Why the world needs Small Nuclear Energy?

Mike Hassaballa
6 min readAug 4, 2020

Into the Future with Small Nuclear Energy

As of 2020, Nuclear is the newest energy source humans were able to use to provide a reliable base load electrical power. Humans discovered fire 2 million years ago, and then started using fire to produce steam for motion only 300 year ago, humans then discovered electricity around 260 years ago, then used steam produced by fire to produce electricity only around 140 years ago.

By the early 19th century humans mastered electricity and used it to provide lighting. This resulted in electrification for many sections of the economy, but only in the 1940s and 1950s humans were able to tame a new form of energy, nuclear energy. The world discovered nuclear energy in 1942, then in 1952 the world had its first sustained nuclear reaction, this was the year where the world had its first nuclear reactor that could produce electricity. Nuclear energy has been in use for only 60 years compared to fire which has been around for millions of years. In the grand scheme of history, we are just taking our first baby steps with nuclear energy. This represents a significant opportunity for the world to capitalize on this newer form of energy and use it to provide electricity and power.

This brings us to newest way to move forward with nuclear energy, small modular nuclear reactors* for mainstream electricity and heat generation. The Idea of a small nuclear reactor is actually not very new. Small nuclear reactors have been used for some time in other applications…

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Mike Hassaballa
Mike Hassaballa

Written by Mike Hassaballa

Follow me for content on sustainable energy, economy, technology, investment and artificial intelligence. I write bi-weekly.