Inside the U.S. government project to create tiny nuclear reactors like batteries

Nuclear reactor construction projects often run into cost overruns. Monitoring and maintaining them takes a team of trained experts.

Nuclear power doesn't have to be like this, according to Arafat.

Arafat leads the effort to build a tiny, relatively inexpensive nuclear reactor at Idaho National Lab, where he is the technical lead of the microreactor project. He says it is more of a battery.

Arafat is motivated by a deep sense of urgency to help the world decarbonize because he was born in Bangladesh. Climate change is a part of daily life in Bangladesh and is not discussed as a future scenario. Arafat wants to contribute to the solution by building a microreactor prototype that can help develop the industry.

Arafat told CNBC that the prototype will be called the MARVEL reactor and that it will be the first advanced microreactor in the US. There is a prototype of the MARVEL reactor which runs with electric heat, not nuclear heat.

Yasir Arafat, the technical lead for the Marvel microreactor project, shows CNBC the prototype.

Arafat led the design and modeling of the MARVEL reactor project at the Idaho National lab. Arafat said that the MARVEL microreactor will be the first of its kind that will be able to demonstrate how we can miniaturize a nuclear system into something that is portable and transportable.

The goal of the private companies is the same as the government's: to develop an emissions-free energy source.

A hospital could be powered by a single microreactor. The current electricity grid in the US is based on generating electricity at a centralized location and distributing it to end users. Microreactors are part of a future vision for the electricity grid that is less centralized and more resistant to disasters.

Microreactors could be a key part of a future clean energy grid that includes renewable solar and wind energy and battery storage, Arafat said. Nuclear is a baseload energy source which means it can provide energy when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining.

A prototype for the Marvel reactor at the Idaho National Lab.

Small modular nuclear reactor orders are less complicated to build and operate than conventional light water reactor orders. Microreactors take that to the next level.

Arafat said that the production of hundreds of microreactors a year could be done in a factory. A microreactor can be taken from the factory to a customer location. He said that the goal is to be able to deploy a microreactor in less than a week.

Arafat told CNBC that if we become good at manufacturing and taking advantage of factory fabrication, we can make them cheap enough for every campus.

Microreactors use a different kind of fuel that's below the 20% limit. The reactor can be smaller with the help of this fuel.

A core that is more compact and smaller can be built. We would need less fuel to design a reactor than a larger core. Arafat said that the biggest advantage of going higher is that.

Micronuclear reactor will be cheaper to build than light water reactor because of the small size and factory fabrication. The third and fourth reactor being built in Georgia have become notorious for being overages.

Yasir Arafat, the technical lead of the Marvel reactor microreactor project, speaking with CNBC at the Idaho National Lab.

The first microreactors off the factory line won't be cheap or fast. There aren't cheap and reliable clean energy alternatives such as remote communities in Alaska.

Diesel generators are the only technology that works in those locations. They are very far away. Arafat told CNBC that if we could replace diesel generators with a micro reactor, it would be more economical.

Arafat said that the cost of transmission will be virtually nil because microreactors will be near where energy will be used.

Arafat says that microreactors require less personnel and less maintenance work because their fuel needs to be replaced less frequently.

There is the safety part. Many of the microreactor's systems are passive.

Arafat said that everything from heat generation, heat transport, heat removal to heat rejection are done passive.

The side of the reactor is made of the same material as armored vehicles.

Arafat said that there would be little or no effect on the safety of the systems if there was an extreme weather event.

The prototype of the Marvel reactor at the Idaho National Lab.

The president of the American Nuclear Society cautions that the MARVEL project isn't going to be a panacea for decarbonization.

Arafat says that a light water reactor and a microreactor will generate between one and fivemegawatts of energy.

There are limitations to the ability to address our clean energy needs with them. Microreactors are ideal for remote situations, but not so much as a means of gigawatt scale generation of clean electricity for the conventional grid.

The same view is shared by a professor.

Gilbert told CNBC that they are distributed energy resources to serve off- grid customers, small towns and industrial operations. Alaska is likely to be an early initial market, as well as other parts of the northern part of the planet. They can be keystones in microgrids.

Many of the key issues that face the development of microreactors are the same that face the development of large scale nuclear in the US

Gilbert said that addressing these issues for the deployment of microreactors can help to pave the way for larger scale roll out of larger advanced reactor.

Arafat knows that the MARVEL project has a bigger purpose, which is to flex the muscles of nuclear innovation in the U.S. Arafat said that the art, science, and technology of going through the development of new reactor is a new realm for them.

CNBC had a contributor to the report.