announce that the production-standard control room prototype for its B&W mPower™ small modular reactor (SMR) is now operational. This engineering simulator is a key milestone in the B&W mPower development program. The B&W mPower control room prototype,…

  • Atomic Show #186 – SMRs, Climate Change, and Natural Gas Competition

    On the evening of July 29, 2012, Suzy Hobbs-Baker, Director of the Nuclear Literacy Project and founder of PopAtomic Studios, Dan Yurman, who blogs at Idaho Samizdat and writes for Fuel Cycle Week and the ANS Nuclear Cafe, Margaret Harding, an independent nuclear energy consultant who blogs at 4 Factor Consulting, and Cal Abel, a…

  • Pronuclear videos continuing to proliferate – The Nuclear Option

    With a hat tip to Ben Heard at Decarbonize SA, I thought it might inspire you to see two videos side by side. These videos were created in geographic locations that are about as far apart as you can get and still be on Earth. As far as I can tell, neither creative team knew…

  • Pebble bed reactor safety demonstration test – ABC video from 2007

    I spent about 15 years trying (unsuccessfully) to get a small modular reactor company off the ground. Our concept was based on an adaptation of the successful German pebble bed demonstration reactor called the AVR. In 2003, Tsinghua University in China completed the construction of the HTR-10, which was essentially a direct copy of the…

  • Update from Hyperion Power Generation Chief Operating Officer

    Yesterday morning I wrote a post titled Where is Hyperion Power Generation headed now? By the time I was ready for a lunch break, I had received an email from the Chief Operating Officer of Hyperion Power Generation offering to fill me in on some of the details that he was able to make public….

  • Where is Hyperion Power Generation headed now?

    Hyperion Power Generation has been one of the more interesting and vocal companies in the small modular reactor (SMR) business during the past few years. I have attended a number of conferences and meetings at which John “Grizz” Deal and/or his sister Deborah Blackwell have been featured speakers or the centers of interested crowds in…