The Little Reactor That could? As the United States and Other Nations Consider Their Next Steps in Nuclear Energy, A New Movement to Support Small Modular Reactors is Coming to the Forefront. But How are We to Envision These Technologies and Their Role in a Post-Fukushima Era?(Small NUCLEAR REACTORS‪)‬

A week before Halloween 2009, John R. Deal, an entrepreneur who goes almost exclusively by "Grizz," took the stage at the Denver Art Museum to deliver the headline talk at an evening seminar titled "The Truth About Nuclear Energy" Though slightly less bearded, barrel-chested, and commanding than his nickname suggests, Deal's style was exceedingly casual. A long-sleeved, amply pocketed khaki shirt included a shoulder patch with his company's logo, eliciting an association somewhere between park ranger and scoutmaster--both of which match his cheerful, disarming demeanor. Before launching into the benefits of his company's miniature nuclear reactor, he began with a joke. "It turns out that most of the . . . mishaps [in nuclear plants] actually involve humans. So we were thinking today, what do we do to create a power plant control system to minimize that kind of impact? We came up with the following. The power plant of the future will have three control devices: a computer, a dog, and a guy. The computer runs the power plant because, as I said, most power plant mishaps happen because of human interaction. The dog keeps people away from the computer. And the guy is just there to feed the dog."