Modular nuclear reactors may hold the key to U.S. energy security.

• Author: McPherson, Richard
• Position: VIEWPOINT

Studies show that oil reserves are forecast to last only another 40 years; natural gas for 61 years; uranium for 100 years, and coal, the world's most abundant energy resource, for 200 years. To avoid further escalation of international tensions and conflict in a scramble for energy, it is imperative to secure sources of energy to supplement those currently available.

To move in the direction of energy security, the United States needs a sustainable nuclear power industry that can provide distributed electrical and thermal energy.

There is no reason that the United States cannot achieve energy security by 2015. In 1948 there were no nuclear power plants. Five years later, the first nuclear power plant had been designed, built and placed in operation in Arco, Idaho. In 1955, another nuclear power plant was on the USS Nautilus. Today the nation has all the technology required to achieve energy security in five years.

Ignoring energy security since World War II has taken its toll by sending trillions of American dollars to purchase foreign oil. Millions of Americans are unemployed, along with millions of homes being foreclosed and more about to be foreclosed.

The American economy is in dire straits. But the nation is blessed with the best minds and most capable people in the world. What they need are jobs. The nationwide nuclear-power industry will employ workers in every state, engineering discipline and trade. Goods and services from the 3,300 counties in America will feed into the sustainable nuclear power plant manufacturing facilities. Workers ultimately will be supplied with energy from the same small modular reactors they manufacture.

The United States Navy Nuclear Power School's 130,000 graduates have given the Navy and U.S. nuclear power experience an unparalleled record of excellence and safety for all others to emulate.

Oregon State University has a scale model of a small modular reactor. It can be mounted on a shaking table to conduct the seismic analysis for any proposed site. Domestically there are at least two small modular reactor designs. One comes in 45-mega-watt modules from NuScale Power. The other is in 125-megawatt modules from Babcock & Wilcox.

Standardized small modular reactor designs manufactured in large numbers will allow for efficient and cost effective scientific and engineering studies of cores, steam generators, reactor vessels, rod drive mechanisms, burnable poisons, radiation shielding, electronic controls and...