There’s widespread debate over whether nuclear power should be a player in the path toward addressing climate change. Industry analysts say nuclear is key //

Bret Kugelmass, managing director of the Washington, D.C.-based Energy Impact Center (EIC), and a robotics engineer at Stanford University, on Feb. 25 introduced his group’s plan for nuclear power, with an eye toward solving what he told POWER on Tuesday is the major issue impacting the sector: “economics, economics, economics.” Kugelmass founded the EIC as a group that seeks what it calls “accelerated pathways” to decarbonize the global economy by 2040, and he thinks nuclear power is a solution.

The Energy Impact Center’s OPEN100 plan, what the EIC calls “the world’s first open-source blueprint for nuclear power plant deployment,” is about showing that nuclear can provide both clean, and cost-effective, energy, with more streamlined construction. Kugelmass said the global trend of building larger and more complex reactors has contributed to the “uncompetitive” nature of nuclear power.