Big nuclear plants are sooooo last decade.

The future is small, even micro, according to Westinghouse Electric Co., the Cranberry-based nuclear firm whose current business relies on those big centralized power plants.

But seeing the writing on the wall — a company presentation cites data showing how small, decentralized sources have overtaken the big power plants in new grid installations — Westinghouse is advancing a so-called microreactor called eVinci.

Despite the moniker, it’s not microscopic — just small enough to put on the bed of a truck.

Picture this: a remote Army base in frigid Alaska, some 150 miles from the Arctic Circle.

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“Most of the year there’s no sunshine,” said Yasir Arafat (his real name), Westinghouse’s technical lead for eVinci. “Wind turbines would ice up. The only thing that works there is diesel.”

The diesel must be replenished every six months. The fuel trips command resources and have national security implications.

The eVinci idea would function like a nuclear battery. “Once it’s plugged in, it will work for 10 years straight,” Mr. Arafat said.

Westinghouse only recently has begun to showcase the idea in public. Mr. Arafat made the pitch at a microgrid conference at Eaton’s Experience Center in September. Then, he was forbidden from answering further questions about the technology — at least to the press.

Before that, though, Mr. Arafat said that Westinghouse’s “eventual grand vision” is to plug an eVinci into any microgrid in the world.

In June, the microreactor got a $5 million nod of approval from the Department of Energy.

“It’s going to be essential for the federal government to keep providing support,” said John Kotek, vice president of policy development and government affairs at the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group in Washington D.C.

Mr. Kotek, assistant secretary for nuclear energy at the Department of Energy during the Obama administration, wasn’t just talking about the eVinci microreactor.

Half a dozen companies, including NuScale Power and General Atomics, are developing their own very small nuclear plants and they have their eye on the federal government.

The Department of Defense — the largest federal agency by budget — expressing an interest in microreactors is exactly the kind of “demand signal” that can get the ball rolling on the technology, Mr. Kotek said, not just propping up a design but establishing the supply chain to ensure microreactors actually can be manufactured and deployed as promised.

It doesn’t hurt to have Rita Baranwal, a former Westinghouse executive, at the helm of the Department of Energy’s nuclear research efforts.

Ms. Baranwal, who was nominated to be the new assistant secretary for nuclear energy, said at her confirmation hearing in October that working with the Department of Defense to deploy advanced reactors would be among her priorities.

Microreactors will have to prove that they are not just a scaled down version of a large nuclear reactor — either in design or in deployment.

To think up the eVinci model, Westinghouse drew inspiration from nuclear reactors that power space ships, as those are “probably the only nuclear reactor concept that run autonomously, without any operators,” Mr. Arafat said.

The concept also requires more advanced materials to withstand temperatures up to 600 degrees Celsius, nearly twice the heat inside an AP1000 reactor vessel.

The cost and timetable would have to be selling points for microreactors.

Westinghouse’s timelines for launching new technology are notoriously optimistic. The last big launch — the company’s AP1000 nuclear reactors in Georgia and South Carolina — landed the nuclear powerhouse in bankruptcy.

Those projects began in 2008 and, with the South Carolina project abandoned, the job in Georgia — current price tag is $27 billion with the potential to rise — trudges forward with still years to go.

In stark contrast, one corporate presentation had Westinghouse shooting for less than a week of on-site installation for the eVinci.

The reactor would use fresh nuclear fuel that can be repurposed “at least three or four times,” Mr. Arafat said. In addition to military bases, Westinghouse also envisions the eVinci powering remote civilian communities and even industrial mines.

The company is expecting commercial operations in 2024.

Anya Litvak: alitvak@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1455.

First Published: December 31, 2018, 2:00 p.m.