Local opinion: Small modular reactors could solve Project Blue power, water issues

I watched the Project Blue community information meeting with a sense of frustration. The city and the developers are trying to bring a valuable project to Tucson. A number of concerned citizens are politely and intelligently raising important issues that need to be addressed. (A handful of citizens were less polite, but I’m willing to ignore them.) There are no good guys and bad guys here, just people trying to do what’s best for the city, given different amounts of information.

Two of the biggest areas of concern are power and water. Data centers are notoriously power-hungry, and they use vast quantities of water to cool off the hundreds of thousands of computer chips generating heat. Data centers run 24/7, so solar power alone cannot be a solution without a matching investment in batteries and backup generators. And even with reuse and recycling, data centers are a strain on desert water supplies.

But expanding the scope of the project may provide a solution to both problems. After the Three Mile Island incident 45 years ago, America’s nuclear industry entered a decades-long slump, but is now experiencing a renaissance. New generations of modular nuclear reactors — smaller, safer, and cheaper — are being designed and tested. Typically generating from 10 to 300 megawatts of electricity (compared to Palo Verde Generation Station at nearly 4,000 megawatts), these reactors can be partially built in factories and transported to the site by truck, reducing time, cost, and regulatory complexity compared to traditional builds.

Safety is a primary concern for nuclear reactors. New passively cooled designs, not using the pressurized water systems of traditional reactors, physically cannot experience a “meltdown,” meaning that even the most catastrophic disaster will not release radiation into the environment. And more advanced fuels can minimize long-lived byproducts, so storing and managing the nuclear waste is far simpler than what we’ve been doing for reactors based on 1950s designs.

So a modular nuclear reactor co-located with Project Blue would provide all the power needed for the initial phase of operations (250-350 megawatts) ... and, since they’re modular, additional reactors could be added for the full buildout and possible secondary projects. This would eliminate any strain on TEP’s generation capacity without needing to pave 2,000 acres of desert with solar panels.

But what about water? The Southwest has plenty of water. It’s just salty, and inconveniently located. A very small modular nuclear reactor located in Puerto Peñasco (or, for regulatory reasons, in Yuma) could power a desalination plant producing Project Blue’s required 2 million gallons of fresh water per day, with a power budget of only a megawatt. Add in extra capacity for more fresh water to be shared with Mexico. Add even more capacity for additional water to be used for residential, industrial, and agricultural uses in Pima County. Add in extra power to run the pumps necessary to transport the water over 200 miles of pipes and/or canals. You’re still looking at a modest coastal installation, covering only a couple of acres, but completely relieving the strain of adding data centers to Tucson’s existing water demands.

People are scared of nuclear energy. Some of that is based on outdated information, some of that is based on fear of the unknown, and some of that is based on misinformation spread for a variety of reasons. But cheap, reliable, safe nuclear energy can solve both of the major stresses of Project Blue — power and water. By expanding the scope of the project to include desalination of water from the Sea of Cortez, the developers and the city can ensure substantial economic benefits for both Arizona and the state of Sonora for decades to come.