Purdue University and Duke Energy announced April 27 that they plan to jointly explore the feasibility of using advanced nuclear energy to meet the campus community's long-term energy needs. With interest rising worldwide in new technologies that are reliable and carbon-free, Purdue and Duke Energy intend to study power produced through Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), a move that may be unprecedented for a college campus and a potential fit for Purdue's energy needs. Home to one of the nation's top nuclear engineering programs and a national leader in energy innovation that is scalable and sustainable, Purdue and its experts are uniquely qualified to evaluate this “giant leap” toward a carbon-free energy future.

Purdue is currently powered through the Wade Utility Plant, which is a combined heat and power system that uses steam to provide heat, electricity and chilled water that is used to cool facilities. A new Duke Energy plant on campus also provides thermal energy in the form of steam to Purdue, while also supplying Duke Energy's Indiana customers with electricity. Approximately 50% of campus electricity is purchased from Duke Energy.

Advanced nuclear technology is still under development, and nationally Duke Energy is involved with industry groups, reactor technology companies, and leading research universities such as Purdue that are exploring deployment of this advanced nuclear technology. SMRs are revolutionary in part because of their modular nature. They can be prefabricated off site, thereby saving money and time in construction.

And Purdue is at the forefront of this technology by pioneering, developing and verifying the steel-plate composite construction used in SMRs at the on-campus Bowen Laboratory through the Center for Structural Engineering and Nuclear Power Plants, which is led by Amit Varma, Purdue's Karl H. Kettelhut professor of Civil Engineering and director of the Bowen Laboratory of Large-Scale CE Research.