Arab News Japan

DUBAI: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. Chairman of the Board Shunichi Miyanaga said on Monday that the new benefits of new design nuclear reactors are much “more stable and safer.”

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Riyadh during a panel titled “The Role of Nuclear,” Miyanaga emphasized MHI’s role in developing “high temperature gas reactors, which will be a hook for the very cheap, inexpensive hydrogen production with a very high temperature capacity.”

The chairman said that the progress of technology can help nuclear reactors adjust power to a wider range. “[Power range] used to be 20 to 30 to 40%.”

He told the panel that the new modular designs are “standard and smaller, meaning that the cost and the quality will become much more reliable and will make it easier to manufacture the product.”

“If we integrate the small reactors, the sizing comes with some small application, which is very convenient for the local application for data center and others,” he explained.

Miyanaga compared the new design to the older, bigger and more conventional reactors. “However,” he added, “we need to maintain a very high quality of engineering.”

The MHI chairman said he hoped to see the commercialization of the nuclear fusion case in his lifetime.

Other speakers at the panel included: Kirsty Gogan, Founding Director and Co-Chief Executive Officer at TerraPraxis; Kam Ghaffarian, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman at Axiom Space, Inc.; Cosmin Ghita, Chief Executive Officer at Societatea Nationala Nuclearelectrica SA; and moderated by Rafaela Guedes, Senior Fellow at the Brazilian Centre for International Relations.

The panelists discussed nuclear energy as part of the solution to meeting the growing demand for green power.

The new innovations such as small modulator reactors to fusion provide opportunities beyond the existing power plants.