Nuclear Energy Strategy

After reading the article and the comments on “Westinghouse shifts eVinci microreactor focus away from commercial applications.” I decided to write this article. It seems small nuclear power plants distributed around the country is not feasible. Instead, the nuclear plants should be build larger and concentrated on few strategic locations. However, building nuclear plants in small sections is still a valid argument. At the moment nuclear power is mainly used by developed nations which have an average government lifetime less than four years. An energy project with first outcomes appearing after four years is not very attractive by the politicians.  Therefore, the next generation nuclear power plants should be able to produce some electricity within first few years of the project start. They may reach their full capacity much later, no problem.

It is important for a nation’s sovereignty to depend less on exported energy and raw materials. Producing excess energy using nuclear power is critical in my point of view. If it is not possible to produce nuclear energy in distributed locations, then the centralized high energy centers should be distributing the excess energy around the country. Aluminum power cables would be ideal in creating such network. Aluminum is abundant on earth's crust and its cost is mainly electricity. I recommend the nuclear plants to be built in close proximity to aluminum production locations. Excess energy would be stored as processed aluminum. Energy intense industries should also be nearby. In the old times such industries would be located close to the coal mining sites. Therefore, the new nuclear plants should be located close to the coal mining sites. One additional benefit of this is excess nuclear energy can be used to gasify the coal which can be fed into the existing natural gas pipelines.

Developed nations export natural gas which enter the country from a handful of locations. As a result, high energy nuclear plants can also distribute their immense energy to the whole country from few locations.