Every serious engineering project begins with questions before it reaches conclusions. Bridges, refineries, airports, and power stations must survive relentless scrutiny because nature is indifferent to optimism. Steel obeys physics rather than speeches; electrical grids obey mathematics rather than manifestos.

Jamaica’s emerging discussion of small modular reactors (SMRs) should therefore be welcomed — not as a contest between “pro-” and “anti-” nuclear camps, but as an opportunity to examine whether the country is asking the right questions before committing itself to what could become the largest technological undertaking in our history.

The Government has announced an October 2024 memorandum of understanding (MOU) with two Canadian nuclear organisations, reconstituted the Nuclear Energy Working Committee, and stated that it is assessing SMRs as an option for Jamaica’s future energy mix. Ministers have repeatedly emphasised that no decision has yet been taken to build a reactor and that institutional preparation comes first.

That is precisely why this is the appropriate moment for rigorous public questioning.

Question #1: Where is the publicly available comparative feasibility study?

An MOU is not a feasibility study. Before any nation selects a generating technology, the public normally expects transparent comparisons of capital costs, operating costs, financing assumptions, insurance, fuel logistics, decommissioning liabilities, transmission upgrades, reserve requirements, and electricity prices over the plant’s entire life.

Where is Jamaica’s published least-cost comparison placing SMRs alongside utility-scale solar, wind, battery storage, pumped storage, biomass, energy efficiency, and modern demand-response programmes?

Promoted First-of-a-Kind (FOAK) SMR capital expenditure (CapEx) ranges globally between $6,000 and $11,000 per kWe — well above the $1,200 to $1,800 per kW typical of utility-scale solar combined with storage. Without such quantitative comparisons, how can taxpayers determine whether nuclear power represents the best value?

Question #2: Has Jamaica demonstrated that an SMR satisfies N-1 security for our grid?

Electrical systems are not designed around average conditions. Professional grid operators plan for what engineers call N-1 reliability — the system should continue operating safely after the sudden loss of its largest generating unit or transmission element.

According to Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) technical filings, Jamaica’s system peak load typically hovers between 680MW and 730MW, operating with an spinning reserve margin target of roughly 150MW. A standard SMR unit, such as the GE Hitachi BWRX-300 or Westinghouse AP300, produces 300MWe. If a single 300MWe reactor were unexpectedly disconnected (forced outage), it would instantly strip away over 40 per cent of the entire national peak demand.

Has the Government published the dynamic stability studies demonstrating that Jamaica’s isolated island grid can comfortably satisfy N-1 requirements under such an extreme contingency? An instantaneous loss of that magnitude exceeds current spinning reserves, risking catastrophic under-frequency load shedding and total grid collapse. That question deserves engineering answers, not political reassurance.

Question #3: Where is the seismic design basis?

Jamaica occupies one of the Caribbean’s most tectonically active regions, straddling the complex plate boundary between the Caribbean and North American plates. Earthquakes are neither hypothetical nor ideological.

Peer-reviewed probabilistic seismic hazard analyses (PSHA) for Jamaica establish a baseline Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) of 0.30g to 0.40g in eastern sections of the island, with a 10 per cent probability of exceedance in 50 years (equivalent to a 475-year return period). Local faults are capable of generating events exceeding magnitude 7.0. Any proposed nuclear installation requires extensive fault investigations, paleoseismological trenches, liquefaction assessments, and site-specific geological investigations extending over years rather than months to meet International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safety standards.

Has any preferred Jamaican site undergone these rigorous investigations? If not, on what engineering basis is the national conversation already progressing towards reactor selection?

Question #4: Who ultimately pays?

Government representatives have suggested a build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) model supported by a long-term power purchase agreement (PPA), thereby limiting immediate public capital expenditure. But somebody always pays.

Power-purchase obligations, transmission reinforcement, emergency preparedness, security arrangements, regulatory oversight, decommissioning funds, and spent-fuel management ultimately appear somewhere within electricity tariffs or public finances. A 300MWe nuclear plant carries multi-billion-dollar liabilities. Where is the complete life cycle financial model available for independent scrutiny?

Question #5: What exactly is Jamaica’s long-term radioactive waste policy?

The existing national regulatory framework, managed by the Hazardous Substances Regulatory Authority (HSRA), has largely evolved around medical, industrial, and research radioactive sources. Commercial nuclear electricity introduces an entirely different scale of responsibility extending decades beyond a reactor’s operating life.

High-level spent fuel remains hazardous for millennia. If spent fuel is expected to leave Jamaica, under what binding international arrangements? No major nuclear nation currently accepts foreign high-level waste for permanent disposal. If temporary dry-cask storage becomes necessary on-island, where will it be sited, and what are the containment parameters against Category 5 hurricanes and storm surges? If international circumstances change, who assumes legal responsibility? These questions should precede — not follow — any commercial commitment.

Question #6: Does Jamaica presently possess sufficient regulatory capacity?

Nuclear regulation cannot be improvised. It demands highly specialised inspectors, reactor physicists, emergency planners, probabilistic risk analysts, safeguards specialists, radiation protection officers, and independent licensing authorities operating continuously for decades.

Under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Milestones Approach (Nuclear Energy Series # NG-G-3.1), a nation must systematically address 19 specific infrastructure issues across three distinct phases. Establishing a fully independent, adequately staffed, and legally empowered nuclear regulatory body is a core requirement of phase 1 and 2, long before any contract is signed. If that capacity is still being developed, should the public not first see evidence that the regulator can stand completely independent of those promoting the technology?

Question #7: Why the apparent haste when alternatives are advancing so rapidly?

Across the world, solar generation, battery storage, digital grid management, and distributed energy resources continue to improve while costs generally trend downward. Meanwhile, Jamaica possesses abundant sunshine, excellent wind corridors, considerable opportunities for distributed generation, Leucaena-based biomass agro-energy production, significant energy-efficiency potential, and emerging storage technologies.

The Ministry of Science, Energy and Telecommunications has highlighted the procurement of 220MW of renewable energy alongside a 110MW/220MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) framework. Has the Government published evidence demonstrating that SMRs outperform these rapidly deployable, modular, and non-hazardous alternatives under Jamaica’s particular geography, economy, hurricane exposure, seismic setting, and relatively small electricity system? That comparison should not be assumed. It should be demonstrated.

These seven questions are not arguments against nuclear science. Neither are they arguments against technological ambition. They are arguments for intellectual discipline and integrity.

Every generation inherits decisions whose consequences extend well beyond electoral cycles. Nuclear infrastructure belongs among that rare class of decisions. If the answers ultimately support SMRs, Jamaica will proceed with far greater confidence. If they do not, asking these questions now may save the country billions of dollars and decades of regret.

Either outcome would represent sound public policy. For in engineering — as in democracy — the quality of our future depends less upon how confidently we answer than upon whether we first ask the right questions.

Dennis A Minott, PhD, is the CEO of A-QuEST. He is also a renewable energy specialist with a demonstrated history of working in the oil and energy sector. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or a_quest57@yahoo.com.

MINOTT…Photo: Bryan Cummings