Several universities to experiment with micro nuclear power
If your image of nuclear power is giant, cylindrical concrete cooling towers pouring out steam on a site that takes up hundreds of acres of land, soon there will be an alternative: tiny nuclear reactors that produce only one-hundredth the electricity and can even be delivered on a truck.
Small but meaningful amounts of electricity — nearly enough to run a small campus, a hospital or a military complex, for example — will pulse from a new generation of micronuclear reactors. Now, some universities are taking interest.
“What we see is these advanced reactor technologies having a real future in decarbonizing the energy landscape in the U.S. and but to see how far it can go in replacing the coal and gasfired energy that causes climate change. The University of Illinois hopes to advance the technology as part of a clean energy future, Brooks said. The school plans to apply for a construction permit for a high-temperature, gascooled reactor developed by the Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation, and aims to start operating it by early 2028. Brooks is the project lead.
Microreactors will be “transformative” because they can be built in factories and hooked up on site in a plug-and-play way, said Jacopo Buongiorno, professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Buongiorno studies the role of nuclear energy in a clean energy world.
“That’s what we want to
said universities are going to be “one of our key early
long-term carbon emissions goals, he said.
State by the end of the decade.
Purdue University in Indiana is working with Duke Energy on the feasibility of using advanced nuclear energy to meet its long-term energy needs.
Nuclear reactors that are used for research are nothing new on campus. About two dozen U.S. universities have them. But using them as an energy source is new.
Back at the University of Illinois, Brooks explains the microreactor would generate heat to make steam. While the excess heat from burning coal and gas to make electricity is often wasted, Brooks sees the steam production from the nuclear microreactor as a plus, because it’s a carbonfree way to deliver steam through the campus district heating system to radiators in Washington, D.C. It built a model reactor in Brookshire, Texas that’s housed in an edgy cube covered in reflective metal.
Now it’s taking that apart to test how to transport the unit. A caravan of trucks is taking it to Austin, where company founder Bret Kugelmass is scheduled to speak at the South by Southwest conference and festival.
Kugelmass, a technology entrepreneur and mechanical engineer, is talking with some universities, but his primary focus is on industrial customers. He’s working with licensing authorities in the United Kingdom, Poland and Romania to try to get his first reactor running in Europe in 2025.
The urgency of the climate crisis means zero-carbon nuclear energy must be scaled up soon, he said.