The Hill News

Nearly seven decades ago, nuclear power enthusiasts touted tiny nuclear reactors "the size of a typewriter" that could fuel homes and factories, delivering electricity "too cheap to meter." We'd drive nuclear-powered automobiles, wear tiny nuclear wrist radios and do our laundry in uranium-fueled washing machines.

Needless to say, such promises remained the fodder of science fiction. Nuclear power is largely unchanged from the generating technology first utilized in the 1960s. The economies of scale were too enormous for small reactors to work - even large ones were expensive. And then there was the matter of the highly radioactive waste dispersed over hundreds of millions of homes and cars.

Yet, the enthusiasts of small reactors are back, promoting "small modular reactors" (SMRs) which, they say, can solve the central economic problem of large reactors that each cost so much and take so long to build that it becomes a "bet the farm" risk. But this i! s hype and hope more than substance. Unfortunately, Congress and the administration are buying into it.

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