Nuclear Power Likely to Grow by Getting Smaller

‘We’ve got to onshore a lot of the capabilities that we’ve lost,’ said Juliann Edwards, chief development officer of The Nuclear Company.

Test engineer Jacob Wilcox pulls his arm out of a glove box used for processing sodium at TerraPower, a company developing and building small nuclear reactors on Jan. 13, 2022, in Everett, Wash. AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File

In the midst of growing demand for low-carbon base-load electricity, nuclear power is increasingly regarded as a clean, reliable option, but multi-year regulatory approval processes, a dearth of capital, and chronic cost overruns when constructing new plants have made utilities reluctant to build.

Many in the nuclear power industry say one way to address these issues is to make reactors smaller.