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Small modular reactors have promise. But we found they’re unlikely to help Australia hit net zero by 2050

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Tuesday, July 23, 2024

Golden Sikorka/ShutterstockAustralia’s clean energy transition is already underway, driven by solar, wind, batteries and new transmission lines. But what about nuclear? Opposition leader Peter Dutton last month committed to building nuclear reactors on the site of retired coal plants – triggering intense debate over whether this older low-carbon power source is viable in Australia due to cost and long timeframes. Dutton proposed building a mix of traditional large nuclear plants alongside small modular reactors (SMRs). Over the last decade, there’s been growing interest in SMRs. These reactor designs are meant to tackle known problems with traditional large reactor designs, namely cost, perceived safety and lengthy build times. Are SMRs ready? Experts from the the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering have done a deep dive on the state of the technology and market considerations in a new report, summing up the state of the technology. What’s the answer? SMRs are not ready for deployment yet. The earliest they could be built in Australia would be in the 2040s. That’s too late to help with the push to net zero by 2050. As our report notes, the “least risky option” would be to buy them after the technology has been commercialised and successfully operated overseas. But once the technology is proven, they could be used for specific circumstances, such as powering energy-intensive manufacturing and refining. A mock-up of the Rolls Royce SMR design. Rolls Royce, CC BY What is a small modular reactor? Small modular reactors are a range of new nuclear reactors currently being designed. SMRs involve standardised components produced in factories and assembled on-site. As the name suggests, they are smaller than traditional large nuclear reactors, which have to be custom built. They are also, in theory, cheaper and safer. Traditional nuclear plants can generate between 1 and 8 gigawatts of power. By contrast, each SMR would generate 50-300 megawatts. Between three to 20 SMRs would be needed to provide the amount of power produced by a traditional nuclear power station. Many designs incorporate in-built passive cooling in case of power failure to avoid the risk of meltdown. They could be daisy-chained – or connected up – with multiple reactors cores inside a single power plant. They are currently at the design stage in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and South Korea, with no models yet operating in OECD countries. Publicly available information about SMRs being developed elsewhere is limited. What’s behind this interest? Key factors include: very low carbon emissions ability to support intermittent power sources such as renewables potential for easier and faster construction than conventional nuclear ability to provide heat as a key input to industrial processes. At present, we know of 14 different designs at a comparatively advanced stage of development globally. That means the designs are undergoing detailed simulations, evaluation of components and creation of small-scale replicas for testing and evaluation. None have yet been licensed for construction in any OECD countries. How would SMRs stack up against other power sources? Given the fact SMRs are still a while away from prime time, we estimate the earliest Australia could have one built would be during the 2040s. At this time, Australia’s grid is projected to have 6 gigawatts of renewables added every year, along with a large amount of dispatchable energy in the form of battery storage, and a small amount of new gas generation. Given renewables and battery technologies get cheaper every year, expensive new sources of power may well struggle to break in. Because SMRs are still at the design stage, we have no operating data to assess the cost of their electricity. Even so, CSIRO’s latest GenCost study illustrates the scale of the challenge. In 2030, the agency forecasts the cost of power from solar and wind, firmed by storage to firm capacity, to be A$89-125 per megawatt hour. By contrast, GenCost estimates large-scale nuclear would cost $141-233 a megawatt hour – and $230-382 for SMRs. SMRs could conceivably contribute to the energy grid in the future, providing some steady power to energy-intensive industries. As the technology matures and proves itself in testing, these reactors may represent a lower-cost, shorter build-time, smaller terrestrial footprint alternative to traditional, large-scale nuclear power plants. But they won’t replace our need for a major expansion of renewable energy, and not in the next 20 years. A market for SMRs? This new report on SMRs in Australia makes clear that a mature SMR market will not emerge in time for Australia to meet its international commitment of reaching net zero emissions by 2050. The barriers to adoption in Australia are substantial. Significantly, there are bans on nuclear power federally and in many states. These would need to be overturned before any work could commence. A regulator would need to be created to oversee all aspects of the delivery, safety, workforce needs and environmental impact of any SMR installation. We’d need to train an appropriately skilled workforce. Most importantly, nuclear energy (large or small) is a divisive issue. Australia would need to secure the social licence to operate nuclear. It would also be financially and technically risky for Australia to pursue SMRs before a mature global market for the technology emerges. Proponents expect SMRs will gradually drop in price as the technology matures, expertise develops and economies of scale take root. This will take time – there’s no shortcut. First, developers would have to progress designs and acquire licenses, funding and sites for construction. In Australia, this would require building a nuclear energy regulator and selecting locations with community support. Second, developers would build a full-scale working prototype. SMR developers worldwide have indicated this is around ten years away. Third, developers would have to convert the knowledge gained from full-scale prototypes into an accepted commercial package. This could take three to five years after prototyping. Finally, developers would become vendors and compete for contracts to build SMRs, creating a global market. We expect the first commercial releases of SMRs between the late 2030s and mid 2040s. There are many questions still to be answered for SMRs to be seriously considered as part of the power mix of the future: cost, construction time, waste disposal, water use, integration with the grid, First Nations sovereignty, skills and workforce and more. But companies around the world are making progress. The next ten years will bring a much stronger evidence base on whether SMRs could be useful in powering Australia in the future. Ian Lowe received funding from the National Energy Research, Development and Demonstration Council in 1983 for a project on Australia's energy needs to 2030. He was president of the Australian Conservation Foundation from 2004 to 2014.As CEO of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, Kylie Walker receives funding from the federal Department of Industry, Science and Resources, and the Department of Education.

Small modular reactors promise to make nuclear power cheaper and safer. But our new report shows they’re still a long way off.

Australia’s clean energy transition is already underway, driven by solar, wind, batteries and new transmission lines.

But what about nuclear? Opposition leader Peter Dutton last month committed to building nuclear reactors on the site of retired coal plants – triggering intense debate over whether this older low-carbon power source is viable in Australia due to cost and long timeframes. Dutton proposed building a mix of traditional large nuclear plants alongside small modular reactors (SMRs).

Over the last decade, there’s been growing interest in SMRs. These reactor designs are meant to tackle known problems with traditional large reactor designs, namely cost, perceived safety and lengthy build times.

Are SMRs ready? Experts from the the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering have done a deep dive on the state of the technology and market considerations in a new report, summing up the state of the technology.

What’s the answer? SMRs are not ready for deployment yet. The earliest they could be built in Australia would be in the 2040s. That’s too late to help with the push to net zero by 2050.

As our report notes, the “least risky option” would be to buy them after the technology has been commercialised and successfully operated overseas. But once the technology is proven, they could be used for specific circumstances, such as powering energy-intensive manufacturing and refining.

small modular reactor mock up — A mock-up of the Rolls Royce SMR design. Rolls Royce, CC BY

What is a small modular reactor?

Small modular reactors are a range of new nuclear reactors currently being designed.

SMRs involve standardised components produced in factories and assembled on-site. As the name suggests, they are smaller than traditional large nuclear reactors, which have to be custom built. They are also, in theory, cheaper and safer.

Traditional nuclear plants can generate between 1 and 8 gigawatts of power. By contrast, each SMR would generate 50-300 megawatts.

Between three to 20 SMRs would be needed to provide the amount of power produced by a traditional nuclear power station. Many designs incorporate in-built passive cooling in case of power failure to avoid the risk of meltdown. They could be daisy-chained – or connected up – with multiple reactors cores inside a single power plant.

They are currently at the design stage in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and South Korea, with no models yet operating in OECD countries. Publicly available information about SMRs being developed elsewhere is limited.

What’s behind this interest? Key factors include:

very low carbon emissions
ability to support intermittent power sources such as renewables
potential for easier and faster construction than conventional nuclear
ability to provide heat as a key input to industrial processes.

At present, we know of 14 different designs at a comparatively advanced stage of development globally. That means the designs are undergoing detailed simulations, evaluation of components and creation of small-scale replicas for testing and evaluation. None have yet been licensed for construction in any OECD countries.

How would SMRs stack up against other power sources?

Given the fact SMRs are still a while away from prime time, we estimate the earliest Australia could have one built would be during the 2040s.

At this time, Australia’s grid is projected to have 6 gigawatts of renewables added every year, along with a large amount of dispatchable energy in the form of battery storage, and a small amount of new gas generation.

Given renewables and battery technologies get cheaper every year, expensive new sources of power may well struggle to break in.

Because SMRs are still at the design stage, we have no operating data to assess the cost of their electricity.

Even so, CSIRO’s latest GenCost study illustrates the scale of the challenge. In 2030, the agency forecasts the cost of power from solar and wind, firmed by storage to firm capacity, to be A$89-125 per megawatt hour. By contrast, GenCost estimates large-scale nuclear would cost $141-233 a megawatt hour – and $230-382 for SMRs.

SMRs could conceivably contribute to the energy grid in the future, providing some steady power to energy-intensive industries. As the technology matures and proves itself in testing, these reactors may represent a lower-cost, shorter build-time, smaller terrestrial footprint alternative to traditional, large-scale nuclear power plants.

But they won’t replace our need for a major expansion of renewable energy, and not in the next 20 years.

A market for SMRs?

This new report on SMRs in Australia makes clear that a mature SMR market will not emerge in time for Australia to meet its international commitment of reaching net zero emissions by 2050.

The barriers to adoption in Australia are substantial. Significantly, there are bans on nuclear power federally and in many states. These would need to be overturned before any work could commence.

A regulator would need to be created to oversee all aspects of the delivery, safety, workforce needs and environmental impact of any SMR installation. We’d need to train an appropriately skilled workforce.

Most importantly, nuclear energy (large or small) is a divisive issue. Australia would need to secure the social licence to operate nuclear.

It would also be financially and technically risky for Australia to pursue SMRs before a mature global market for the technology emerges.

Proponents expect SMRs will gradually drop in price as the technology matures, expertise develops and economies of scale take root.

This will take time – there’s no shortcut.

First, developers would have to progress designs and acquire licenses, funding and sites for construction. In Australia, this would require building a nuclear energy regulator and selecting locations with community support.

Second, developers would build a full-scale working prototype. SMR developers worldwide have indicated this is around ten years away.

Third, developers would have to convert the knowledge gained from full-scale prototypes into an accepted commercial package. This could take three to five years after prototyping.

Finally, developers would become vendors and compete for contracts to build SMRs, creating a global market. We expect the first commercial releases of SMRs between the late 2030s and mid 2040s.

There are many questions still to be answered for SMRs to be seriously considered as part of the power mix of the future: cost, construction time, waste disposal, water use, integration with the grid, First Nations sovereignty, skills and workforce and more. But companies around the world are making progress.

The next ten years will bring a much stronger evidence base on whether SMRs could be useful in powering Australia in the future.

Ian Lowe received funding from the National Energy Research, Development and Demonstration Council in 1983 for a project on Australia's energy needs to 2030. He was president of the Australian Conservation Foundation from 2004 to 2014.

As CEO of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, Kylie Walker receives funding from the federal Department of Industry, Science and Resources, and the Department of Education.

Read the full story here.

Photos courtesy of

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We’ve lost direction and our brains are shrinking – at least, our hippocampi are. These seahorse-shaped parts of the brain measure about 5cm, sit just above both ears and drive our spatial awareness and orientation. London taxi drivers, famed for taking the Knowledge, a test that involves memorising the central streets of the capital, have full-sized hippocampi. But in 2011, neuroscientists at University College London discovered that the cabbies’ hippocampi shrunk significantly after retirement.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.The development of the hippocampus can also be stunted in childhood. Children living in urban environments rarely see the sun rise or set and cannot tell the difference between east and west. When I volunteered to go into my local school to teach kids about direction, I found they struggled to distinguish north from south and east from west – though they could do so if allowed to use their phones.Since 2005, when Google Maps was launched claiming it would help users get from A to B and then, three years later, when the iPhone 3G was released featuring “live” location, the online tech giants stated that today’s digital native kids would be the first generation who would not know what it meant to get lost. But is that a good thing? Their horizons and orientation, like their hippocampi, are shrinking with the collusion of online providers. In four generations children have gone from roaming up to six miles from home to an average of just 300 yards. Even before Covid, surveys found that three-quarters of children spent less time outdoors than prison inmates. Many parents know the subsequent 50% rise in agoraphobia has profoundly affected children’s mental and physical health. But it also drives biophobia, an avoidance, even fear of the natural world. If we come to dread nature, the result is an indifference, even hostility, towards environmental conservation.Wherever kids do travel they are probably following the blue dot on their phone screen, showing them the way without reference to the world around them. Maps have never been more accessible in the palm of our hands on our phones, but they are as much a tyranny as a liberation. Our phones now map us, harvesting our online likes and dislikes.The famous ‘blue marble’ Apollo 17 photograph of the Earth is upside downCurrent studies suggest a link between this so-called developmental topographical disorientation and mental health, as online experiences lead to a digitally poisoned awareness of space and place. We are becoming, quite literally, disoriented in a digital world where we have given up on tools that enhance our cognitive abilities, like paper maps and magnetic compasses that enabled us to navigate and orient ourselves in tandem with the physical world. We have retreated from using the spatial skills that sustained us for millennia. No wonder our sense of being lost is existential as much as directional.To be disoriented means to be “lost to the east”: the word comes from Latin for the sun rising in the east. In ancient history, most societies were oriented with east as their prime direction, the source of light, heat and life-giving sun. West, where the sun sets, came next. North and south then followed, as people located them by the position of the sun at midday, and visual astronomical observation of Polaris, the North Star. Early polytheistic societies worshipped the sun rising in the east, a tradition inherited by monotheistic Judeo-Christian belief that put east at the top of their maps, as the location of the beginning of Creation and the place of Resurrection. In the Old Testament, Creation starts in the Garden of Eden in the east. The medieval Mappa Mundi in Hereford Cathedral has east at the top, showing Adam and Eve in Eden, and west at the bottom. This was an orientation that defined European Christianity for more than 1,000 years.By contrast, early Islamic maps placed south at the top, because the people that first converted to the faith lived directly north of Mecca. The easiest way to understand their holy direction was to orient their maps so that Mecca was “up”. We still talk about going up north and down south in the UK, an old hangover from understanding the four points of the compass according to our bodies: up and down, front and back, or left and right. South does just as well as the cardinal direction, as it was for classical Chinese science, which had its magnetic compasses pointing south, not north. They are called luojing, “the thing that points south”. Australians know this: in 1979, Stuart McArthur published his Universal Corrective Map of the World, oriented southwards with Australia at the top.The compass appeared in the 13th century on European maritime maps that allowed navigators to orientate themselves on a north-south axis. But it took another 400 years for these maps to agree on putting north at the top, which had always been an inauspicious direction in most societies as a place of cold and darkness. It was crowned cardinal direction by the Flemish mapmaker Gerardus Mercator. But Mercator was more interested in enabling pilots to sail accurately east to west. On his world map (1569), distortion was minimised either side of the equator, which was ideal for European maritime empires sailing east to west via Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope. The north and south poles were projected to infinity, as everyone presumed they were ice-bound and travelling there seemed pointless.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRather than looking up, we spend our time looking down, glued to the blue dot on our phonesSo north triumphed accidentally, because nobody wanted to go there. As Europe’s imperial mapmakers cemented north as the cardinal direction, other traditions prioritising different directions were dismissed and erased. The west succeeded in putting north on top at the expense of places it denigrated and labelled “southern” (America and Africa), or as part of the “Middle East”. When Nasa first saw the image of the Earth photographed by the Apollo 17 astronauts on 7 December 1972, they rotated the original photo 180 degrees to show north at the top rather than south. The famous “blue marble” photograph, one of the most reproduced images in human history, is actually upside down.Historically no societies have put west at the top of world maps because of its associations with sunset and death. But as a political idea, the west has situated north on top after centuries of imperial domination. But will it stay there as India and China reorientate our global economy, and potentially turn it 180 degrees? Might the use of compasses disappear altogether – and with them the cardinal directions?In my lifetime we have gone from looking up, aspiring to a shared global village inspired by Nasa’s blue marble photograph, to looking down, glued to the blue dot on our phones as our hippocampi shrink and many of us withdraw from nature. It probably isn’t the end of civilisation. After all, maps and compasses are cognitive artefacts, like the internet, and we’ve been using them for millennia. But for our sense of wellbeing, and that of the world that sustains us, we can take steps not just to appreciate nature, but understand how we are part of it, acknowledging that it will always be bigger than us, in a positive, not phobic way. Many share basic principles of psychotherapy: grounding, breathing, being “in the moment”, imagining ourselves from outside or “above” our bodies. It seems that, more than ever, we need to explain who we are by understanding where we are. Here are a few tips on how to do so.Take your bearings. Use a compass (even on your phone!) to work out the four cardinal directions. Time and space are interrelated, so rethink your attitude to clock time by noticing the movement of the sun east to west from sunrise to sunset. As the sun sets, identify north by finding Polaris. We’re just a dot in the universe: accept it.Use a paper map. It is a declining art, but using paper maps will make you more aware of your surroundings. An archaic English term for map is a plot, just like a story: turn your route into an adventure.Feel the wind. Thousands of years before the invention of the compass, we understood and identified the four cardinal directions according to winds. Identify the wind’s direction according to your body: is it behind or in front of you? Look up, turn around. Acknowledge its force. This is a simple grounding exercise that reorients us according to the elements.Get lost. Take a trip, turn off your phone and deliberately get lost. It’s a little scary, but it will heighten your senses and sharpen your appreciation of the world around you. If that is too daunting, read Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost, because as Solnit suggests, who knows what you might find when you deliberately get lost?Four Points of the Compass: The Unexpected History of Direction by Jerry Brotton is published by Penguin at £20, or buy a copy for £17 at guardianbookshop.com. Jerry is also the presenter of the podcast What’s Your Map?

Conservation

Health

Nature

Suggested Viewing

The Cost of Sand

The Cost of Sand highlights the potential destruction of a crucial bio-link on the edge of the Ramsar wetlands from proposed expansion of sandmining in Bass Coast, Victoria. It features interviews with scientists and conservationists about the significance of preserving the last remnant coastal bushland in the region and the vulnerable wildlife and ecosystems it supports.

Water

Resources

Conservation

Capturing The Fire

When Louise Coghill saw the first plume of smoke begin to rise behind her parents property, she could never have predicted that in less than four hours, it would become a wall of flames, swallowing everything in its path. A photographer by trade, Louise has travelled the world documenting everything from the nomadic wanderers of Mongolia, to base life at Mount Everest. Capturing the extraordinary comes naturally to Louise, so when her family home in the semi-rural Western Australian town of Gidgegannup became engulfed in flames, her first instinct wasn’t to take shelter, it was to pick up her camera.

Conservation

Climate

Nature

Giants of Big Sur: California Condor Stories Part 1: Return to the Wild

Go behind the scenes with Wilderness Documentarian Ross Thomas as he learns the amazing and inspiring stories of the critically endangered California condor. Ross meets the Ventana Wildlife Society experts who have been working since 1997 to restore these majestic giants to the wild Big Sur coast. Ross’s epic journey begins with a once-in-a-lifetime visit with Senior Wildlife Biologist and California Condor Recovery Program Manager, Joe Burnett, to a wild condor’s nest deep in the Big Sur wilderness. Ross witnesses the intimate interaction between a condor parent and its new chick in the crown of a giant redwood tree. Ross then travels with Joe to see the Condor’s Big Sur sanctuary, which was destroyed by the Dolan Fire in 2020.

Conservation

Extinction

Pollution

Clear Day Thunder: Rescuing the American Chestnut

This is the story of a tree. A mighty wonder that graced the forests of Appalachia and sustained all forms of life. Embraced us, from cradle to grave. At the turn of the 20th century, a deadly blight accidentally imported into the U.S. from Asia devastated the American Chestnut. Within a span of only two generations, the tree was nearly extinct. This is the story of people. The new documentary film CLEAR DAY THUNDER: RESCUING THE AMERICAN CHESTNUT tells the story of passionate citizen scientists and researchers working to restore this ecologically and economically important species, during this pivotal moment. This is the story of promise. The tree that forged a connection with humankind has been embraced in turn by humans who, invigorated by hope, are working tirelessly to revive this magnificent tree -- so that it can once again help shape the future.

Conservation

Bread For Tomorrow

Bread for Tomorrow is a short film about the Indigenous Wicungo community’s struggle to gain legal ownership of their ancestral territory in Peru and how Rainforest Trust’s partner, Center for the Development of an Indigenous Amazon, has helped them to reclaim the rights to their homes and livelihoods.

Land Use

Conservation

Indigenous

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Lost your sense of direction? Turn off your phone and you’ll soon reconnect

Suggested Viewing

The Cost of Sand

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Giants of Big Sur: California Condor Stories Part 1: Return to the Wild

Clear Day Thunder: Rescuing the American Chestnut

Bread For Tomorrow

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sign up for our mailing list to stay informed on the latest films and environmental headlines.

Cookies help us run our site more efficiently.

Small modular reactors have promise. But we found they’re unlikely to help Australia hit net zero by 2050

What is a small modular reactor?

How would SMRs stack up against other power sources?

A market for SMRs?

Related News

Biden administration offers alternatives for Colorado River’s long-term operations

Surprising Surge: How Florida’s Manatees Are Thriving More Than Ever

Second Teen Charged in New Jersey Forest Fire as Rain Should Help Douse New York Blaze

Costa Rica Faces Must-Win Battle Against Panama in Nations League Quarterfinal

Lost your sense of direction? Turn off your phone and you’ll soon reconnect

Suggested Viewing

The Cost of Sand

Capturing The Fire

Giants of Big Sur: California Condor Stories Part 1: Return to the Wild

Clear Day Thunder: Rescuing the American Chestnut

Bread For Tomorrow

Join us to forgea sustainable future

sign up for our mailing list to stay informed on the latest films and environmental headlines.

Join us to forge
a sustainable future