Some Technical and Institutional Issues to Accelerate the Deployment of Small Modular Reactors
Abstract:
The vision on the development and deployment of SMRs is presented in the paper. SMRs have been built in Russia since 1954. Before the early 2000s only shipboard nuclear power facilities were used while land-based SMRs of various types were designed but not built. New driving forces for the penetration of SMRs into the en ergy sector of the country, which have arisen recently, are discussed in the paper. The accelerated development of the north-eastern regions with rich natural resources but low population density and high cost of energy generation has created favorable conditions for the priority use of SMRs. Intensive research and development work was deployed to reconsider the approaches used for construction of the reactors of large capacities in order to find new solutions to meet specific requirements of today for small reactors. Comparison of the feasi bility of these requirements for small PWRs of Generation III + and Generation IV reactors is provided in the paper. The discussion on the requirements to SMRs and some ways for their implementation is supplemented by consideration of their role as a large sustainable component of the future national and global energy sector
