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Britain’s nuclear power plans in tatters

Climate News Network 23rd Sept 2020, The decision by the Japanese company Hitachi to abandon its plan to buildtwo large nuclear plants in the United Kingdom leaves the British government’s energy plans in tatters, and the UK nuclear industry
reeling.

The UK’s official plan is still to build ten nuclear stations in
Britain, but only three schemes remain. Most have now been cancelled by the
companies that planned to build them, principally because they cannot raise
the capital to do so.

This leaves only the debt-laden French giant EdF and
the Chinese state-owned industry still in the field. At the same time,
Britain’s existing nuclear plants are in trouble. They are not ageing
gracefully, cracks in their graphite cores and rust in their pipework
causing ever-lengthening shutdowns and retirement dates to be brought
forward.

The plants at Hunterston B in Scotland, Hinkley Point B in
Somerset in the West of England, and Dungeness B in Kent on the south-east
coast, are all struggling to survive.

https://climatenewsnetwork.net/uk-nuclear-industry-seeks-subsidies-for-survival/

 

September 24, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Britain’s nuclear power dreams melting away – with soaring costs, and political problems

U.K. Nuclear Fleet Plans Evaporating Amid Economic, Political Problems, https://www.enr.com/articles/50109-uk-nuclear-fleet-plans-evaporating-amid-economic-political-problems    September 20, 2020, Peter Reina

The U.K.’s hopes for a fleet of new nuclear plants, potentially exceeding 13,000 MW, took another hit when Japan’s Hitachi Ltd. recently pulled out of a major project in Wales. With Chinese investment in two other projects alsolmore doubtful, only the 3,300MW Hinkley Point C project in Somerset, England, has so far progressed to construction

Having suspended development work on the Welsh two-unit plant at Wylfa Newydd in January 2019, Hitachi earlier this month announced that the already difficult investment environment had “become increasingly severe due to the impact of COVID-19.” The company wrote off $2.8 billion of investment in the Welsh plant last year.

Hitachi’s departure followed the Toshiba Corp.’s decision in late 2018 to quit the 3,400-MW Moorside plant, in Cumbria. It had failed to find co-investors for its Westinghouse powered project.

With uncertainty growing, Hinkley Point C is the only U.K. nuclear project o have started work, which is so far largely on schedule, according to Electricité de France (EdF), which controls 66.5% of the deal. China General Nuclear Corp. owns 33.5% of project, which will be powered by two French EPR pressurized water reactors.

Hitachi’s withdrawal from the U.K. market has alarmed supporters of the nuclear industry, since it also casts a cloud over the planned 3,340-MW Sizewell C project in Cumbria.

“For the first time in a generation the U.K has developed a world class nuclear construction and engineering supply chain. Without Sizewell C, we will not sustain it,” says Cameron Gilmour, spokesperson for the Sizewell C Consortium lobby group of key companies in the sector.

The Sizewell C plant would replicate Hinkley Point C and is “shovel ready” according to Gilmour. The U.K. Planning Inspectorate is considering an application for the project submitted this May. The agency’s recommendations will end up on the government’s desk for a final decision at some point.

However, general investment uncertainties and increasingly frosty relations between the U.K and Chinese governments bode ill for the deal, says Stephen Thomas, an energy policy specialist at the University of Greenwich, London.

Set up under a previous conservative administration, the Hinkley Point C deal included CGNC’s participation as a junior partner in Sizewell C. Also, CGNC would have full responsibility for a proposed 2,300 MW Bradwell plant in Essex.

Bradwell would be a global showcase for the technology as it would be the first plant in an industrialized country to use the Chinese Hualong One reactors, Thomas says.

However, the Chinese government was angered over the U.K.’s rejection this July of Huawei technology for the cell phone networks. At the same time, criticism by the country’s lawmakers of China’s participation in critical infrastructure is increasing.

Both developments make the Bradwell deal uncertain. And if Bradwell falls, the Chinese are unlikely to remain merely as passive, junior investors in Sizewell C, potentially scuppering the whole deal, says Thomas.

Investment uncertainties lie at the heart of the U.K.’s fading nuclear hopes. The government offered the Hitachi team a far less generous deal than the one secured by EdF for Hinkley Point C.

While the Hinkley deal protects U.K. electricity consumers from cost escalations, it comes at a high price, according to Thomas. The deal is based on a “contract for differences” which sets an index linked energy price of $120 per MWh at 2012 prices for 35 years. That is hugely more than the $51 per MWh now being bid for offshore wind contracts, he says.

For subsequent deals, the government last year turned to the Regulatory Asset Base (RAB) form of funding used by water and types of utilities. Rather than having a target energy price, electricity tariffs would be controlled by the regulator, which would consider factors such as need for investment and a fair rate of return on capital.

The government completed a review of the system this January but has yet to make a decision, adding to investment uncertainty, says Thomas.

Meanwhile, in the west of England, contractors recently placed the 170-tonne base of the second reactor’s steel containment liner at Hinkley Point on time, despite pandemic working restrictions.

EdF claims to have met critical path goals during the pandemic, but it has yet to reveal the extent of delays on other parts of the job. The site’s workforce is now back to its pre-pandemic level of 4,500 having fallen to 2,000 after February.

Civil and building work is being handled by a joint venture of Paris-based Bouygues Travaux Publics and the U.K.’s Laing O’Rourke Plc. in a contract signed in late 2017, then valued at around $3.6 billion.

However, “challenging ground conditions” and additional design effort have contributed to an overall project cost rise to $29 billion from around $23 billion in 2016, reports EdF. The company still plans to commission the first unit in 2025, but the project has yet to enter its trickier nuclear component phase, officials concede.

Europe’s only two other projects using the same reactor design and involving Bouygues are hugely over schedule. Finland’s Olkiluoto 3 plant and EdF’s flagship French project at Flamanvile are both running about a decade late.

With this track record and future financing doubts, prospects for new projects around the world look bleak, says Thomas.

But nuclear power “has had a history of climbing out of the coffin,” he adds.

September 22, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | 1 Comment

UK government to subsidise Sizewell nuclear power station?

UK government could take stake in Sizewell nuclear power station, BBC,  Simon Jack, Business editor@BBCSimonJackon16 September 2020   

The collapse of a project to build a new nuclear power station at Wylfa, Wales may accelerate government approval of a new station at Sizewell, government and industry sources say.

The government is disappointed after Japan’s Hitachi pulled out but insists it is committed to new nuclear as way to decarbonise the UK power supply.

It is looking at options to replace China’s CGN as an investor in Sizewell.

That could include the government taking a stake in the plant.

Of six sites originally identified over a decade ago for replacements for the UK’s ageing nuclear fleet, only one is under construction, three have been abandoned and two are waiting approval.

One major sticking point over Sizewell has been the involvement of Chinese state-owned company China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) in the UK’s new nuclear plans.

CGN already owns a 33% stake in Hinkley Point C in Somerset, currently under construction by French firm EDF, which owns the other two thirds.

The Chinese firm also took a 20% stake in the development phase of Sizewell on the understanding it would participate in the construction phase and then land the ultimate prize of building a reactor of its own design at Bradwell in Essex.

State aid rules

If CGN are excluded the government may choose to take a direct stake in Sizewell, according to people familiar with the matter.

There was a time when a Conservative government would have been very reluctant to take a direct stake in a commercial development. That time has passed.

Industry sources and within the government say Chinese involvement in designing and running its own design nuclear reactor on UK soil “looks dead”, given revived security concerns and deteriorating diplomatic relations after the government’s decision to phase out Chinese firm Huawei’s equipment from a new generation of telecommunication networks.

It’s no secret that Boris Johnson’s powerful adviser Dominic Cummings is a big fan of the idea of small nuclear reactors and EDF are telling him that big nuclear is an important stepping stone to small.

EDF has also been very vocal about the advantages of reproducing the design of Hinkley at Sizewell. Although a similar design of reactor ran into major cost and time overruns in France and Finland, EDF says they UK is poised to benefit from the lessons learned from those mistakes. It also points out that the UK will benefit from transferring high skilled jobs from one site to another.

There was a time, not so long ago, that government ministers talked enthusiastically about “a new nuclear age”. A fleet of brand new reactors producing reliable, low carbon (but expensive) electricity for decades to come.

Hinkley, Moorside, Wylfa, Oldbury, Bradwell and Sizewell were identified as the sites for the most significant national wave of new nuclear power construction anywhere in the world.

Of those six, only one is under construction, three have been abandoned, and two are still waiting for the green light.

The next couple of weeks could tell us which way the wind is really blowing on the government’s appetite for both nuclear energy and new levels of direct state investment. 

If a mobile network is considered too sensitive, it’s hard to argue that a nuclear power station is not.

The next couple of weeks could tell us which way the wind is really blowing on the government’s appetite for both nuclear energy and new levels of direct state investment. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54181748

September 21, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Why NuScam and other ”small” nuclear proposals just don’t make any sense

New nuclear projects, like this NuScale proposal, make no sense, Deseret,  By Robert Davies, Contributor  Sep 18, 2020, The debate over nuclear power has ramped up recently in Utah, with a number of the state’s municipal power agencies wrestling with continued participation in an experimental nuclear project in Idaho, the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems/NuScale project.

Much has already been written about the project itself. Though proponents tout benefits of cost and reliability, two municipalities so far, Logan and Lehi, have recently opted out of further participation, citing mainly financial concerns over an experimental design with delays and cost overruns mounting rapidly. Still, this extremely expensive energy might be worth it ― if the environmental benefits, particularly for climate change, were significant.

Climate change is regarded within the full scientific community as a bona fide civilizational emergency ― that is, a situation requiring immediate, meaningful response to avoid catastrophic outcomes. For the climate emergency, meaningful response means cutting global carbon emissions at least in half in the next decade, and eliminating them entirely in the next two to three decades.

Electricity generation, as roughly a third of the current carbon emissions, is a large piece of the equation ― and it is on this point that nuclear power has been worth considering. Indeed, the project’s developers, having christened the endeavor the “Carbon Free Power Project,” are emphasizing the climate angle. And if the question were about building new nuclear generation versus new fossil (coal or natural gas) generation, they would have a point; the clear winner with respect to climate would be nuclear.

But this isn’t the question. In rapidly decarbonizing the electrical grid, the name of the game is replacing existing high-carbon (coal and gas) with new low-carbon, as quickly as possible.

……..proposed new nuclear makes no sense ― because it isn’t competing with fossils. Instead, new nuclear is competing with low-carbon renewables, chiefly solar and wind. And it simply can’t compete.

Investing in new nuclear projects to combat climate change is akin to the crew of the Titanic devoting time to building a whole new ocean liner instead of putting all their effort into loading the lifeboats; it steals time and resources from a much better alternative. Any money spent on new nuclear could buy us four to six times more wind and solar energy, available in months instead of a decade. And, remember, the next 10 years are critical.

Faced with this reality, UAMPS/NuScale proponents have said they want a mostly renewable grid, but supplemented by just a bit of nuclear for “baseload” ― and that this is necessary.

The refrain of 20th century-era power managers is that renewables like wind and solar aren’t reliable (“The wind doesn’t always blow, the sun doesn’t always shine … ”) and so constantly humming “baseload” is necessary for reliability. It sounds reasonable, but like most bumper-sticker wisdom, doesn’t hold up. In fact, it is objectively, demonstrably wrong.

The technologies of energy storage (utility-scale battery systems, for example) and demand management (when the energy is used) have transformed the landscape. Traditional “baseload” is no longer a necessary grid attribute. Anyone who says it is simply isn’t keeping up.

In Australia, for example, a 100-megawatt utility-scale battery system (about 1.5 times bigger than one of NuScale’s nuclear modules) is already proving more reliable and 90% cheaper than the “baseload” natural gas system it’s replacing. ………

new nuclear makes no sense whatsoever ― financially, or far more importantly, for addressing climate change.

The UAMPS/NuScale project is a poor choice for the planet, for our nation and for Utah’s independent municipal power companies. A bright future is possible if we’re smart and focused; the nuclear power trap is a distraction we can’t afford.

Robert Davies is an associate professor of professional practice in Utah State University’s department of physics. His work focuses on global change, human sustainability and critical science communication.https://www.deseret.com/opinion/2020/9/18/21400144/guest-opinion-nuscale-uamps-nuclear-project-power-utah-idaho-makes-no-sense

September 19, 2020 Posted by | 2 WORLD, business and costs, climate change | Leave a comment

Nuclear energy CHEAP? Nuclear has drained Germany of more than €1trn to date

 

September 19, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, Germany, politics | Leave a comment

Hitachi pulls out – halting two big UK nuclear projects. Renewables would be a fraction of their costs

Hitachi halts 5.8 GW of UK nuclear plans

With the Japanese conglomerate this week walking away from two new nuclear plants in the United Kingdom, project developer Horizon Nuclear Power has confirmed all activities at both sites will cease. The facilities had struggled to secure funding despite offers from government. Horizon said it will ‘keep lines of communication open’ regarding the future of the sites. PV Magazine,  SEPTEMBER 18, 2020 MARK HUTCHINS  The former Wylfa nuclear power station was decommissioned in 2015. Plans for a new reactor on an adjacent site have been abandoned with the withdrawal of Hitachi from the project.

Japanese conglomerate Hitachi has pulled out of the construction of two U.K. nuclear projects with a total 5.8 GW of generation capacity, citing ongoing delays and an increasingly tough investment environment due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The projects, on the Welsh Isle of Anglesey and at Oldbury on Severn, near the English city of Bristol, were taken on by Hitachi in 2012. Construction was suspended in January last year as funding could not be secured for the reactor at Wylfa Newydd, on Anglesey, and Hitachi’s U.K. subsidiary Horizon Nuclear Power has confirmed it will cease development at both sites, though it still hopes to revive the projects.

Hitachi said it would coordinate with government and other stakeholders as holder of the license to build nuclear reactors at the sites. The company posted losses last year from the suspended projects and said it does not expect the decision to further affect its finances……….

Renewables

Critics of nuclear power are likely to view the Hitachi decision as further evidence of the inherent cost and complexity problems associated with the technology, and will repeat arguments the U.K. and other regions would be better served by an energy transition focusing on renewables.

Mycle Schneider, lead author of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report told pv magazine: “Nuclear power plant projects frequently get abandoned even after construction has started. One in eight construction sites have been abandoned at various stages of advancement of construction. Some have been completed and never switched on, and there is absolutely no guarantee that Hinkley Point C will ever generate power,” said Schneider, in reference to a third planned nuclear plant in the southwest of England.

“It has become obvious that renewables, even unsubsidized, come in at a fraction of the cost of new nuclear power. In the U.K., onshore and offshore wind are less than half the cost of nuclear. If the U.K. government keeps planning for nuclear power plants, it’s not because there was no choice, and it has nothing to do with market-economy driven energy policy.”

Solar industry representatives also called on the government to recognize renewables’ potential to fill in gaps left by abandoned and delayed nuclear projects and to implement supportive policies, as well as an auctioning system to boost large-scale projects. “The UK is facing a significant low-carbon energy gap in the 2030s, resulting from the abandonment of new nuclear projects,” said Chris Hewett, Chief Executive of the Solar Trade Association. “Solar PV is well-positioned to help plug a significant portion of this, but the Government must step in to bring down the numerous barriers that are holding growth back, such as punitive business rates and a lack of prioritization of grid capacity for the technology.”  https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/09/18/hitachi-halts-5-8-gw-of-uk-nuclear-plans/

September 19, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

USA taxpayers set up by government in the effort to save uneconomic nuclear power

September 19, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

As Hitachi exits the project, UK government to announce funding for Wylfa nuclear project next month

Hitachi Abandons $26 Billion Nuclear Power Project in U.K.  Bloomberg Green, By Stephen Stapczynski  and Rachel Morison16 September 2020, 

  • U.K. due to make statement on financing model next month
  • U.K. government says still committed to building new nuclear

Hitachi Ltd. exited a long-planned U.K. nuclear power project despite the most generous support package for an atomic station in Britain, a bad omen for future projects.

The Japanese company announced Wednesday that it decided to withdraw from the Wylfa power project in Wales, citing a worsening investment environment due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Work has been suspended on the 20 billion-pound ($26 billion) venture since January 2019 after the company failed to reach a financing agreement with the U.K. government.

The decision is the latest setback for nuclear’s revival, which supporters promote as the carbon-free solution for reliable power at a time of growing climate change concerns. Cost overruns and cheaper competition is stifling projects and developers in Japan, the U.S. and the U.K.

Britain is one of a handful of developed countries still building nuclear reactors, with the government putting them at the middle of an effort to attract billions of pounds of investment in new low-carbon power plants and create thousands of jobs. However, financing these prohibitively expensive infrastructure projects has become a hurdle, especially in the face of cheaper natural gas and renewables.

A financing package offered to Hitachi in 2019 wasn’t enough to attract additional private investor interest. The U.K. has been considering a funding model that would have seen the state shouldering more of the construction risk. The outcome of that consultation has been delayed.

The U.K. said it had offered a package that “went well beyond what any government has been willing to consider in the past.” Atomic energy still forms a key plank of energy policy including in small and advanced modular reactors.

A financing package offered to Hitachi in 2019 wasn’t enough to attract additional private investor interest. The U.K. has been considering a funding model that would have seen the state shouldering more of the construction risk. The outcome of that consultation has been delayed.

The U.K. said it had offered a package that “went well beyond what any government has been willing to consider in the past.” Atomic energy still forms a key plank of energy policy including in small and advanced modular reactors.

Prospects for the Wylfa plant looked more optimistic last month when Horizon Nuclear Power Ltd., Hitachi’s subsidiary developing the project, said it was engaged with the U.K. government on reviving the project.

The future of how the U.K. finances new nuclear is expected to be announced in the government’s long anticipated energy white paper next month……… https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-16/hitachi-abandons-u-k-nuclear-power-project-in-blow-to-industry

September 17, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Huge costs of decommissioning Britain’s ”Magnox” nuclear failities just keep going up

UK spending watchdog warns on costs of cleaning up old nuclear plants
Decommissioning charge has risen by £3bn since 2017 and there remains ‘inherent uncertainty’ over final bill, NAO finds, Nathalie Thomas in Edinburgh,  SEPTEMBER 11 2020,  Estimates of the cost to clear up 12 of the UK’s earliest nuclear power sites have increased by nearly £3bn since 2017 and there remains “inherent uncertainty” over the final bill, the country’s public spending watchdog has warned.

The National Audit Office on Friday published its latest report into the long-running saga around the decommissioning of two research sites and 10 early nuclear power stations in Britain, which came to be known as the “Magnox” plants due to the magnesium alloy that was used to cover the fuel rods inside their reactors.
 The spending watchdog also found that the costs to the taxpayer of a botched 2014 tender process to outsource the decommissioning to the private sector was £20m higher than when it last investigated three years ago. Cleaning up the Magnox sites, which were built before privatisation and include Hunterston A in Scotland and Hinkley Point A in Somerset, has turned into a costly and torturous affair.
In 2016 the High Court ruled the 2014 competition for a 14-year contract to decommission the sites — which had been awarded to Cavendish Fluor Partnership, or CFP, a joint venture between UK-based Babcock International and Fluor of the US — had been “fudged” by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, a body attached to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
 A year later ministers, acting on legal advice, terminated the arrangement with CFP nine years early and renegotiated a shorter contract that ran until the end of August 2019. Decommissioning of the sites was then brought in-house by the NDA  .
The NAO’s previous probe in 2017 into the decommissioning concluded that the failed Magnox contract had cost the taxpayer £122m in settlements with unsuccessful bidders, legal costs and staff time. In its latest report on Friday, the watchdog found the NDA had, in addition, agreed to pay up to £20m to exit the contract early, although it praised the authority for renegotiating the agreement under “the challenging circumstances”.
The watchdog also revealed that NDA estimates for the cost of getting all the Magnox plants “cleared and safely enclosed” had increased by up to £2.7bn to as much as £8.7bn since 2017. It added that costs are “likely to be subject to further change, largely because of the inherent uncertainties involved in cleaning up the UK’s nuclear sites”. Once the reactors and waste stores are sealed, the sites are kept secure for a period potentially as long as 80 years for radiation levels to decay. In 2014, the same costs had been estimated at £3.8bn..  …….. https://www.ft.com/content/6f313c84-d314-4160-b124-a68c4e85be09

September 17, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Hitachi definitely exits UK nuclear power project

Hitachi decides to exit UK nuclear power project – Mainichi newspaper  https://www.reuters.com/article/hitachi-nuclear/hitachi-decides-to-exit-uk-nuclear-power-project-mainichi-newspaper-idUKT9N2FQ03Y– Reporting by Makiko Yamazaki; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim , By Reuters Staff, TOKYO (Reuters) –14 Sept 20,  Japanese conglomerate Hitachi Ltd 6501.T will completely exit from a stalled British nuclear power project, the Mainichi newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The board of directors could make a formal decision as early as at their planned meeting on Wednesday, the paper said, citing sources.

A Hitachi spokeswoman said the reported decision was not something the company announced.

 

September 15, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

U.S. seeks to lower Russian uranium imports to boost U.S. nuclear industry

U.S. seeks to lower Russian uranium imports to boost U.S. nuclear industry. By Valerie Volcovici, WASHINGTON, Sept 14 (Reuters) – The U.S. Commerce Department on Monday inked a draft agreement with Russia’s state

 nuclear energy company to reduce imports of uranium from Russia over the next 20 years in a bid to boost domestic mining and
 nuclear energy.

The Commerce Department and Rosatom initialed the draft amendment to the 1992 Russian Suspension Agreement to prevent

dumping, extending that deal to the year 2040 and gradually reduce the amount of uranium the U.S. imports from Russia for
enrichment from 20% to 15% starting in 2028……… https://af.reuters.com/article/usa-nuclear-russia-idAFL1N2GB1HZ

September 15, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear power is not climate-effective, simply because of comparative costs and delays

This is a thorough analysis of the costs and time delays of nuclear power, as compared with those of energy efficiency and renewables. It does show that in the fight to stop climate change, the push for nuclear is a wasteful distraction.

My only problem with this argument is that it seems to imply that, apart from its exorbitant costs and delays, nuclear power might be effective. Not so!

 

 

Nuclear reactors make climate change worse,  September 13, 2020 by beyondnuclearinternational 

September 14, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, climate change, USA | Leave a comment

Magnox nuclear clear-up cost soars to £9bn

September 14, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

A powerful message on the seismic dangers in Hinkley Point C nuclear construction. It would be cheaper to pull out now.

Radiation Free Lakeland 12th Sept 2020, Seismic Warnings – if not now when will the Government Scrap Hinkley C? This week there was yet another earthquake recorded in the Bristol area. It was small but significant, contributing to the well documented seismic activity of the area. If eyewatering costs, long delays, a mental and physical health crisis among the employees building Hinkley Point C are not enough to scrap this hubristic nuclear new build plan then the seismic warnings should be.

This insane project next to operational reactors has seen the geological stresses of the biggest pours of concrete in the UK
alongside three huge tunnels being bored below the seabed. German based multi-national company Herrenknecht built the hugely expensive tunnel boring machines which will be dumped under the Bristol Channel once done.

A total of 38,000 concrete segments are needed to support the tunnels, which would transfer 120,000 litres of water per second for the new nuclear plant when finished. The Bristol area is seismically active so to put increased geological stress deliberately in the vicinity of existing nuclear reactors is the kind of hubris that disaster movies are made of.

Scrapping Hinkley C now and paying off the developers would be far cheaper and far safer than continuing down this route to nuclear disaster.

https://mariannewildart.wordpress.com/2020/09/12/seismic-warnings-if-not-now-when-will-the-govnt-scrap-hinkley-c/

September 14, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, politics, safety, UK | Leave a comment

NuScam’s ”small” nuclear reactor design approved – but cost, safety, public acceptance hurdles loom against them

First U.S. Small Nuclear Reactor Design Is Approved, Concerns about costs and safety remain, however, Scientific American By Dave Levitan on September 9, 2020   

    The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has approved the design of a new kind of reactor, known as a small modular reactor (SMR). The design, from the Portland, Ore.–based company NuScale Power, is intended to speed construction, lower cost and improve safety over traditional nuclear reactors…………
    some experts have expressed concerns over the potential expense and remaining safety issues that the industry would have to address before any such reactors are actually built.  ………
    The NRC’s design  and related final safety evaluation report (FSER) do not mean that the firm can begin constructing reactors. But utility companies can now apply to the NRC to build and operate NuScale’s design. With almost no new nuclear construction completed in the U.S. over the past three decades, SMRs could help reinvigorate a flagging industry.

NuScale’s SMR, developed with the help of almost $300 million from the U.S. Department of Energy, has a generating capacity of 50 megawatts—substantially smaller than standard nuclear reactors, which can range to well more than 1,000 megawatts (MW). A utility could combine up to 12 SMRs at a single site, producing 600 MW of electricity—enough to power a midsize city. The NRC says it expects an application for a 60-MW version of NuScale’s SMR in 2022……….

Opponents have cited the unresolved issue of disposing nuclear waste, as well as the significant price tag and time involved in building any nuclear plant, compared with renewable energy sources.
NuScale believes it can avoid the dramatic cost overruns and years-long delays that have plagued construction of traditional nuclear power plants in recent decades. Diane Hughes, the company’s vice president of marketing and communications, says that the company expects to sell anywhere from 674 to 1,682 reactors between 2023 and 2042. ……
NuScale has signed memorandums of understanding with companies and utilities in the U.S., Canada, Jordan, Romania, Ukraine and other countries. The agreements simply mean the parties will jointly explore potential deals. 
NuScale’s first scheduled project is with Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS), a state-based organization that supplies wholesale electricity to small, community-owned utilities in surrounding states. NuScale plans to deliver its first reactor to the UAMPS project at the Idaho National Laboratory by 2027; it is scheduled to be operational by 2029. Another 11 reactors will round out the 720-MW project by 2030. A portion of the generated power will be sold to the U.S. Department of Energy, with the rest purchased by UAMPS member utilities. Agreements for some of the power are in place, although a few municipalities have already walked away because of price concerns. Others have until September 30 to exit the project.
Experts have expressed skepticism about both the safety of the NuScale SMR and its potential costs. In an online press event on September 2, M. V. Ramana, a professor and nuclear expert at the University of British Columbia, discussed a report he prepared at the request of Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility that highlighted significant issues associated with the UAMPS project.
“I am sorry to say that what lies ahead is risky and expensive,” Ramana said. Just in the past five years, he noted, cost estimates from various sources for the UAMPS project have risen from approximately $3 billion to more than $6 billion. NuScale’s initial goal of having operational reactors by 2016 has been extended by more than a decade, reflecting the sluggish U.S. nuclear industry in general. Costs to consumers could far exceed those associated with other emissions-free power sources such as solar and wind, Ramana added.
And despite the NRC’s design approval of the new SMR, some safety features still require adjustment. “I don’t think future NuScale applicants will benefit from a design certification that has safety gaps in it,” says Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists. He points out that the NRC has issued its final safety report in spite of questions raised both by an expert at the agency and an external advisory board.

In a July 2020 report, NRC nuclear engineer Shanlai Lu discussed a complicated issue known as boron dilution, which could possibly cause “fuel failure and prompt criticality condition”—meaning that even if a reactor is shut down, fission reactions could restart and begin a dangerous power increase. And in another report, the NRC’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards also noted that “several potentially risk-significant items” are not yet completed, though it did still recommend that the NRC issue the FSER. The agency’s response to the latter report stated that those items will be further assessed when site-specific licensing applications—the step needed to actually begin building and operating a reactor—are submitted. ……..

Lyman says that in general, the NRC’s design certification process should reduce uncertainty for utilities aiming to build nuclear plants because they can reference a completed safety review. But he thinks the NuScale approval undermines that advantage. Whether the gaps in safety will result in further delays to NuScale’s time line remains to be seen. The NRC will undertake another review when the company’s 60-MW design is submitted.  https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/first-u-s-small-nuclear-reactor-design-is-approved/

September 10, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

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