The first nuclear modular reactor that El Salvador wants to have in 7 years, could generate up to 100 Megawatts of energy (MW), according to the director general of Energy, Hydrocarbons and Mines and also president of the CEL, Daniel Álvarez, at the end of his participation in the IX Energy Week, which takes place in the city of Asunción Paraguay and is organized by OLADE.
By way of comparison, the 3 de Febrero hydroelectric dam (El Chaparral) has a generation capacity of 67 Megawatts.
“In 7 years we want to get to have the research reactor, at least, and then have a power reactor,” the official said, in his speech at a panel that discussed the future of nuclear energy in Latin America.
Small modular reactors (SMRs for their initials in English) are smaller reactors than a conventional one, which take up less space. A research SMR is first acquired to have a training and adaptation process, and then activated as a power reactor.
As the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) explains, these reactors have a power capacity of up to 300 MW, but according to Álvarez, the goal is 100 MW.
However, the official did not give details of the investment the country would need to acquire these SMRs or to whom it would buy them. What he did say in his speech is that although the country has diversified its energy matrix in recent years, the government thought of nuclear energy as an alternative to generation because the country is small and it is not possible to fill it with solar panels or build more hydroelectric dams, as there are already six in the country.
During these seven years, Álvarez said that staff would be trained to know all these teams very well. The political decision is already made. The structure for introducing nuclear power must be safe and peaceful, he said.
Last week, the Legislative Assembly passed a Nuclear Energy Act, which also created the Agency for the Implementation of the Nuclear Energy Program in El Salvador (OIPEN).
Little generation, great impact
For his part, Pedro Maffia, director of institutional management of the Brazilian National Nuclear Energy Commission, another of the panel’s speakers, explained that in his country, they began with their first reactor 67 years ago and it was not until 1985 that they built their first nuclear power plant. In 2001, they began with the operation of the second nuclear plant.
Nuclear generation accounts for 2 percent of the country’s electricity consumption, but is capable of supplying energy to 6.5 million people, which for Álvarez means that a single plant could meet the energy demand of all over El Salvador. “It’s a clean, safe, stable energy,” Maffia said.
We have to think about modular reactors. It is a good alternative for countries like El Salvador where the total population is what the city of Rio has, Álvarez said after hearing the Brazilian case.
But on the side of the most reserved is Paraguay. Jorge Molina, director of the Regulatory and Nuclear Authority (ARRN) of Paraguay, said that the idea is not to start with a research stage, but rather to go on the side of direct generation, although he acknowledged that it has not yet been decided whether this can be done because it must go through a study on whether the country has the adequate infrastructure to install nuclear energy.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Program Manager for Latin America and the Caribbean, Facundo Deluchi, who moderated the panel, explained that there are 415 nuclear reactors in operation in the world and 30 other countries are in the process of new nuclear power plants, including El Salvador.
In December 2023, representatives from 22 countries agreed to triple nuclear power production capacity by 2050, as part of discussions at the United Nations Climate Summit (COP28).
This article has been translated after first appearing in La Prensa Grafica