A modern combustion turbine power plant relies on igniting fuel with compressed air that then spins a turbine attached to an electrical generator. About half the turbine’s energy is actually used to compress the air, and a steam-turbine driven generator can be used to recover energy from the gas turbine’s hot exhaust.

By using low-cost nuclear fuel and an efficient gas reactor nuclear system to drive a combustion turbine’s air compressor (instead of a generator) operational costs are greatly reduced, and electrical output is dramatically increased.

Stated somewhat differently, two combustion turbines would be required to produce the same electrical output as a single hybrid-nuclear unit. The higher capital cost of the efficient hybridnuclear reactor is offset by lower cost nuclear fuel and the low cost of the combined- cycle (power) block. The net effect is greatly reduced production costs relative to an equivalent combined-cycle plant that only burns expensive natural gas. A serendipitous environmental benefit: emissions (including the greenhouse gas CO2) are nearly halved.