Tag: Engineering Physics

Tapping innovative balance of power, microreactors could enhance energy resilience

“The main finding of our study is that if microreactor vendors can reach their goals for total costs, and if they rely on low-interest government financing rather than private financing, then microreactors could be economically competitive against natural gas and increase the energy resilience of certain government facilities,” says Paul Wilson, the Grainger Professor of Nuclear Engineering at UW-Madison who led the study.

EAP Exchange: How do Microreactors Change the Conversation about Nuclear Energy?

The last 5 years have seen a rapid growth in the interest of private companies in developing micro-scale nuclear reactors. With power levels in the 1–10 MW range, these reactors target completely different markets from traditional large centralized nuclear reactors and come with a very different business model. While the technical details of these reactors …