Inside Americas next nuclear power revolution as energy makes a comeback

Nuclear energy hasn’t just been making a comeback in recent months.According to many experts, including US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, we’re heading for a “long-awaited American nuclear renaissance.”The US has mostly ignored or neglected nuclear projects since the end of the Cold War.

But just last year, 25 states passed legislation to support advanced nuclear energy, including New York.Well over 200 bills have already been introduced this year that support or subsidize nuclear energy.

Utah Sen.Stuart Adams bragged that he wants Utah to be the “nation’s nuclear hub,” and Texas Gov.

Greg Abbott has declared that his state is “ready to be No.1 in advanced nuclear power.” The race is on to be the country’s nuclear leader, and states are dropping millions to give themselves the edge.It doesn’t hurt that public opinion about nuclear power is changing, or at least softening.

Last year, Pew Research reported that the majority of US adults, or 56%, support expanding nuclear power in the country.Over a decade ago, in 2014, just 41% of Americans shared this view. But this return to the glory days of nuclear energy won’t be business as usual.

Instead of the mammoth reactors that dominated the last century, new reactors are being developed that are smaller, cheaper and equipped with safety measures that would’ve been unthinkable in the era of Three Mile Island.There are at least 90 different nuclear technologies in various stages of development around the world, from advanced reactor designs to nuclear fuel and waste management solutions, according to the Nuclear Energy Agency.The ones getting the most attention, and with the most potential to be the wave of the (nuclear) future are small modular reactors, or SMRs.

They produce just a fraction of the energy produced by conventional reactors — around 300 megawatts instead of the 1,000 megawatts of a traditional reactor. “They’re smaller and should be easier to make,” says Brendan K...