New Mexico is getting worldwide attention with this last weekend's box office opening of the film "Oppenheimer" which centers on Robert Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project, and the establishment of Los Alamos in its current role as a nuclear research hub.
(Full disclosure: I saw "Barbie" instead. I have no regrets.)
(Additional full disclosure: I am not handwringing over whether it is okay or not to see films already made in light of the current writers' and actors' strikes. I have no regrets.)
Los Alamos is also setting itself apart from other Western communities by returning to its roots, if you will. Its county-run utility is looking to the latest nuclear technology to meet its decarbonization goals for power transmission. Their utility managers have signed on to become anchor customers of the first small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) to come online, joining Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS), a compact to subscribe to power generated by a cluster of six SMRs in Idaho.
SMRs seem to offer an ideal off-ramp from fossil fuels. As small as nine feet across, SMRs are meant to replace coal-fired power plants without the massive footprint and labor requirements of the traditional reactors of 50 and 60 years ago.
The primary benefit of SMRs in the United States is the ease of connecting them to the existing grid. It can take years to get new power sources like wind and solar connected because they often require an upgrade in transmission capacity and our transmission lines are simply tapped out. An SMR operates at roughly the same capacity as a coal plant, so it is a matter of a one-to-one swap.
SMRs face challenges, however. The first is cost. The price per megawatt-hour for UAMPS jumped from $58 to $89 recently due to inflation: copper wire up 32% and steel piping up 106%. This makes it more than twice the cost of natural gas, according to 2020 Energy Information Administration estimates.
Long regulatory delays also add to cost. NuScale, the SMR manufacturer for the Los Alamos agreement, began the regulatory approval process in 2008 and was finally cleared this January by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). In that time period, the engineers were able to improve the design, and NuScale applied for an upgraded design approval in March; it is expected to take two years to obtain. Westinghouse received NRC approval for its SMR design in May.
We want our nuclear power generation facilities to be safe. We also need them online in less than 18 years from design to get our country to emission-free power. NuScale estimates it provided two million pages of documentation for its initial approval.
Los Alamos and the other 26 communities in UAMPS remain optimistic and committed to the project, now estimated to deliver power starting in 2030. The 27 UAMPS member municipalities overwhelmingly voted to continue funding of the project, and the number of participating communities seems to have stabilized after several left the compact last year.
Most of the UAMPS members are based in Utah. Of note, the City of Gallup and the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority are also members. These communities see what a lot of New Mexico communities have missed: that the age of fossil fuels only has a few decades left, and it is vital to seek every carbon-free alternative now. SMRs are a key piece of this power puzzle.
Merritt Hamilton Allen is a PR executive and former Navy officer. She appears regularly as a panelist on NM PBS and is a frequent guest on News Radio KKOB. A Republican, she lives amicably with her Democratic husband north of I-40 where they run one head of dog, and two of cat. She can be reached at news.ind.merritt@gmail.com .