The Nuclear Alternative Project (NAP), a non-profit of young Puerto Rican nuclear engineers and affiliated professionals who work in the U.S. nuclear industry, is actively promoting the use of small modular reactors (SMRs) to be an important part of the island’s energy grid. In 2017, Hurricanes Maria and Irma devastated what was already a decrepit energy grid, but in 2019 the island’s legislature proposed to upgrade it with a version of the Green New Deal bill, (PS 1121) proposing to have power produced from 100% renewables (solar and wind) by 2050, and 40% renewables by 2025, including a ban on coal plants by 2028, Reuters reported Aug. 10. NAP’s leaders counter it, saying that nuclear must be part of the mix, and point to the unreliability and expense of both solar and natural gas, as well as to the difficulty of building wind and solar farms on an island.
A NAP preliminary feasibility study on the use of advanced reactors to meet the island’s power needs, begun in 2019 and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, concluded that Puerto Rico needs new baseload generation and that SMRs and microreactors would definitely fit in the island’s planned grid, according to NAP. The next step is for NAP to submit a reactor siting proposal to the DOE. (https://www.nuclearalternativeproject.org/home)
