The Washington Post desciribed the new, small reactors that will make nuclear power available to small communities and businesses. It said:

At least a half dozen companies are racing to develop tiny reactors, which bear no resemblance to the hulking power projects dotting riverbanks and coastlines across the United States, with their cooling towers and massive concrete containment structures.

The flatbed-size reactors are designed to generate as little as a single megawatt of power — roughly one-thousandth the amount of a large legacy unit. It’s enough to power 1,000 homes, a single manufacturing plant or even a remote island owned by a billionaire (one company claims it has received such an inquiry).

But the Energy Department under both Republican and Democraticadministrations has promoted the technology as a viable on-demand clean energy alternative.Now the government is pushing ahead with tests — at a fortified lab in Idaho — of multiple competing micro-reactor designs.