Nuclear Expert Dispels Myths about Small Modular Nuclear Reactors in Senate Testimony via Union of Concerned Scientists

WASHINGTON (July 14, 2011) — A physicist from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) today testified before a Senate subcommittee that small modular nuclear reactors are not necessarily any safer or more secure than conventional size reactors and could be more dangerous. Companies vying to sell small reactors, he said, are overstating their benefits and downplaying their potential pitfalls.

“Although some light water [small modular reactor] concepts may have desirable safety characteristics,” Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist with UCS’s Global Security Program, told the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, “unless they are carefully designed, licensed, deployed and inspected, [they] could pose comparable or even greater safety, security and proliferation risks than large reactors.”

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5 Responses to Nuclear Expert Dispels Myths about Small Modular Nuclear Reactors in Senate Testimony via Union of Concerned Scientists

  1. yukimiyamotodepaul says:

    Some of my students seriously argued (or tried to persuade me to support) that installing small modular nuclear reactors in a community (if not in each one’s back yard!) is the way to go….

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