SMRs: the champions of renewable energy generation
Unlike conventional nuclear power plants with an electrical output of more than 1,000 MWe, small modular reactors (SMRs), which are simpler in structure, smaller in scale and have a better cooling capacity than conventional reactors, will be the king of renewable power generation in the future. This is because wind, solar and other fickle renewables cannot compete with it.
2. Fission reactors based on the thorium cycle, which use thorium instead of uranium as the fissile material in SMRs, will become the mainstream.
3. In Japan, the Green Growth Strategy for Carbon Neutrality in 2050 provides support for Japanese companies' efforts to collaborate with overseas SMR demonstration projects, and for the development of technology for carbon-free hydrogen production using high-temperature gas-cooled reactors, one of the SMR reactor types.
4. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) run the Nuclear Energy Innovation Promotion (NEXIP) Initiative, which supports private companies and others developing innovative nuclear technologies such as small fast reactors, small light water reactors and high temperature gas-cooled reactors.
The heat energy produced by a nuclear reactor per unit time is measured in Wt, where W stands for watts and t for thermal. The unit for the electrical energy converted from thermal energy is We, where W stands for watts and e for electric.
Assicuate Professor Prof. PhD. & Dr Physicist, California Institute of Technology, USA
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