Small modular reactors that do not need offsite emergency preparedness could be “a game-changer” for the nuclear industry as it struggles to meet the challenge of lowering costs for conventional light-water reactors, the head of the Nuclear Energy Agency told a webinar.

William Magwood, director-general of the Paris-based NEA, told the American Nuclear Society event that “the challenge we see today is that building conventional LWRs, as effective as they are, is out of the price range of a lot of potential customers, even countries, and we struggle to get those costs down”.

He said a new generation of SMRs and advanced reactors presents the possibility of two things: building nuclear capacity at a much lower entry cost and with safety characteristics that would allow them to be deployed in places that have never been considered in the past.