"The Obama administration is promoting a bold, long-range plan for building dozens of small, factory-built reactors capable of replacing coal-fired power plants that are expected to be retired in the coming decades, a Department of Energy official said yesterday."

"DOE's effort is aimed at establishing an industry that would manufacture as many as 50 small modular reactors (SMRs) a year by 2040 or sooner, said Rebecca Smith-Kevern, the director of light water reactor technology at the department's Office of Nuclear Energy, which oversees the licensing of tiny nuclear plants.

'We have a vision of having a whole fleet of [small modular reactors] produced in factories,' Smith-Kevern told a regulatory conference in Bethesda, Md. 'We envision the U.S. government to be the first users.'"

Hannah Northey reports for Greenwire March 13, 2013. [2]