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Delay in removal of debris from Fukushima nuclear plant. Longterm clean-up at least a century

Removal of nuclear debris from Fukushima plant delayed for ‘around a year’: TEPCO   https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210326/p2a/00m/0na/030000c, March 26, 2021 (Mainichi Japan)   TOKYO — The removal of nuclear fuel debris from Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. (TEPCO)’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant will be delayed, according to a revised version of its 10-year decommissioning plan announced on March 25.

The biggest task in the decommissioning process is removing fuel debris including melted nuclear fuel from the plant’s No. 2 reactor. Initially the operator planned to commence this work in 2021 — 10 years after the plant’s triple-meltdown following the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami — but it has now been delayed “for around a year,” with no concrete commitment on when it will start.

Regarding the removal of fuel debris from reactors No. 1 and 3, the revised plan states that the operator will consider starting with reactor No. 3, envisaging subsequent expansion of the work to reactor No. 1, based on information and experience gained from the No. 2 reactor. However, the dates for removing the debris from the No. 1 and 3 reactors similarly remain undecided.

The government and TEPCO have projected that the decommissioning project will take 30-40 years from 2011. The latest 10-year plan extends to that time frame’s halfway point, but still there is no clear outlook for the decommissioning of the reactors. On the reason the operator was unable to state the date for the start of the No. 2 reactor fuel debris removal, an official at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry overseeing the revised action plan commented, “The effects of COVID-19 remain murky.”

As for the future of the nuclear plant site after decommissioning, locals have asked to turn it into a safe plot of vacant land, but there is no outline of this in the revised plan.Commenting on the form the site will take after decommissioning, Akira Ono, president of the Fukushima Daiichi Decontamination & Decommissioning Engineering Co., commented, “We’re unable to even discuss this.”

Last summer, the Atomic Energy Society of Japan estimated that it would take at least a century before the grounds of the nuclear power plant could be reused based on the time it would take to purify soil and groundwater contaminated with radioactive materials.Hiroshi Miyano of the society’s Study Committee on Decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi NPP, commented, “It relates to what our future picture of restoration looks like. We should quickly proceed with discussion.”(Japanese original by Suzuko Araki and Hisashi Tsukamoto, Science & Environment News Department)

March 27, 2021 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nuclear power costs – from the CATO Institute – a reality check for those who imagine nuclear as a climate solution.



Nuclear Power Costs,  CATO Institute, By Peter Van Doren, 26 Mar, 21,

“………………… In the Spring issue of Regulation I review a recent paper that documents the history of nuclear power plant construction in the United States and the increase in costs. From 1967 through 1978, 107 were constructed. Rather than costs going down over that time because of learning by doing, plant costs more than doubled with each doubling of cumulative U.S. capacity. The problem was declining “materials deployment productivity”—that is, the amount of concrete and steel that workers put together per unit time.

About 30 percent of the productivity reduction stems from nuclear regulatory safety concerns. According to the authors:

While our analysis identifies the rebar density in reinforced concrete as the most influential variable for cost decrease, changes to the amount and composition of containment concrete are constrained by safety regulations, most notably the requirement for containment structures to withstand commercial aircraft impacts. New plant designs with underground (embedded) reactors could allow for thinner containment walls. However, these designs are still under development and pose the risk of high excavation costs in areas or at sites with low productivity.

The sources of the other 70 percent of productivity slowdown were construction management and workflow issues, including lack of material and tool availability, overcrowded work areas, and scheduling conflicts between crews of different trades. Craft laborers, for example, were unproductive during 75 percent of scheduled working hours.

Plant builders attempted to address these problems by increasing the use of standardized prefabricated modules that could be shipped to site and installed. These were employed in later reactors, but whatever advantages they provided did not improve aggregate productivity.

Since the 1990s, two nuclear projects have begun construction in the U.S. Both are two‐reactor expansions of existing generating stations. The VC Summer project in South Carolina was abandoned in 2017 with sunk costs of $9 billion, and the Vogtle project in Georgia is severely delayed. Recent estimates place the total price of the Vogtle expansion at $25 billion, almost twice as high as the initial estimate of $14 billion, and costs are anticipated to rise further.


These problems are not unique to the United States. Projects in Finland and France also have experienced cost escalation, cost overrun, and schedule delays, which I also described ten years ago.

The paper provides an important reality check for those who believe nuclear power is an essential component of any strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. https://www.cato.org/blog/nuclear-power-costs

March 27, 2021 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nuclear power costs – from the CATO Institute – a reality check for those who imagine nuclear as a climate solution

Nuclear Power Costs,  CATO Institute, By Peter Van Doren, 26 Mar 21,

“………………… In the Spring issue of Regulation I review a recent paper that documents the history of nuclear power plant construction in the United States and the increase in costs. From 1967 through 1978, 107 were constructed. Rather than costs going down over that time because of learning by doing, plant costs more than doubled with each doubling of cumulative U.S. capacity. The problem was declining “materials deployment productivity”—that is, the amount of concrete and steel that workers put together per unit time.

About 30 percent of the productivity reduction stems from nuclear regulatory safety concerns. According to the authors:

While our analysis identifies the rebar density in reinforced concrete as the most influential variable for cost decrease, changes to the amount and composition of containment concrete are constrained by safety regulations, most notably the requirement for containment structures to withstand commercial aircraft impacts. New plant designs with underground (embedded) reactors could allow for thinner containment walls. However, these designs are still under development and pose the risk of high excavation costs in areas or at sites with low productivity.

The sources of the other 70 percent of productivity slowdown were construction management and workflow issues, including lack of material and tool availability, overcrowded work areas, and scheduling conflicts between crews of different trades. Craft laborers, for example, were unproductive during 75 percent of scheduled working hours.

Plant builders attempted to address these problems by increasing the use of standardized prefabricated modules that could be shipped to site and installed. These were employed in later reactors, but whatever advantages they provided did not improve aggregate productivity.

Since the 1990s, two nuclear projects have begun construction in the U.S. Both are two‐reactor expansions of existing generating stations. The VC Summer project in South Carolina was abandoned in 2017 with sunk costs of $9 billion, and the Vogtle project in Georgia is severely delayed. Recent estimates place the total price of the Vogtle expansion at $25 billion, almost twice as high as the initial estimate of $14 billion, and costs are anticipated to rise further.


These problems are not unique to the United States. Projects in Finland and France also have experienced cost escalation, cost overrun, and schedule delays, which I also described ten years ago.

The paper provides an important reality check for those who believe nuclear power is an essential component of any strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. https://www.cato.org/blog/nuclear-power-costs

March 27, 2021 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

New Zealand speaks out against UK’s expansion of nuclear weaponry.

New Zealand ‘disappointed’ over United Kingdom’s plans to expand nuclear arsenal, Stuff, Thomas Manch, Mar 26 2021  

New Zealand says the United Kingdom’s plan to boost its nuclear armoury by 35 warheads “undermines” the global disarmament effort.The United Kingdom had previously committed to reducing its nuclear arsenal to 180 weapons. But after a review its defence and foreign policy upon leaving the European Union, the country decided to embrace nuclear weapons as a “deterrent” and increase its arsenal from “up to 225” warheads to “up to 260”.

Disarmament and Arms Control Minister Phil Twyford told Stuff that New Zealand officials had contacted their counterparts in Britain to express their disappointment.”On so many foreign policy issues, the Brits are our mates, basically. But this is very disappointing. And it comes to the time when the world is hoping that nuclear disarmament is going to get back on the agenda,” he said.He said the British bid to increase their arsenal undermined the decades-old Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, to which Britain was a signatory.

“The non-proliferation treaty is based on the idea that the nuclear weapon states including Britain will reduce their arsenals, and in return for that other countries won’t develop nuclear weapons, that’s the bargain that was struck.

“[This] undermines the efforts of countries around the world, including New Zealand, to promote the disarmament.”New Zealand has long been an advocate for nuclear disarmament, after the country declared itself a nuclear-free zone in the 1980s, banning nuclear armed and propelled ships from its waters.”There’s no doubt that heightened strategic rivalry has made the international climate much more difficult than in recent years, for a whole host of different multilateral things, including trade, but certainly disarmament and arms control.

But the answer to that is not to start some new arms race. The answer is to redouble our efforts to negotiate.”I know that it won’t just be New Zealand, it will be lots of other countries that are saying to the Brits, ‘This is not the direction we should be heading in’.”Twyford said the world was in “quite a risky, vulnerable situation”, as efforts to reduce the nuclear arsenal held by both the United States and Russia – 90 per cent of the world’s warheads – had slowed.New Zealand would be pushing for countries to sign up to the new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in the coming year, he said. This new treaty asked countries to declare that nuclear weapons were illegal under international law……… https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/124666703/new-zealand-disappointed-over-united-kingdoms-plans-to-expand-nuclear-arsenal

March 27, 2021 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Beyond the pandemic, the priority should be the elimination of nuclear weapons

Eliminating nuclear weapons should be a priority as we look beyond the pandemic  ipolitics, By Gar Pardy. Mar 25, 2021,  “………..The world is not going to gather in Vienna as it did in 1815, where it reorganized Europe after the Napoleonic wars, and provided for a hundred years of relative freedom from wars. Today, the turmoil is different where coping with new diseases and the pollution of our environment takes precedent over global power relationships. However, the significance of those new relationships may give us the basis for a new world order more tuned to the needs of what was written in 1945 UN Charter. China, Russia and the United States were signatories to the Charter which opens with the words

WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINEDto save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, andto reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, andto establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, andto promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

Gar Pardy is retired from the Canadian foreign service and comments on public policy issues from Ottawa.  His latest book “China is a Changing World” is available from all online book stores and from Books on Beechwood in Ottawa. https://ipolitics.ca/2021/03/25/eliminating-nuclear-weapons-should-be-a-priority-as-we-look-beyond-the-pandemic/

March 27, 2021 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The nuclear weapons issue is a women’s issue

During Women’s History Month, thank women for preventing nuclear disaster (Commentary) https://www.syracuse.com/opinion/2021/03/during-womens-history-month-thank-women-for-preventing-nuclear-disaster-commentary.html 26 Mar 21, By Wendy Yost | Syracuse Peace Council Wendy Yost, of Syracuse, writes on behalf of the Nuclear Free World Committee of the Syracuse Peace Council.

Depending on how old you are, you may remember the 1950s and ’60s “duck and cover” drills in elementary school and signs leading to the atomic bomb shelters in public buildings. Or you may remember the Cuban Missile crisis when the world came dangerously close to nuclear war. Then, and now, most of us probably had or have no true idea of the devastation that such a war would bring.


During Women’s History month, we should thank women for bringing some sanity to the insanity of the Cold War. In 1961 Bella Abzug and Dagmar Wilson founded “Women Strike for Peace.” Their goal was to stop nations from nuclear testing. The movement brought 50,000 women in 60 different cities together in protest. Coretta Scott King served as the organization’s delegate to an international disarmament conference in 1962. The public pressure brought by these women and the near-disaster of the Cuban Missile crisis helped bring the Soviet Union, United Kingdom and U.S. together to sign the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, prohibiting nuclear testing underwater, in outer space and in the atmosphere in 1963. This marked the beginning of a series of hard-won international agreements that have helped prevent nuclear war since the 1960s.

Bella Abzug framed the nuclear issue as a women’s issue in saying “… We are entitled to our shared economic resources of the country. We are entitled to equal pay for comparable work … We are entitled to have some hope for our family with a decent environment. We are permanently entitled to world peace, which is the only way in which we can rebuild and restructure this society to make it for all people.”

These words ring true for our time. In 2021, women are disproportionately impacted by the pandemic in lost wages and increased responsibilities for childcare, education, and emotional support for stressed kids. While our predominantly male Congress has debated the country’s ability to afford childcare subsidies, extended unemployment benefits, child tax credits and support to reopen schools safely, our government spends approximately $67.5 billion per year on nuclear weapons. At the same time, the world has become less safe from nuclear weapons as international agreements have ended and diplomacy has been hollowed out and denigrated by the Trump administration.

There are hopeful signs as the Biden administration has recommitted efforts to end the nuclear threat by already negotiating an extension of the New START Treaty with Russia, reviving efforts to negotiate with Iran over nuclear weapons, and committing to reduced U.S. expenditures on nuclear weapons of annihilation. Notably, Biden has nominated several women to senior positions that involve nuclear non-proliferation including Bonnie Jenkins as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and Mallory Stewart as Senior Director for Arms Control and National Non-Proliferation for the National Security Council. These appointments are historic in nature for appointing women to top positions who have spent their careers working for peace, security and nuclear non-proliferation.

Let’s have Women’s History Month in 2021 be a time for women (and men) commit to making history by working for a world that is safe from nuclear weapons and a world where resources are committed to life-affirming programs and policies. This means supporting, expecting and demanding that the new administration meet and exceed its commitments to quell the threat of nuclear war. Visit preventnuclearwar.org and or peacecouncil.net/programs/nuclear-free-world-committee to learn more and take action.

March 27, 2021 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Physicians for Social Responsibility challenge the 20 year license extension for old enbrittled Point Beach nuclear statiion


Physicians group challenges license extension for Point Beach nuclear plant Chris Hubbuch | Wisconsin State Journal  26 Mar 21, An anti-nuclear group is seeking to block efforts to keep Wisconsin’s only operational nuclear power plant running through 2050.

Physicians for Social Responsibility filed a petition Tuesday asking federal regulators for a hearing on the application to add 20 years to the licenses for the Point Beach Nuclear plant in Two Rivers.The Madison-based nonprofit cites concerns about the age and structural integrity of the reactors, which began operation in 1970 and 1972, the public health risks of an accident and the heated water the plant dumps into Lake Michigan.

“These reactors are plagued with a long history of operational difficulties and embrittlement which make the risk of a catastrophic accident untenable for the safety of Wisconsin residents and the environment,” said Amy Schulz, a nurse and president of the Wisconsin chapter of PSR. “One simply needs to look at the financial, environmental and health costs paid by the people of Japan and Ukraine after the accidents at Fukushima and Chernobyl to recognize the folly of this relicensing proposal.

”The group also contends renewable energy sources provide safer and more economical alternatives to the plant, which sells electricity under contract to We Energies at a rate nearly double the average wholesale price in the Midwest.NextEra Energy last year filed an application asking the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to add 20 years to licenses for the two reactors at the 1,200-megawatt plant, which is Wisconsin’s single-largest source of electricity.Last renewed in 2005, the current licenses are set to expire in 2030 and 2033.

PSR filed the petition on behalf of 10 members who live within 50 miles of the plant, which they say poses a risk to their health and safety.Arnold Gundersen, a nuclear engineer and former plant operator testifying on behalf of PSR, said the Point Beach reactors “do not meet basic licensing requirements” and have been degraded by decades of radiation.

“Point Beach is the worst neutron embrittled reactor pressure vessel in the country, at risk of fracturing like glass in an emergency,” Gundersen said.The petition also calls the Point Beach units “super predators” that kill millions of aquatic organisms as they suck more than a trillion gallons of water per day from Lake Michigan and return the heated water.Hannah Mortensen, executive director of PSR Wisconsin, said while blocking the application extension is a long shot, the group hopes to at least persuade regulators to require the installation of cooling towers, which she said would mitigate some of the damage.“Lake Michigan already has enough problems with climate change,” Mortensen said.NextEra spokesman Peter Robbins said the company would respond to the group’s concerns through the NRC’s application review process……….

other witnesses for PSR question the value of the plant, which is under contract to provide electricity to We Energies. Under that agreement, the utility pays $55.82 per megawatt hour this year, about 63% higher than the average wholesale price for electricity in the region. By 2033, the cost rises to $122.45 per megawatt hour.The anti-nuclear group argues it would be far cheaper for ratepayers to replace the plant with a combination of solar panels with battery storage, energy efficiency measures and advanced grid controls.“Essentially it’s uneconomical to have Point Beach running into the future,” Mortensen said. “We actually have over 10 years to develop a plan. And the infrastructure is all there.”  
https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/environment/physicians-group-challenges-license-extension-for-point-beach-nuclear-plant/article_6dccf28d-6e5e-54a6-a66f-0acbcfc98e0e.html

March 27, 2021 Posted by | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Czech secret services warn against involvement of Russia in nuclear tender 

Czech secret services warn against involvement of Russia in nuclear tender  https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/czech-secret-services-warn-against-involvement-of-russia-in-nuclear-tender/By Ondřej Plevák | EURACTIV.cz  The Czech secret services have warned the Czech government against including Russian energy giant Rosatom in a planned tender on building a new unit at the Dukovany nuclear power station as it would leave the country vulnerable.The only solution, according to the secret service, is to exclude Rosatom before the tender even begins.

However, President Miloš Zeman is lobbying to have the Russian company involved in the tender. According to the findings of EURACTIV.cz’s media partner Aktuálně.cz and weekly Respekt, Industry Minister Karel Havlíček now wants to order the semi-state energy company ČEZ to contact Rosatom and three other bidders and send them the tender documentation.Opposition parties have attacked the move as government has not yet voted on the tender process.26 Mar    

A final decision on a contract to build a new unit will be made by the next government, which will form after the general elections in autumn. However, according to experts, it will be very hard to exclude the Russian company after the documentation has been sent, even though the tender would not officially start yet. (Ondřej Plevák | EURACTIV.cz)

March 27, 2021 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Biased pro nuclear report on UK’s Sizewell project ignores the negative economic impacts

East Anglian Daily Times 25th March 2021, Opponents of Sizewell C have criticised a report claiming the power project will bring a £2billion boost to Suffolk as “smoke and mirrors” – but council chiefs have welcomed the findings. Commissioned by the Sizewell C Consortium, a group of 200-plus businesses and organisations supporting the proposed nuclear power station, the report was written by Ernst and Young after speaking to supply chain and key businesses in the region. The report said the decade-long construction period would bring an investment of £4.4bn in the East of England, of which around £2bn would be in Suffolk, along with tens of thousands of new jobs.

Campaign group Stop Sizewell C said: “This report uses smoke and mirrors. It massively overstates construction period jobs by counting them by the year so, over a 10-year build, the number is only 10% of those claimed. “Over three quarters of EDF’s construction workforce – around 6,000 – would be imported from outside East Anglia. EDF’s management has made no secret of its ‘ambition’to bring skilled workers from its Hinkley site to Suffolk. “The report uses gross spend rather than any net ‘benefit’ to Suffolk. “If a £20billion project is going to dominate the area for a decade you would expect a proportion to be spent locally, but 10% seems very bad value for money.


“The report also ignores the many negative economic impacts on East Suffolk’s thriving SME-based local business community, such as traffic congestion, displacement of workers, and loss of customers – not least in tourism.”

https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/sizewell-economic-boost-reaction-7849530

March 27, 2021 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Report on the military implications of China’s new fast-breeder nuclear reactor plans – ”Plowshares to Swords ?”

China’s Civil Nuclear Sector: Plowshares to Swords? (Occasional Paper 2102), 26 Mar 21, http://npolicy.org/article.php?aid=1548&rtid=2
 Today, Reuters reported that China is pushing the development of a new generation of fast breeder reactors that make significant quantities of weapons-grade plutonium. The article draws on reports that China is building not one, but two large reprocessing plants (the first likely to come on line in 2025; the second sometime before 2030) and two large fast breeder reactors (projected to begin operation in 2023 and 2026).

With the normal operation of fast breeder reactors of the size China is building comes the annual production of hundreds of bombs’ worth of weapons-grade plutonium. This has major military implications. To help clarify them, the Reuters article, cites NPEC’s research report, “China’s Civil Nuclear Sector: Plowshares to Swords?”, which NPEC is releasing today. The senior-most nuclear nonproliferation policy officials of both the Trump and the Obama Administrations — Christopher Ford and Thomas Countryman — coauthored the report’s preface and endorsed its determinations.

The report’s key finding is that given China’s large fast reactor program, China could conservatively produce 1,270 nuclear weapons by 2030 simply by exploiting the weapons-grade plutonium this program will produce. If China chose, in addition, to make weapons that either used highly enriched uranium or composite (uranium-plutonium) cores, it could increase this number by a factor of two or more.

The report makes several recommendations. First, our government needs to learn why, after 2017, China stopped reporting privately on its civilian plutonium activities and holdings to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). China, Russia, the United States, France, the UK, and Japan agreed to make these reports and have done so since 1997.

Second, the US, South Korea, Japan, and China should make this information public and also publicly share their uranium holdings and enrichment related activities. On the defense side, Washington should ask Beijing to reveal what its military plutonium and uranium holdings are. The United States already did so in 1996 and 2001.

Finally, the report recommends that the United States explore with China, Japan, and South Korea the idea of taking a commercial plutonium production timeout. Currently, fast reactors are far less economic than the least economic of conventional reactors. Japan, South Korea, and the United States could and should offer to delay their fast reactor and commercial plutonium programs if China would agree to do the same.

The full report includes work by Hui Zhang of Harvard’s Belfer Center, Greg Jones, Frank Von Hippel of Princeton University, David Von Hippel, and two appendices consisting of previously published NPEC studies. The later examine the difficulties of preventing abrupt and incremental diversions from commercial nuclear fuel-making plants of the type China and Japan have or are planning to build and that South Korea and the United States are considering developing.

March 27, 2021 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

China’s push for advanced nuclear reactors will produce much weapons grade plutonium

Reuters 25th March 2021, China’s push to develop fuel for a new generation of nuclear power
reactors will produce large amounts of materials that could be diverted to
making nuclear weapons, non-proliferation experts said on Thursday.

China is developing advanced fast reactors and reprocessing facilities as it
seeks to reduce dependency on coal, which emits emissions harmful to human
health and that worsen climate change.

But reprocessing also produces plutonium that could be used to make nuclear weapons. There is no evidence
that China intents to divert its potential plutonium stockpile to weapons
use, but concern has grown as Beijing is expected to boost its number of
nuclear warheads over the next decade from the low 200s now.

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1N2LM34J

March 26, 2021 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

No operating nuclear reactor in France is up to the required safety standard

Greenpeace France 25th March 2021, Measures to strengthen the French nuclear fleet, ten years after the
Fukushima disaster. On the basis of the available data and information
transmitted by the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), Greenpeace France
analyzed, with the support of the NegaWatt Institute, the reality of the
measures implemented to put the French nuclear fleet to post Fukushima
standards.

The finding is clear: no operating reactor is up to standard.
Ten years after the disaster, out of 23 structuring measures identified,
only 12 have been implemented throughout the park. Worse, at the current
rate planned, it would take until 2039 for post Fukushima standards to be
finally met on all French reactors.

https://www.greenpeace.fr/mesures-renforcement-parc-nucleaire-francais-dix-ans-catastrophe-fukushima/

March 26, 2021 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Iodine tablets to be givento 64 municipalities near France’s Paluel nuclear power plant in Normandie

Paris – Normandie 24th March 2021, Iodine tablets to protect residents living near the Paluel nuclear power
plant. Paluel. 64 municipalities and 108,000 inhabitants are now included
in the security perimeter extended to 20 km around the nuclear power plant.
A campaign to distribute iodine tablets is underway.

https://www.paris-normandie.fr/id176468/article/2021-03-24/des-comprimes-diode-pour-proteger-les-riverains-habitant-pres-de-la-centrale

March 26, 2021 Posted by | France, health | Leave a comment

Struggling with WordPress’s new “improved” format

I might have to switch this 13 yewars’old blog to a different system Have enjoyed the former “classic” system, which was very user-friendly. Suddenly now, it seems to be unavailable , ans this one is a pain

March 25, 2021 Posted by | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Why Small Modular Nuclear Reactors Won’t Help Counter the Climate Crisis

Why Small Modular Nuclear Reactors Won’t Help Counter the Climate Crisis https://www.ewg.org/energy/23534/why-small-modular-nuclear-reactors-won-t-help-counter-climate-crisiswhy-small-modular

One in a series of articles on “None of the Above”

Small modular nuclear reactors, or SMRs, are designed to generate less than 300 megawatts of electricity – several times less than typical reactors, which have a range of 1,000 to 1,600 MW.  While the individual standardized modules would be small, plans typically call for several modules to be installed at a single power generation site.   

The nuclear industry and the U. S. Department of Energy are promoting the development of SMRs, supposedly to head off the most severe impacts of climate change. But are SMRs a practical and realistic technology for this purpose?


To answer, two factors are paramount to consider – time and cost. These factors can be used to divide SMRs into two broad categories:

Light water reactors based on the same general technical and design principles as present-day power reactors in the U.S., which in theory could be certified and licensed with less complexity and difficulty.

Designs that use a range of different fuel designs, such as solid balls moving through the reactor core like sand, or molten materials flowing through the core; moderators such as graphite; and coolants such as helium, liquid sodium or molten salts.On both counts, the prospects for SMRs are poor. Here’s why.

Economics and scale

Nuclear reactors are large because of economies of scale. A reactor that produces three times as much power as an SMR does not need three times as much steel or three times as many workers. This economic penalty for small size was one reason for the early shutdown of many small reactors built in the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s.

Proponents of SMRs claim that modularity and factory manufacture would compensate for the poorer economics of small reactors. Mass production of reactor components and their manufacture in assembly lines would cut costs. Further, a comparable cost per kilowatt, the argument goes, would mean far lower costs for each small reactor, reducing overall capital requirements for the purchaser.

The road to such mass manufacturing will be rocky. Even with optimistic assumptions about how quickly manufacturers could learn to improve production efficiency and lower cost, thousands of SMRs, which would all be higher priced in comparison to large reactors, would have to be manufactured for the price per kilowatt for an SMR to be comparable to that of a large reactor.

If history is any guide, the capital cost per kilowatt may not come down at all. At a fleet-wide level, the learning rate in the U.S. and France, the two countries with the highest number of nuclear plants, was negative – newer reactors have been, on the whole, more expensive than earlier ones. And while the cost per SMR will be lower due to much smaller size, several reactors would typically be installed at a single site, raising total project costs for the purchaser again.  

Mass manufacturing aspects

If an error in a mass-manufactured reactor were to result in safety problems, the whole lot might have to be recalled, as was the case with the Boeing 737 Max and 787 Dreamliner jetliners.

But how does one recall a radioactive reactor? What will happen to an electricity system that relies on factory-made identical reactors that need to be recalled?    These questions haven’t been addressed by the nuclear industry or energy policy makers –  indeed, they have not even been posed. Yet recalls are a predictable and consistent feature of mass manufacturing, from smartphones to jet aircraft.The problem is not merely theoretical.

One of the big economic problems of pressurized water reactors, the design commonly chosen for light water SMRs, including the NuScale design, which has received conditional certification from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, was the need to prematurely replace the steam generators – the massive, expensive heat exchangers where the high-pressure hot water from the reactor is converted to the steam that drives the turbine-generators. In the last decade, such problems led to the permanent shutdown of two reactors at San Onofre, in Southern California, and one reactor at Crystal River, in Florida.Several SMR light water designs place steam generators inside the reactor vessel (Figure 1). Replacement would be exceedingly difficult at best; problems with the steam generator could result in permanent reactor shutdown. 
We have already seen problems with modular construction. It was a central aspect of the design of the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor, yet the AP1000 reactors built in the U.S. and China have had significant construction cost overruns and schedule delays. In 2015, a former member of the Georgia Public Service Commission told The Wall Street Journal, “Modular construction has not worked out to be the solution that the utilities promised.”

March 25, 2021 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

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