Nuclear Energy: Principles of Small Modular Reactors (SMR)

Explore how small modular reactors deliver electricity up to 300 MW(e) through factory-built modules, enabling flexible deployment with passive safety and affordable, low-carbon energy.

Highlight modular, factory-built small reactors with multi-module configurations, integrated safety designs, all-natural heat removal, and potential for cogeneration near users, reducing the emergency planning zone.

Explore how SMRs enable flexible, multi-purpose energy solutions from electricity generation to process heat, desalination, and district heating, integrating with renewables and storage to stabilize the grid.

Examine licensing hurdles for first-of-a-kind SMR designs, regulatory demonstrations, and construction delays, and highlight how standardization, investment, and government support for demonstration units can accelerate deployment.

Xe-100, a high temperature gas cooled reactor, operates above 750°C with thousands of fuel pebbles embedded with 18,000 triso particles, enabling meltdown-proof containment and carbon-free energy via helium-driven steam.

NuScale's SMR uses integrated factory-built modules delivering 77 MW electric per module (250 MW thermal) with scalable 4–12 module configurations for hydrogen, desalination, and mission-critical uses.

the nx300 is a 300 mw boiling water reactor that uses natural circulation and an isolation condenser to remove heat during loss of coolant accidents, enabling small modular reactors.

Terrestrial Energy's integral molten salt reactor is a 195 MW_e generation four SMR using low enriched uranium, aiming for near-term, cost-competitive deployment with regulatory pathway support.

China advances modular high-temperature gas-cooled reactors, including the HTR-10 demonstration, enabling cogeneration of high-temperature steam and hydrogen production with pebble-bed modules and a scalable six-module design.

Moltex Energy showcases stable salt fuel for safer, cheaper nuclear that recycles spent fuel, reduces waste, and enables renewables by using nuclear as a peaking plant with heat storage.

Rosatom outlines its global role and experience with small modular reactors, including a floating power plant and land-based applications in the written series, with a focus on safety.

Rolls-Royce presents a modular offsite-built power station delivering 440 MW at about £40 per megawatt hour, optimizing life-cycle costs, financing, and exploration of hydrogen and synthetic fuel generation.

This lecture underscores nuclear energy’s role in decarbonization, focusing on long-term operation, generation three builds, and small modular reactors shaping net-zero pathways by 2050.

Small modular reactors could replace coal, diesel, bunker fuel, and fossil cogeneration across on-grid and off-grid applications, with 1 to 300 mw sizes and 285 to 850 c temperatures.

Explore how small modular reactors enable nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems that meet grid, heat, and hydrogen needs while reducing emissions and improving system economics.

Explore how nuclear-renewable hybrids enable cogeneration of electricity and heat in Europe, boosting process heat, district heating, and carbon reductions toward climate neutrality.

Frame SMRs as commoditized products, not bespoke projects, and optimize licensing by leveraging standard designs and reference plants to reduce regulatory risk and accelerate deployment for global markets.

Survey eight advanced SMR projects, from Canada’s Darlington BWR to Rosatom’s floating Lomonosov and Copenhagen’s molten salt reactor, highlighting modular design, desalination and grid-scale applications.