Estonia looks at small modular reactors to keep its energy independence //

Back in 2005 the technology was ready but there wasn’t a customer that was ready,” said Rita Baranwal, the U.S. Department of Energy’s top nuclear power official. “That’s part of the reason these concepts had been shelved.” //

Fermi has raised funds from local investors who see potential for the startup to run the reactor without state backing or financial aid from utilities. The country will need the extra source of power to meet more unreliable flows of electricity when Estonia and the rest of Baltic region synchronizes its grids with Europe instead of Russia from 2025.

But with northern and western neighbors in Germany, Denmark and Sweden replacing thermal plants with wind and solar generation, Baltic electricity flows could become more dependent on the weather. Small modular reactors are being designed to ensure power supply at those times when the sun doesn’t shine or the air is still. //

New demand from countries like Estonia is accelerating the American licensing process for the technology, the DOE’s Baranwal said in an interview. Testing of the first licensed units won’t begin until early next decade in the U.S., with commercialization only years later.

Meanwhile Estonia will have to depend on its oil plants, making up 85% of the nations power supply and making Estonians the European Union’s largest per-capita emitter after Luxembourg. With the price of carbon having more than tripled last year the country’s state-owned utility Esti Energia AS has had to put employees on forced leave due to rising costs.

Kallemets insists that modular reactors are worth the wait as building natural gas plants would make the nation dependent on Russian fuel and that wind turbines will never be able to fully cover demand on windless winter days when imports from rest of Europe are limited.