New Mexico's two senators today introduced legislation intended to smooth the way for a new generation of small nuclear power reactors.

New Mexico's Democratic senators, Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall, joined by Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski, are pushing the notion that a new generation of much smaller nuclear reactors could play a role in our nation's energy future. It's an idea championed by Sandia National Laboratories' Tom Sanders, who is the current president of the American Nuclear Society. From a story I wrote in June:

Sanders' support of small reactors is not surprising, given his history. Before getting his degrees in nuclear engineering at the University of Texas, Sanders spent six years in the Navy, managing the small nuclear reactors used to power U.S. submarines.
        Operating small nuclear reactors, he points out, is something the U.S. Navy has been doing for half a century.
        In addition to his belief in the economic feasibility of small reactors, Sanders believes the technology offers a niche that U.S. industry can exploit. These days around the world, big nuclear reactors are the province of other nations, chiefly the French government-owned firm Areva and the Japanese company Toshiba, both from countries that provide their nuclear power industries with strong government backing.
        To the extent that new large reactors are built in the United States -- and a number have been proposed -- it will be foreign companies that build them, Sanders noted.

The new Bingaman-Udall-Murkowski bill would direct the Secretary of Energy to work with private industry to develop standard designs for modular reactors, with the goal of winning Nuclear Regularly certification by 2018 and having the first reactor running by 2021.