The Next Job for Nuclear: Industrial Heat

The global SMR market is on pace to roughly triple from under $5 billion in investment in 2025 to over $25 billion by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency. Most of that growth so far has been driven by AI data center operators locking up capacity.

The global pipeline for small modular reactors (SMRs) has reached roughly 47 gigawatts in announced, planned and early-stage development. The majority of nuclear projects being developed globally are still the large reactors, with the Global Energy Monitor tracking more than 350 gigawatts worth of projects under development.

Could SMRs be used for industrial heat?

Industrial heat is the quieter, arguably bigger opportunity. Heat makes up roughly half of global final energy consumption, and industrial processes account for about 74% of that heat demand, spanning everything from 80°C food processing to steel production above 2,000°C.

Industrial process heat alone drives close to a quarter of global energy-related emissions, and unlike electricity, most of that heat still comes straight from burning fossil fuels on-site.

The technologies:

• Gas-cooled reactors: Helium flows through a core of TRISO fuel and carries heat out at 500 to 950°C that could give processes like hydrogen production and chemical synthesis the high-grade heat required.
• Molten salt reactors: Fuel is dissolved in or cooled by molten fluoride or chloride salts that stay liquid at near-atmospheric pressure and very high temperatures. That sidesteps the need for high-pressure containment that limits water-cooled reactors.
• Water-cooled reactors: Using pressurized or boiling water as coolant and moderator, these reactors are capped near 300°C and best suited to desalination, district heating or lower-temperature industrial steam.
• Microreactors: Small reactors in the 1 to 20 megawatt range are often gas- or heat-pipe-cooled and designed to be moved by truck or rail so remote mines, military bases or off-grid industrial sites can get both heat and power without a grid connection.

Tripling global nuclear capacity by 2050, the pledge 22 countries made at COP28, would generate energy roughly equal to what the iron and steel sector alone consumed in 2022.