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Statewide siting and transmission screening identifies seven potential zones for SMRs; transmission and water are primary constraints
Summary
Nucleon Energy’s county‑level screening for small modular reactors identified seven areas of interest in North Dakota where transmission capacity and surface water availability make siting most feasible; the firm recommended further localized water studies and early community education before site selection.
Consultants from Nucleon Energy presented the committee with a statewide siting, transmission and land‑use screening report for small modular reactors (SMRs). Their county‑level screening used a subset of NRC siting criteria and ranked locations primarily on two factors: access to sufficient transmission infrastructure and surface water availability for cooling where economically preferable.
Will Bridge (Nucleon CTO) summarized the technical approach and said the study used the same datasets as the North Dakota Transmission Authority’s load report to ensure comparability. Ryan Tarini (Nucleon) said the team applied NRC‑oriented criteria at a macro (county) level and that while water is desirable, it is not always a gating criterion because SMR technologies can use dry cooling at a higher cost; he noted the report estimates dry cooling for a 600‑MW deployment at about 115,700,000 gallons per year versus evaporative cooling at roughly 3,400,000,000 gallons per year (report page 21).
Pablo Arganal presented transmission modeling that identified seven zones of interest on the eastern side of North Dakota where nodes could host hundreds of megawatts without immediate, large wire upgrades; western and northwestern nodes could host smaller injections (roughly 200+ MW) using the existing 115–230 kV system. Nucleon emphasized that siting choices should avoid unnecessary long‑distance wire builds that would raise ratepayer costs and recommended a technology‑agnostic “plant parameter envelope” approach to keep options open during early planning.
The consultants recommended follow‑up steps if the state wishes to pursue SMR development: targeted water availability and groundwater studies at the county level; early, expert‑led public education and community engagement (including neutral academic partners such as EERC/UND); workforce and training plans; and economic impact and waste management reports due to the committee by mid‑March and a capstone report later in the summer.
