Historical insights from past SMRs used in nuclear propulsion and electricity generation in remote locations

A number of countries, including Canada, are researching the development of Small Modular nuclear Reactors (SMR) for electrical power generation. This paper aims to point impact assessors to other previous historical deployments of SMRs. These types of reactors could be used to power remote locations, for heavy industry applications, and for on-grid applications. One possible use for a SMR is to provide power to remote Arctic communities. Small nuclear reactors are not a new concept. The Americans constructed small nuclear reactors for remote areas in the 1960s, under the U.S. Army Nuclear Power Program, where they built and operated four reactors in remote regions of Alaska, Greenland, Antarctica, and in the Panama Canal Zone on a barge. More recently, Russia placed two nuclear reactors on a barge and towed it to a remote Arctic community to replace diesel power generation. It is now providing electricity to that remote location. Health Canada, a federal department of the Government of Canada, plays a role in human health risk assessment for major resource and infrastructure projects in Canada and is therefore interested in the history of SMRs and the potential radio-ecological consequences of future projects in terms of radiation dose received by humans. Because Health Canada also has a role in emergency preparedness, this paper also examines the historical issues around the AVR reactor, a high temperature gas cooled reactor, which is a SMR reactor type being considered in Canada. This review paper provides a brief overview of SMRs in general and discusses potential challenges for modeling human health risk in remote locations. For example, in doing assessments for nuclear reactors, often an environmental transport model is used which is dependent on transfer factors which are determined from measurements. These transfer factors most likely will change in the Arctic environment.