Full Title: What Is the Message?
Author(s): Herschel Specter
Publisher(s): Micro Utilities
Publication Date: August 13, 2022
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
On May 31, 2022 the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published “Nuclear waste from small modular reactors” by Drs. Lindsey Krall, Allison Macfarlane, and Rodney Ewing. As this critique shows, this PNAS article is technically flawed, incoherent, and already has resulted in articles in the media that further spread the misinformation contained in this PNAS publication. The spread of this misinformation has been rapid with Bloomberg News and the Stanford News Service issuing press releases a day earlier than PNAS did. Greenbiz and others soon followed with their versions of this PNAS publication. These publications emphasized that the volumes of the wastes from small modular reactors (SMRs) could be 2 to 30 times greater than the volumes of wastes from present light water reactors (LWRs), according to the PNAS. However, a review of this PNAS article shows that these 2 to 30 times larger claims are technically unsupportable. Further, Figure 3 of this PNAS article lends itself to misuse in a consent-based siting process.
The role of nuclear power in our energy future, and SMRs in particular, is under discussion now. Not only does this PNAS publication distract from this discussion, it has the potential to disrupt the Consent-Based Siting process that the Department of Energy is developing.
Two questions need to be answered:
1. What was the nature of the PNAS peer review and editorial process that allowed this article to be published, and
2. What does PNAS plan to do about the serious defects identified in this critique?