The future of nuclear might be small
As the news gets around that two Chinese companies have developed commercially viable miniature nuclear-powered batteries with potential to operate for up to a century to power everything from pacemakers to remote sensors to multiple uses in outer space, other companies from China to the U.S. to Vietnam are taking a long look at small modular reactors and even microreactors – all of which can be mass produced to dramatically cut costs.
The BV100, developed by Betavolt, is powered by a Nickel-63 isotope and can presumably be operated for up to 50 years without maintenance, while Northwest Normal University’s Carbon-14 powered nuclear batter has a potential lifespan of 100 years. These batteries generate electricity through the natural decay of radioactive isotopes.
The Chinese are not alone in the nuclear battery field, as U.S.-based City Labs has created tritium-powered batteries that last 20 years and the UK’s Arkenlight is developing batteries from radioactive waste. Two other U.S.-based companies – Kronos Advanced Technologies and Yasheng Group – have formed a partnership targeting nuclear battery research as part of the U.S. effort to prevent China from achieving technological dominance.
Ironically, the world’s first nuclear batteries were developed in the United States during the 1950s – but the irrational anti-nuclear movement that raised havoc about radiation safety and presumed limited practical applications shut down promising research for sixty years.
That same fear – and the resulting labyrinth of regulations created by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission – had stymied nearly all of President Eisenhower’s desired “peaceful uses” of atomic energy until the arrival of artificial intelligence, cryptocurrencies, data centers, and other high users of electricity made it obvious that nuclear was the “cleanest” energy capable of satisfying the hunger of these emerging industries.
Taxpayer.net complains that the nuclear energy industry has received significant subsidies from federal taxpayers that amounted to a massive waste of money – and in a sense they are right. They point to the fact that, from 1948 to 2020, $117 billion (in 2020 dollars) was allocated for developing nuclear energy – though most of that was prior to the Three Mile Island incident that did not cost a single human life or a single injury.
They also bemoan the fact that Washington does not get royalties from uranium mining on federal lands – which they deem as a subsidy – and the fact that monies placed into the Nuclear Decommissioning Reserve by nuclear plant operators are not taxed. The 1957 Price-Anderson Act still limits the nuclear energy industry’s liability in the event of a nuclear accident – which to date has been rare as hen’s teeth.
The reality, however, is that regulation alone has been sufficient to thwart U.S. nuclear energy development until very recently. Even New York Governor Kathy Hochul agrees that “the barriers are in Washington. The length of time –10 years, a decade – of regulatory bureaucracy and red tape that must be gotten through is a reason why it fails and people don’t even try.”
Not surprisingly, though, Politico blamed the industry, claiming that incentives and permitting reforms (that are cutting that 10-year time frame down to 18 months or even less) do not change the basic economics. While the three new nuclear plants built in the 21st century have all had huge cost overruns, none benefited from permitting reforms or new incentives. Indeed, naysayers like Stanford’s Mark Jacobson still believe that “new nuclear … is a nonstarter.”
Energy Secretary Chris Wright says that large nuclear plants are more expensive largely because they must be built on-site, whereas small modular reactors (SMRs) can be mass produced in a factory; smaller microreactors are even more mobile and can be deployed in emergencies or at remote sites with moderate power needs. These smaller reactors are perfect for data centers, military bases, and other facilities needing uninterrupted power.
Despite the simplified regulatory regime (which may soon see even more radical changes), Wright says “this slow-moving, bureaucratic central government” is still a bottleneck. By contrast, Gov. Mike Dunleavy touts Alaska’s 2022 legislation to foster “micronuclear technology [which] has a potential role to play in providing low-cost, reliable power for communities, remote villages, and resource development projects” in a state where delivering cheap energy is always a challenge.
While several companies, and even the Tennessee Vallery Authority, have entered the SMR field in recent years, until this year, the only nations – Russia and China – that had built SMRs have centralized governments to help projects secure financing and decide which SMR fuel types and coolants to use. SMR- and microreactor-specific regulations have yet to be finalized in the U.S. But the times, they are a’changing.
For example, Radiant Industries, Inc., has raised $225 million in preparation for testing its 1.2-MW Kaleidos microreactor in 2026. This portable reactor uses helium gas rather than water as a coolant, simplifying its logistics and making it easier to generate power in remote areas. Not only can Kaleidos be transported by air, land, or sea, its passive safety architecture enables it to continue to operate safely even if some systems fail.
Radiant and Westinghouse (for its 5-MW eVinci microreactor) both reached conditional agreements with the Department of Energy to conduct initial reactor tests at the DOME facility at Idaho National Laboratory. The DOME testing, says the DOE, will assist in meeting “the nation’s demand for more abundant, affordable, and reliable power.”
Berkeley-based startup Deep Fission has partnered with Australia’s Endeavour Energy to bury mass-produced SMRs underground to power data centers more efficiently. The partners plan to generate 2 GW of subterranean nuclear power for the tech industry, one of several that is driving up electricity demand in the U.S. and worldwide. Their biggest hurdle to date is the lack of a regulatory framework specific to SMRs – but the new 18-month timeframe for the NRC to approve or reject SMRs will hopefully expedite their march toward their projected deployment date in 2029.
The race is also on for introducing nuclear energy to Southeast Asia, led by the Philippines and Indonesia. Meanwhile, Vietnam, which was planning to build a traditional nuclear power plant by 2030, has been advised by its policy advisor Thuy Le to focus instead on SMRs – or even microreactors – to safely and realistically integrate nuclear energy into their power grid. These much smaller units can be used in coastal, densely populated areas and are far simpler and cheaper to build and maintain – and they minimize risk.
Most of all, the success of SMRs and microreactors – and even nuclear batteries – might convince even the timidest among us that nuclear energy is truly a gift to humanity.
From cfact.org