Quantitative and Qualitative Comparison of Light Water and Advanced Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)

Abstract

In the recent years, several Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) have been developed. These Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) not only offer small power size (less than 300MWe), foot print, compact designs fabricated in factories to transport to the sites but also passive safety features. On one hand, some of the Light Water (LW) SMRs have been aggressively competing to win Department of Energy’s Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOA): NuScale, W-SMR, etc. These new LW-SMRs are mainly inspired by the early LW-SMRs (such as, Process Inherent Ultimate Safety (PIUS), International Reactor Innovative and Secure (IRIS), Small Innovative Reactor (SIR), etc). LW-SMRs employ significantly less number of components to decrease cost and increase simplicity. However, new physical challenges appeared with these changes. On the other hand, advanced SMRs (such as, PBMR, MHR Antares, Prism, 4S, Hyperion, etc.) are dazzled with their improved passive safety features. This paper compares most of the LW and Advanced SMRs in respect to reactors, nuclear fuel, containment, reactor coolant systems, re-fueling and emergency coolant systems quantitatively and qualitatively. The detailed comparisons in this paper show that one reactor is not the absolute winner in this comparison since each reactor is designed to meet different needs.