A damning new report on the unlikely future for Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs)
NFLA support joint report with the Nuclear Consulting Group which looks at the prospects of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors in the UK and globally and concludes they will not be built to any significant scale http://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/nfla-joint-ncg-report-on-smrs/ 25 Jul 19
The Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) welcomes cooperating with the Nuclear Consulting Group (NCG) in its development of one of the most detailed analyses of the technologies being developed to create small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) in the UK and around the world. This report concludes there remains fundamental barriers to any significant development of this new nuclear technology, and its prospects for creating some kind of ‘nuclear renaissance’ are unlikely to be realised.
The report has been developed by Professor Stephen Thomas of Greenwich University, Dr Paul Dorfman of University College London and NCG Founder, Professor M V Ramana of British Columbia University, and the NFLA Secretary. (1) The global nuclear industry has put forward SMRs as a panacea to the problems of high cost and the difficulty of financing large nuclear reactors; a ready-made alternative that can fill the gap.
However, as the NCG / NFLA report outlines in detail, there are huge obstacles to overcome. Some of these are technical issues, others are around building up an effective supply chain, while the financing of such schemes will only be possible with significant and large subsidy from the public purse.
The report starts with considering the failures in delivering larger nuclear reactors, and then takes in turn each type of SMR technology that has been put forward by companies involved in the nuclear industry.
The report outlines in some detail UK Government policy on SMRs. It notes that after some considerable early promotion of the technology, interest has markedly cooled, despite another fairly limited amount of money being offered to develop the technology, announced earlier this week. (2) The report notes the extraordinary set of conditions set out by Rolls Royce to be met by the UK Government if it is to invest significant amounts of money in its own SMR design, which the authors argue could and should not be committed to at a time when serious doubts remain about the economic viability of the technology.
At a global level, the report concludes that, as with the much-heralded ‘nuclear renaissance’ of recent times, SMRs will not be built in any significant scale. The authors note that the two main rationales for SMRs – promised lower overall project costs and lowering the risk of cost overruns by shifting to an assembly line approach – are more than offset by the loss of scale economies that the nuclear industry has pursued for the past five decades. Indeed, many of the features of the SMRs being developed are the same ones that underpinned the latest, failed generation of large reactors. Reactor cost estimates will remain with a large degree of uncertainty until a comprehensive review by national nuclear regulators is completed, the design features are finalised and demonstration plants are built. Whether the economies claimed from the use of production line techniques can be achieved will only be known if reactors are built in very large numbers, and at significant cost.
Spending so much time and effort pursuing such an uncertain technology, at a time when the ‘climate emergency’ has now reached the political and public lexicon in requiring urgent attention, does not appear to be an effective use of taxpayer resources. Abundant evidence shows that renewable energy supply, storage, distribution and management technologies are being developed ever cheaper and swifter at a time when real urgency is required across society and government to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. SMRs are no answer to creating low-carbon economies by 2030 or close to that date. Governments should consider this report carefully and not be diverted by an unproven technology inherent with many difficult issues still to overcome.
In the overall view of the report authors, the prospects for SMRs in the UK and Worldwide are limited and not worth the huge levels of effort or finance being proposed for them.
NFLA Steering Committee Chair Councillor David Blackburn said:
“This excellent independent analysis on the prospects for small modular nuclear reactors needs to be read by the new Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom and senior civil servants in the UK Government who have been providing support to the development of small modular nuclear reactors. It is clear from this joint report between the NCG and the NFLA that this technology is not the panacea to kick start new nuclear reactors, far from it. As Councils around the country declare ‘climate emergencies’ it is clear from this report that scarce available resource should not be spent developing this technology but rather diverted into renewable energy, smart energy, energy efficiency and energy storage projects instead. As large new nuclear like at Moorside and Wylfa has failed to be realised, it is time now to move away from small nuclear reactors as an expensive sideshow to the critical needs of mitigating carbon.”
Report co-author Professor Steve Thomas added:
“Nuclear proponents are saying that SMRs will be the next big thing – but the reality is they are as expensive as large reactors, produce the same waste, carry the same radiation risks, and are a long way from any real deployment.”
Ends – for more information please contact Sean Morris, NFLA Secretary, on 00 44 (0)161 234 3244.
Notes for editors:
(1) NCG / NFLA report – Prospects for Small Modular Reactors in the UK and Worldwide, July 2019
http://www.nuclearpolicy.info/wp/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Prospects-for-SMRs-report-2.pdf
(2) Energy Live News, Government mulls investing £18 million to develop UK’s first mini nuclear reactor, 23rd July 2019 https://www.energylivenews.com/2019/07/23/government-mulls-investing-18m-to-develop-uks-first-mini-nuclear-reactor/
UK government commits to ordering mini nuclear reactors from Rolls Royce
Rolls-Royce gets government commitment for mini nuclear reactors UK aero-engine maker seeks to spearhead development of export-led industry https://www.ft.com/content/32ee2100-ad43-11e9-8030-530adfa879c2 Sylvia Pfeifer in London, 24 July 19,
Although the initial commitment is just £18m, it will allow the consortium to mature the design of the reactors. The move, which is subject to a final sign-off, would still require significant levels of additional investment before the reactors can become a commercial reality. The UK aero-engine maker has long argued that its technology in this sphere should be regarded as a “national endeavour” to develop nuclear skills that can be used to create an export-led industry.
A consortium spokesperson said on Tuesday that the £18m investment would be used to “mature the design, address the considerable manufacturing technology requirements and to progress the regulatory licensing process”. He added: “We believe with early co-investment by the government, this power station design is a compelling commercial opportunity.”
Rolls-Royce and its team, which includes Laing O’Rourke and Arup, was one of several consortiums that bid in an initial government-sponsored competition launched in 2015 to find the most viable technology for a new generation of small nuclear modular reactors (SMRs). Most of these will not be commercial until the 2030s
Supporters argue that they can deliver nuclear power at lower cost and reduced risk. They will draw on modular manufacturing techniques that will reduce construction risk, which has plagued larger-scale projects. However, when a nuclear sector deal was finally unveiled last June, the government allocated funding only for more advanced modular reactors.
MRs, which typically use water-cooled reactors similar to existing nuclear power stations, were omitted from funding even though they were closer to becoming commercial. Rolls-Royce threatened last summer that it would shut down the project if there was no meaningful support from the government.
Ministers have in recent months scrambled to recast Britain’s energy policy after the collapse of plans to build several large reactors and on Monday evening published proposals to finance new nuclear plants by having taxpayers pay upfront through their energy bills. The government added that, as part of its plans to fund advanced nuclear technologies, it would make an “initial award” of up to £18m under the industrial strategy challenge fund to the Rolls-Royce-led consortium in the autumn. The consortium has said any government funding will be matched in part by contributions from the companies as well as by raising funds from third-party organisations.
Hinkley Pt nuclear station’s cooling system will mean massacres of fish
 Times 20th July 2019 Nuclear power plant will suck fish to their deaths, The Times, Ben Webster,, Oceans Correspondent, July 20 2019 It has been described as a giant plughole under the sea, sucking in 130,000 litres of water a second along with vast numbers of fish. The twin inlet tunnels stretching two miles out into the Severn estuary are so big that adouble-decker bus could drive through them. The system will cool a new
nuclear power station being built at Hinkley Point in Somerset but conservation groups say it will kill up to 250,000 fish a day and must be altered or scrapped. They say that EDF, the French state-owned energy group, has grossly underestimated the system’s impact on marine life in the estuary, a special conservation area. A 5mm mesh will be installed to
prevent larger fish being swallowed but the groups, including the Blue Marine Foundation, Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust and Somerset Wildlife Trust, say many fish will be fatally injured when pressed against it. Small fish, eels and the fry of many species, such as salmon, whiting and cod, will be sucked through the mesh and into the cooling system. The groups say it
could damage the population of twaite shad in the UK, a small herring-like fish that used to spawn in the estuary by the millions but has dwindled to tens of thousands. EDF says the system will kill about 650,000 fish a year.
It has asked to vary its original permits and planning permission for the power station to allow it to remove an “acoustic fish deterrent” from the cooling system. It argues that, even without it, the impact of the system on fish populations will still be “negligible”. EDF says fish will be adequately protected by other measures, one which will slow the water entering the system and another which will return to the sea the fish sucked in. Conservation groups argue that scientific analysis they obtained
of the cooling system shows far greater harm to marine life. This analysis is partly based on measurements of fish swallowed by the cooling system of Hinkley Point B, a nearby nuclear power station which consumes a quarter of the sea water that will be extracted to cool Hinkley C. They want the
government to reject EDF’s application and, if the company cannot mitigate the damage, force it to use other ways to cool the station, such as cooling towers or ponds. James Robinson, of the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, said:
“The authorities must decide if it’s worth building a giant plughole to suck millions of sea animals to their deaths, in one of our most important protected marine areas, in order to produce electricity.” Charles Clover, director of Blue Marine Foundation, said the groups would also challenge plans by EDF for a similar system at its proposed new nuclear power station at Sizewell in Suffolk. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/e0c7e83e-aa68-11e9-89e4-5e7e89de8df9 |
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Small Modular Nuclear Reactors – at least 10 years away – Canadian Nuclear Association
 Mini-nuclear power plants at least 10 years out: Canadian Nuclear Association, The Post Millennial Jason Unrau, 21July 19,
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New type of nuclear fusion plan, but the reality is as far away as ever
Skunk Works’ Exotic Fusion Reactor Program Moves Forward With Larger, More Powerful DesignThis will be the company’s fifth major design iteration as it pushes ahead toward building a potentially revolutionary practical prototype. The Drive, BY JOSEPH TREVITHICK, JULY 19, 2019, Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works is building a new, more capable test reactor as it continues to move ahead with its ambitious Compact Fusion Reactor program, or CFR. Despite slower than expected progress, the company remains confident the project can produce practical results, which would completely transform how power gets generated for both military and civilian purposes……
Since then, teams in various countries have built functional fusion reactors, but they remain large, inefficient, and expensive. Last year, China touted progress on its Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), but without highlighting that this reactor is situated inside a two-story building within the Dongpu Science Island, a large research campus on a lakeshore peninsula in China’s Anhui Province. An international consortium also hopes to have the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) up and running in France in 2021, but this reactor will weigh approximately 23,000 tons.
Unfortunately, despite the progress that Skunk Works has made, many questions remain about whether its new reactor concept will be able to succeed whether other designs have failed. Lockheed Martin has initially suggested it might have a viable prototype ready this year or the next.
By 2017, that schedule had gotten pushed back to sometime in the mid-2020s. In his interview with Aviation Week, Babione did not offer any more of a specific timeline for when a practical reactor, which the company refers to as TX, might be ready……. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29074/skunk-works-exotic-fusion-reactor-program-moves-forward-with-larger-more-powerful-design?fbclid=IwAR3KPPiShDzNPTS-Zz3XHjhC8QjyBE3S0Ymlc2sgdg0BL7NrJAmt-KLusZg
Utah communities sign on, rather cautiously, to buy NuScale’s Small Modular Nuclear Reactors
communities in Utah and elsewhere have agreed to purchase nuclear power from a small modular reactor planned at the Idaho National Laboratory, triggering a next phase in its development.
America’s original moon plan was to explode a nuclear bomb on the moon
Landing on the Moon was option B.
Option A was to detonate a nuke on it.
In the late 1950s, Washington set in place a secret operation to examine the feasibility of detonating a thermonuclear device on the surface of our closest celestial neighbour.
It was codenamed Project A119.
Had it gone ahead, the expression “shooting for the Moon” would have gained a whole new meaning.
A spectacular scheme born of desperationWhat might now seem unimaginable only makes sense in the context of the Cold War, historian Vince Houghton says……..
The West was given a shock with the launch of Sputnik and very quickly the US Government flew into action and said we need to do something very spectacular,” Dr Houghton says.
“We need to do something so big that the whole world will know that this was just an anomaly, that Sputnik was just a blip, that the United States was still the big kid on the block.”
And with that, Project A119 was born.
One hell of a mushroom
The idea behind the project was ambitious, but simple — to create an explosion and lunar mushroom cloud so awe-inspiring and unavoidable that no matter where you lived on planet Earth, it would be impossible to ignore the extent of America’s military and technological might.
Appointed to lead the project was a physicist named Leonard Reiffel, who later went on to become the deputy director of the Apollo Program at NASA.
Dr Houghton says when delivering the initial findings in June 1959, cost was among the major reasons why the project was scuttled.
But he says there were also concerns about damaging the lunar landscape.
“There were some scientists who said: ‘You know, we might want to walk up there some day. Maybe we don’t want to blow the hell out of it before we do,'” he says.
“But, again, Sputnik was so terrifying that a lot of people were willing to take that chance.
“A lot of people were willing to say: ‘You know what? The Moon’s big enough that we can nuke it and land on it at the same time, so let’s give this a shot.'”
The big bang that fizzed
Dr Reiffel’s secret report into the feasibility of a lunar detonation was eventually declassified in 2000.
It carried a rather innocuous title: A Study of Lunar Research Flights.
It suggested that detonating a nuclear device on the Moon was technically feasible, but it gave no substantive detail as to how it might be done.
The project never proceeded to operational phase.
Interviewed by The Guardian shortly after the report’s declassification, Dr Reiffel expressed his personal relief.
“I am horrified that such a gesture to sway public opinion was ever considered,” he said.
“Had the project been made public there would have been an outcry.
“I made it clear at the time there would be a huge cost to science of destroying a pristine lunar environment, but the US Air Force were mainly concerned about how the nuclear explosion would play on Earth.”
Dr Houghton says it’s important to view Project A119 in its historical context.
He details the operation in a new book called Nuking the Moon, which examines a whole slate of radical intelligence projects that were set in motion during WWII and the Cold War, but which were never carried out……… https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-17/moon-us-plans-cold-war-russia-sputnik/11220340
Future space travellers will be, in reality, radiation guinea pigs
Space radiation hasn’t contributed to astronaut mortality — yet, study shows
An analysis of all living and dead astronauts and cosmonauts shows that radiation hasn’t contributed meaningfully to their mortality rates. Astronomy, By Korey Haynes , July 5, 2019 “ ………… they found no trend in the deaths suggesting any common cause, meaning radiation didn’t play a major role in the health outcomes of the astronauts and cosmonauts they studied.
Of course, this doesn’t mean humans are in the clear.
“We would expect that at some level of dose there should be adverse health effects,” Reynolds says. “We keep getting the answer ‘no.’ This doesn’t mean radiation isn’t harmful or greater doses wouldn’t be. But so far the doses have been low enough that we don’t see anything.”
That’s probably because the vast majority of space farers so far have spent most or all of their time in Earth orbit, where Earth’s magnetic fields still protect them from the majority of harmful space radiation. Only those 24 astronauts who ventured to the Moon went beyond Earth’s radiation protection, and they stayed for just a few days.
Reynolds says that it’s difficult to draw meaningful results from that tiny sub-sample of people.
By contrast, a Mars mission might last multiple years, and would take place almost entirely beyond Earth’s shielding.
Other researchers are looking at alternative ways of testing the dangers of radiation exposure. But it’s possible that the next round of human space explorers will be guinea pigs, much like the first generation, and only time will tell how radiation has affected them.http://www.astronomy.com/news/2019/07/space-radiation-hasnt-contributed-to-astronaut-mortality–yet-study-shows
A heightened solar cycle, by chance, reduced the exposure of Apollo astronauts to space radiation
The term “radiation” is used to describe energy that is emitted in the form of electromagnetic waves and/or particles. Humans can perceive some forms of electromagnetic radiation: visible light can be seen and infrared radiation (heat) can be felt.
Meanwhile, other varieties of radiation such as radio waves, X-rays and gamma rays are not visible and require special equipment to be observed. Worryingly, when high energy (ionising) radiation encounters matter, it can cause changes at the atomic level, including in our bodies.
There are a several sources of ionising radiation in space. The sun continuously pours out electromagnetic radiation across all wavelengths – especially as visible, infrared and ultraviolet radiation. Occasionally, enormous explosions on the solar surface known as solar flares release massive amounts of X-rays and gamma rays into space, as well as energetic electrons and protons (which make up the atomic nucleus along with neutrons). These events can pose a hazard to astronauts and their equipment even at distances as far from the sun as Earth, the moon and Mars.
Potentially dangerous radiation in space also originates from outside our solar system. Galactic cosmic rays are high energy, electrically charged atomic fragments that travel at nearly the speed of light and arrive from all directions in space.
On Earth, we are protected from most of this ionising radiation. The Earth’s strong magnetic field forms the magnetosphere, a protective bubble that diverts most dangerous radiation away, while the Earth’s thick atmosphere absorbs the rest.
But above the atmosphere, the magnetosphere traps energetic subatomic particles in two radiation regions. These “Van Allen belts” comprise an inner and outer torus of electrically charged particles.
Lucky escape
So how did NASA solve the problem of crossing the Van Allen belts? The short answer is they didn’t. To get to the moon, a spacecraft needs to be travelling quickly to climb far enough away from the Earth such that it can be captured by the moon’s gravity. The trans-lunar orbit that the Apollo spacecraft followed from the Earth to the moon took them through the inner and outer belts in just a few hours.
Although the aluminium skin of the Apollo spacecraft needed to be thin to be lightweight, it would have offered some protection. Models of the radiation belts developed in the run-up to the Apollo flights indicated that the passage through the radiation belts would not pose a significant threat to astronaut health. And, sure enough, documents from the period show that monitoring badges worn by the crews and analysed after the missions indicated that the astronauts typically received doses roughly less than that received during a standard CT scan of your chest.
But that is not the end of the story. To get to the moon and safely back home, the Apollo astronauts not only had to cross the Van Allen belts, but also the quarter of a million miles between the Earth and the moon – a flight that typically took around three days each way.
They also needed to operate safely while in orbit around the moon and on the lunar surface. During the Apollo missions, the spacecraft were outside the Earth’s protective magnetosphere for most of their flight. As such, they and their crews were vulnerable to unpredictable solar flares and events and the steady flux of galactic cosmic rays.
The crewed Apollo flights actually coincided with the height of a solar cycle, the periodic waxing and waning of activity that occurs every 11 years. Given that solar flares and solar energetic particle events are more common during times of heightened solar activity, this might seem like a cavalier approach to astronaut safety.
There is no doubt that the political imperative in the 1960s to put US astronauts on the moon “in this decade” was the primary driving factor in the mission timing, but there are counterintuitive benefits to spaceflight during solar activity maxima. The increased strength of the sun’s magnetic field that permeates the solar system acts like an umbrella – shielding the Earth, moon and planets from galactic cosmic rays and therefore lessening the impact on astronaut radiation doses. https://theconversation.com/space-radiation-the-apollo-crews-were-extremely-lucky-120339
Bill Gates now glum about the prospects for his nuclear power company TerraPower
Bill Gates faces “daunting” nuclear energy future, Amy Harder AXIOX 15 July 19 ,The optimism usually radiating from billionaire Bill Gates when it comes to climate change is starting to fade on one of his biggest technology bets: nuclear power.
Driving the news: The Microsoft co-founder has focused much of his time lately on climate change and energy innovation. In an exclusive interview with Axios, Gates said that setbacks he is facing with TerraPower, a nuclear technology firm he co-founded in 2006, has got him questioning the future of that entire energy source.
……It’s declining in most places around the world, including the U.S., due to aging reactors, cheaper energy alternatives and public unease about radioactive risk ……
- The industry’s future is riding on largely unproven technologies like that of TerraPower because they’re smaller and deemed safer than today’s huge reactors.
“Without this next generation of nuclear, nuclear will go to zero,” Gates said during an interview in Washington last month. Germany is shutting 22 nuclear plants, France — a leader in clean-burning nuclear power — has plans to shut down some of its reactors and a similar trend is underway in the U.S. due to economic conditions, said Gates, before adding with a sigh: “So yes, it is daunting.”
Flashback: Gates announced in December that TerraPower was scrapping plans to build a demonstration reactor in China, largely due to the Trump administration deciding that fall to crack down on technological agreements between the two nations.
“There are times like when TerraPower gets told not to work in China, you’re thinking, ‘Boy, is this thing going to come together or not?’ ” Gates said in what are his first public comments on the matter since it happened. “That was a real blow.”
Where it stands: Gates is now trying to build TerraPower’s demonstration reactor in the U.S., calling on the Energy Department and Congress to more aggressively support advanced nuclear power through more funding and new legislation. Such a plant could cost anywhere between $3-$6 billion, say experts and Gates’ energy advisers.
- Bellevue, WA-based TerraPower is opening a new 65,000-square foot facility in the same region later this year to expand its research and testing, which is currently done in a lab 1/6th that size.
- Gates, whose net worth is roughly $100 billion, hasn’t disclosed how much money he has put toward the company, but experts think it’s at least $500 million.
“If at the end of the day we don’t find a country that wants to build an advanced nuclear power plant, then TerraPower will fail. I’m going to keep funding it for a period of years. And working with the U.S. is our strategy right now.”
— Bill Gates ………‘TerraPower’s traveling wave may prove to be an example of a very ambitious attempt to solve a very challenging problem that has turned out to be too expensive and too difficult,” said Chris Gadomski, head of nuclear research at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. ………
Russia’s grandiose nuclear ambitions – expressed in its floating nuclear plant for the Arctic
Russian floating nuclear plant prepares for towing into Arctic seas, Plant to support 50,000-person Chukotka region with power for oil and gas industries Katie Toth · CBC News Jul 10, 2019 Russia’s controversial nuclear barge is ready to travel through the Arctic seas — and observers across the globe are watching.
Greenpeace has called it a “floating Chornobyl.”
But the Akademik Lomonosov, which will dock in the Eastern Siberian town of Pevek, also provides a small glimpse into Russia’s northern ambitions and the role of nuclear power in achieving them.
Russia’s atomic energy agency, the Rosatom State Atomiс Energy Corporation (ROSATOM), has said in news releases that the future floating nuclear power plant will be a key piece of infrastructure as it develops its Arctic shipping route.
Meanwhile, the agency has started work on a fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers to keep that route open. Its latest three ships can cut through three metres of ice, and each can produce 350 megawatts of power.
It’s a lot more difficult to counter a catastrophe there than anywhere else on the globe.– Jan Haverkamp, Greenpeace
Rebecca Pincus, an assistant professor with the U.S. Naval War College, says Russia’s vision for itself as a global superpower in the 21st century hinges on the far North.
Russia’s grand strategy for the century is centred on developing Arctic resources,” Pincus said. “That economic engine [is] … integral to Russia relaunching its place in the world.”
According to statements by ROSATOM, the plant will supply the 50,000-person Chukotka region with power and it will support “key industries” in this oil-and-gas rich region.
‘It’s a classical Russian solution’
The choice to build a floating nuclear power station is “a fabulous little encapsulation of all the challenges Russia faces in developing its Arctic zone,” Pincus said. “Floating a nuclear power plant to a tiny little city in the Russian Arctic is colossally challenging, colossally expensive … it’s a classical Russian solution.”
………. Jan Haverkamp, a nuclear energy expert with Greenpeace, says his organization is right to be worried. The Lomonosov will be docking in one of the most remote places in the world.
The Lomonosov, prior to a paint job. Greenpeace is concerned about the plant and its isolated location, saying that it would be difficult to counter a catastophe in the remote region. (ROSATOM)
“It’s a lot more difficult to counter a catastrophe there than anywhere else on the globe,” he said.
Haverkamp is also concerned about the power being used to extract fossil fuels.
“Climate change is a given.… Opening up new fossil projects at the moment, when the world needs to be fossil-free in 2050, does not seem to make very much sense.”
Meanwhile, ROSATOM says this barge is only a small piece of a new future for floating nuclear power. It’s building a second generation of the floating nuclear units, and it’s in talks with several countries looking to buy nuclear barges of their own.
Emails to ROSATOM’s media contact were not returned before publication.
The barge will start getting towed to Pevek in August. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/russia-floating-nuclear-plant-1.5206448
Uranium and plutonium are the key elements in a nuclear reaction
Iran is enriching uranium and breaking the limit set by the nuclear deal. Here’s what 
that means. VOX, By
……….Uranium enrichment is a critical step in making nuclear energy and nuclear weapons.
Uranium and plutonium are the key elements in a nuclear reaction…….. specific starting materials, most commonly uranium and plutonium, must be processed or enriched to drive a chain reaction.
Here are some of the basics: Uranium is the heaviest naturally occurring element in the periodic table, with an atomic number of 92, representing the number of protons in its nucleus………..
Plutonium, on the other hand, is a synthetic element. It has an atomic number of 94 and is formed in nuclear reactors as a byproduct of neutrons being captured by uranium. Plutonium can be acquired from reprocessing spent fuel from conventional nuclear power plants, or reactors can be designed specifically to produce plutonium for use in weapons.
But making plutonium usually requires a reactor to begin with, so uranium remains the choke point for both uranium-based and plutonium-based weapons.
The nuclear reaction is the same for weapons and energy. The desired outcome is different.
So you have your uranium (or plutonium). Can you now make a bomb?
Not quite. Let’s wade into the history and science of splitting atoms to set the stage for nuclear negotiations today.
Researchers found since the 1930s that they could bombard uranium with neutrons to create heavier isotopes and form new elements that have never before been seen in nature, like plutonium.
An isotope is a variety of an element with the same chemical structure but a different internal composition. In comparing isotopes of an element like uranium, the atomic number stays the same, but the isotope number — the sum of the protons and neutrons in a nucleus — can differ. Uranium-235 (U-235), for example, has three fewer neutrons than uranium-238 (U-238), but they undergo the same chemical reactions.
In their experiments, German scientists Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner, and Fritz Strassmann in 1938 found another curious result. Among the atoms resulting from neutron bombardment were much smaller atoms like barium, which has an atomic number of 56. Meitner, along with Austrian scientist Otto Frisch, realized that this was the result of splitting the uranium atom into smaller atoms, a phenomenon that also emits a huge amount of energy. The finding marked the dawn of the nuclear age.
Isotopes of atoms that can split apart (undergo fission) are described as fissile. When there are enough fissile atoms close together — a quantity known as critical mass — the particles ejected by fission can strike other fissile atoms, triggering more atoms to split apart and so on. The energy released in the process can generate heat to boil water to spin a turbine or wreak devastation from a bomb.
But not all uranium atoms can easily split apart and trigger a chain reaction. In fact, most can’t. In nature, about 99.7 percent of uranium is in the form of the non-fissile isotope U-238.
Only about 0.7 percent of uranium occurs in the fissile form of U-235. And in nature, U-235 is in such a low concentration that even if a stray neutron were to strike it with enough force to break it apart, it’s unlikely that the resulting neutrons would find another U-235 atom nearby to continue the reaction.
To produce a chain reaction, you need to increase the concentration of U-235 relative to U-238. This is called enrichment.
For plutonium, all isotopes are fissile, but some are easier to use in nuclear weapons than others. Plutonium rich in the isotope Pu-239, called weapons-grade plutonium, poses the fewest technical challenges and can be extracted from nuclear fuel that is only irradiated in a reactor for a short time.
Making uranium and plutonium useful is a major technical challenge
Enrichment is the sorting problem from hell.
Instead of uranium atoms, imagine you have a bag filled with 1,000 marbles, each identical in material, size, shape, color, and texture. However, there are seven marbles in the bag that weigh 1.3 percent less than the others. For 5-gram, 1.5-centimeter diameter marbles, we’re talking about a difference of about 65 milligrams for the light marbles, or the weight of a few grains of sand.
Since it’s tedious to weigh each individual marble, you’ll want to come up with some sort of group sorting mechanism. But weight is the only thing setting them apart and the difference between desired and undesired marbles is small, so the sorting process won’t be perfect and you’ll still have a mixture of light and heavy marbles at the end. So you run the results through the sorter again. And again. And again.
With each iteration, you have a higher percentage of lighter marbles, but every repetition costs time, money, and energy.
And remember, the marbles in this analogy are atoms, the smallest unit of matter, so they’re that much more difficult to manipulate, and it takes far longer to get the quantities you need when you’re trying to go from atoms of uranium to tons of it.
For a nuclear reactor cooled with ordinary water, you need only about 3 to 5 percent U-235 enrichment, but you need it by the ton. A 1-gigawatt nuclear reactor uses 27 tons of nuclear fuel per year. …
Uranium with more than 20 percent U-235 is considered highly enriched. Conversely, the residual uranium with U-235 removed is called depleted (this is the uranium used in armor-piercing ammunition).
A nuclear weapon, on the other hand, requires even higher enrichment, typically around 90 percent, though it needs much less mass than a reactor. The Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, used 141 pounds of highly enriched uranium, though only 2 percent actually underwent fission due to inefficiencies in the design of the bomb. The Fat Man bomb dropped on Nagasaki used just 14 pounds of plutonium.
The International Atomic Energy Agency defines a “significant quantity” of nuclear material for a weapon to be 55 pounds of U-235 within a quantity of highly enriched uranium, or 17.6 pounds of plutonium.
Some countries with civilian nuclear reactors, like South Korea, don’t bother with the whole enrichment process and have opted instead to buy their nuclear fuel on the open international market. But for others, like France, mastering the fuel cycle is a vital pillar of their energy strategy.
The enrichment process has become easier, which makes controlling nuclear weapons harder
Both Iran and North Korea have developed surreptitious enrichment networks for producing nuclear material. These facilities are hard to detect and easy to reconfigure, so without regular inspections and monitoring, the possibility of a clandestine nuclear weapons program remains.
This wasn’t always the case.
The Manhattan Project marked the first successful effort to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon. One of the earliest and most primitive enrichment techniques used in this endeavor was gaseous diffusion. Here, uranium is reacted with fluorine to make uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6). The gas is then pumped through membranes, the idea being that lighter isotopes of uranium would diffuse faster than heavier isotopes (fluorine has only one naturally occurring isotope, so any differences in the mass of the gas come from uranium).
But each stage of the process could only separate a tiny amount of uranium, so gaseous diffusion required huge buildings and devoured energy to power the pumps needed to move the gas through the separation stages.
“The original ways of doing it were very inefficient,” said Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist in the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “They required very large amounts of land, lots of power.”
For example, the K-25 gaseous diffusion building in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was completed in 1945 at a cost of $500 million. It was half a mile long and 1,000 feet wide, making it the largest building under one roof at the time. The facility employed 12,000 workers at its peak and consumed enough electricity to power 20,000 homes for a year.
These days, uranium enrichment is much more subtle. The most common tool is the gas centrifuge. This is where uranium hexafluoride gas is fed into a column spinning at upward of 100,000 rotations per minute.
As the centrifuge spins, the heavier isotopes push harder against its wall than the lighter ones. The centrifuge also induces the gas to circulate within the device, further increasing separation. The output of one centrifuge is then fed into another and another in an arrangement called a cascade.
Centrifuges are more energy-efficient than other enrichment techniques and are harder to detect. The centrifuges themselves don’t take up much floor space, so their plants have a much smaller physical footprint than gaseous diffusion facilities. They also don’t draw as much electricity, nor do they leave much of a heat signature.
A declassified 1960 report from a contractor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory noted that “it would not be too difficult to build a relatively small clandestine gas centrifuge plant capable of producing sufficient enriched uranium for a small number of nuclear weapons.”
The point is a primitive enrichment apparatus is massive; a modern one is small.
“Centrifuges are the only [enrichment process] today that makes economic sense,” said R. Scott Kemp, director of the Laboratory for Nuclear Security and Policy at MIT. “[A centrifuge plant] capable of producing a weapon can fit in a garage or a small office building, and the energy consumption is less than typical office lighting per square foot.”
That’s why arms control discussions focus so much on centrifuges, and why the Iran nuclear deal — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA — went to great lengths to specify the number and type of centrifuges allowed, as well as how closely they are monitored. Centrifuges are the key variable in how long it takes to enrich a usable quantity of uranium, whether for fuel or for weapons.
To produce nuclear energy, where you need tons of uranium but at low levels of enrichment, an enrichment operation would need many parallel cascades, but only a handful of enrichment stages. For a weapon, which demands kilograms of uranium but at much higher enrichment, it’s almost the reverse: You would only need a few parallel cascades, but those cascades would involve dozens of stages. With enough centrifuges, getting enough usable uranium for either would only take a few weeks.
The term of art for the amount of effort required to enrich uranium is a separative work unit,or SWU. It’s built on a complicated formula, and it’s useful for describing the efficiency of a centrifuge cascade. It takes about 120,000 SWU per year to produce enough fuel for a 1-gigawatt nuclear reactor, but it only takes about 5,000 SWU to have enough material for a nuclear weapon. So a country with enough enrichment capacity to sustain a small nuclear energy program theoretically has enough throughput to build dozens of weapons.
And switching between a nuclear fuel centrifuge arrangement and a nuclear weapon arrangement isn’t all that difficult or time-consuming. It’s a matter of changing how pipes are routed, so converting a plant from supplying energy material to supplying weapons material could take no more than a few months.
The term of art for the amount of effort required to enrich uranium is a separative work unit,or SWU. It’s built on a complicated formula, and it’s useful for describing the efficiency of a centrifuge cascade. It takes about 120,000 SWU per year to produce enough fuel for a 1-gigawatt nuclear reactor, but it only takes about 5,000 SWU to have enough material for a nuclear weapon. So a country with enough enrichment capacity to sustain a small nuclear energy program theoretically has enough throughput to build dozens of weapons.
And switching between a nuclear fuel centrifuge arrangement and a nuclear weapon arrangement isn’t all that difficult or time-consuming. It’s a matter of changing how pipes are routed, so converting a plant from supplying energy material to supplying weapons material could take no more than a few months………….https://www.vox.com/2018/6/11/17369454/iran-uranium-enrichment
Expert opinion: small nuclear reactors a very bad deal for Scotland
“Even if a safe and affordable design were to emerge from the current research projects, the whole concept relies on there being a sufficient guaranteed pipeline of orders for the construction and ramping up to scale of a large and expensive production facility,” NCG said.
“Without such a pipeline – itself requiring an unlikely level of long-term policy consistency – it is difficult to see the private sector being willing to finance such a facility.”
“We need to rapidly scale up investments in clean, safe renewable power and improving energy efficiency rather than fall for the latest sales pitch of the failing nuclear industry.”
Small nuclear reactors for Scotland? No thanks, say experts, The Ferret, Jenny Tsilivakou on July 7, 2019
India’s nuclear power programme unlikely to progress. Ocean energy is a better way.
The problem is apparently nervousness about handling liquid Sodium, used as a coolant. If Sodium comes in contact with water it will explode; and the PFBR is being built on the humid coast of Tamil Nadu. The PFBR has always been a project that would go on stream “next year”. The PFBR has to come online, then more FBRs would need to be built, they should then operate for 30-40 years, and only then would begin the coveted ‘Thorium cycle’!
Why nuclear when India has an ‘ocean’ of energy, https://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/why-nuclear-when-india-has-an-ocean-of-energy/article28230036.ece
If it is right that nothing can stop an idea whose time has come, it must be true the other way too — nothing can hold back an idea whose time has passed.
Just blow the dust off, you’ll see the writing on the wall: nuclear energy is fast running out of sand, at least in India. And there is something that is waiting to take its place.
India’s 6,780 MW of nuclear power plants contributed to less than 3% of the country’s electricity generation, which will come down as other sources will generate more.
Perhaps India lost its nuclear game in 1970, when it refused to sign – even if with the best of reasons – the Non Proliferation Treaty, which left the country to bootstrap itself into nuclear energy. Only there never was enough strap in the boot to do so.
In the 1950s, the legendary physicist Dr. Homi Bhabha gave the country a roadmap for the development of nuclear energy.
Three-stage programme
In the now-famous ‘three-stage nuclear programme’, the roadmap laid out what needs to be done to eventually use the country’s almost inexhaustible Thorium resources. The first stage would see the creation of a fleet of ‘pressurised heavy water reactors’, which use scarce Uranium to produce some Plutonium. The second stage would see the setting up of several ‘fast breeder reactors’ (FBRs). These FBRs would use a mixture of Plutonium and the reprocessed ‘spent Uranium from the first stage, to produce energy and more Plutonium (hence ‘breeder’), because the Uranium would transmute into Plutonium. Alongside, the reactors would convert some of the Thorium into Uranium-233, which can also be used to produce energy. After 3-4 decades of operation, the FBRs would have produced enough Plutonium for use in the ‘third stage’. In this stage, Uranium-233 would be used in specially-designed reactors to produce energy and convert more Thorium into Uranium-233 —you can keep adding Thorium endlessly.
Seventy years down the line, India is still stuck in the first stage. For the second stage, you need the fast breeder reactors. A Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) of 500 MW capacity, construction of which began way back in 2004, is yet to come on stream.
The problem is apparently nervousness about handling liquid Sodium, used as a coolant. If Sodium comes in contact with water it will explode; and the PFBR is being built on the humid coast of Tamil Nadu. The PFBR has always been a project that would go on stream “next year”. The PFBR has to come online, then more FBRs would need to be built, they should then operate for 30-40 years, and only then would begin the coveted ‘Thorium cycle’! Nor is much capacity coming under the current, ‘first stage’. The 6,700 MW of plants under construction would, some day, add to the existing nuclear capacity of 6,780 MW. The government has sanctioned another 9,000 MW and there is no knowing when work on them will begin. These are the home-grown plants. Of course, thanks to the famous 2005 ‘Indo-U.S. nuclear deal’, there are plans for more projects with imported reactors, but a 2010 Indian ‘nuclear liability’ legislation has scared the foreigners away. With all this, it is difficult to see India’s nuclear capacity going beyond 20,000 MW over the next two decades.
Now, the question is, is nuclear energy worth it all?
There have been three arguments in favour of nuclear enFor Fergy: clean, cheap and can provide electricity 24×7 (base load). Clean it is, assuming that you could take care of the ticklish issue of putting away the highly harmful spent fuel.
But cheap, it no longer is. The average cost of electricity produced by the existing 22 reactors in the country is around ₹2.80 a kWhr, but the new plants, which cost ₹15-20 crore per MW to set up, will produce energy that cannot be sold commercially below at least ₹7 a unit. Nuclear power is pricing itself out of the market. A nuclear power plant takes a decade to come up, who knows where the cost will end up when it begins generation of electricity?
Nuclear plants can provide the ‘base load’ — they give a steady stream of electricity day and night, just like coal or gas plants. Wind and solar power plants produce energy much cheaper, but their power supply is irregular. With gas not available and coal on its way out due to reasons of cost and global warming concerns, nuclear is sometimes regarded as the saviour. But we don’t need that saviour any more; there is a now a better option.
Ocean energy
The seas are literally throbbing with energy. There are at least several sources of energy in the seas. One is the bobbing motion of the waters, or ocean swells — you can place a flat surface on the waters, with a mechanical arm attached to it, and it becomes a pump that can be used to drive water or compressed air through a turbine to produce electricity. Another is by tapping into tides, which flow during one part of the day and ebb in another. You can generate electricity by channelling the tide and place a series of turbines in its path. One more way is to keep turbines on the sea bed at places where there is a current — a river within the sea. Yet another way is to get the waves dash against pistons in, say, a pipe, so as to compress air at the other end. Sea water is dense and heavy, when it moves it can punch hard — and, it never stops moving.
All these methods have been tried in pilot plants in several parts of the world—Brazil, Denmark, U.K., Korea. There are only two commercial plants in the world—in France and Korea—but then ocean energy has engaged the world’s attention.
For sure, ocean energy is costly today.
India’s Gujarat State Power Corporation had a tie-up with U.K.’s Atlantic Resources for a 50 MW tidal project in the Gulf of Kutch, but the project was given up after they discovered they could sell the electricity only at ₹13 a kWhr. But then, even solar cost ₹18 a unit in 2009! When technology improves and scale-effect kicks-in, ocean energy will look real friendly.
Initially, ocean energy would need to be incentivised, as solar was. Where do you find the money for the incentives? By paring allocations to the Department of Atomic Energy, which got ₹13,971 crore for 2019-20.
Also, wind and solar now stand on their own legs and those subsidies could now be given to ocean energy.
Scientifically ignorant, is Australia’s Morrison government being conned into buying Small Modular Nuclear Reactors?
Fukushima, the ‘nuclear renaissance’ and the Morrison Government, Independent Australia, By Helen Caldicott | 25 June 2019 Now that the “nuclear renaissance” is dead following the Fukushima catastrophe, when one-sixth of the world’s nuclear reactors closed, the nuclear corporations – Toshiba, Nu-Scale, Babcock and Wilcox, GE Hitachi, Cameco, General Atomics and the Tennessee Valley Authority – will not accept defeat, nor will the ill-informed Morrison Government…..
To be quite frank, almost all of our politicians are scientifically and medically ignorant and in an age where scientific evolution has become extraordinarily sophisticated, it behoves us – as legitimate members of democracy – to both educate ourselves and our naive and ignorant politicians for they are not our leaders, they are our representatives.
Many of these so-called representatives are now being cajoled into believing that electricity production in Australia could benefit from a new form of atomic power in the form of small modular reactors (SMRs), allegedly free of the dangers inherent in large reactors — safety issues, high cost, proliferation risks and radioactive waste.
But these claims are fallacious, for the reasons outlined below.
Basically, there are three types of small modular reactors (SMRs), which generate less than 300 megawatts of electricity compared with current 1,000-megawatt reactors.
1. Light-water reactors
These will be smaller versions of present-day pressurised water reactors, using water as the moderator and coolant, but with the same attendant problems as Fukushima and Three Mile Island. Built underground, they will be difficult to access in the event of an accident or malfunction.
Because they’re mass-produced (turnkey production), large numbers must be sold yearly to make a profit. This is an unlikely prospect because major markets — China and India — will not buy our reactors when they can make their own.
If safety problems arise, they all must be shut down, which will interfere substantially with electricity supply.
SMRs are expensive because the cost per unit capacity increases with a decrease in reactor size. Billions of dollars of government subsidies will be required because investors are allergic to nuclear power. To alleviate costs, it is suggested that safety rules be relaxed.
2. Non-light-water designs
These include high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) or pebble-bed reactors. Five billion tiny fuel kernels consisting of high-enriched uranium or plutonium will be encased in tennis-ball-sized graphite spheres that must be made without cracks or imperfections — or they could lead to an accident. A total of 450,000 such spheres will slowly and continuously be released from a fuel silo, passing through the reactor core and then recirculated ten times. These reactors will be cooled by helium gas operating at high very temperatures (900 degrees Celcius).
A reactor complex consisting of four HTGR modules will be located underground, usually to be run by just two operators in a central control room. Claims are that HTGRs will be so “safe” that a containment building will be unnecessary and operators can even leave the site (“walk-away-safe” reactors).
However, should temperatures unexpectedly exceed 1,600 degrees Celcius, the carbon coating will release dangerous radioactive isotopes into the helium gas and at 2,000 degrees Celcius, the carbon would ignite, creating a fierce, Chernobyl-type graphite fire.
If a crack develops in the piping or building, radioactive helium would escape and air would rush in, also igniting the graphite.
Although HTGRs produce small amounts of low-level waste, they create larger volumes of high-level waste than conventional reactors.
Despite these obvious safety problems, and despite the fact that South Africa has abandoned plans for HTGRs, the U.S. Department of Energy has unwisely chosen the HTGR as the “next-generation nuclear plant.” There is a push for Australia to follow suit.
3. Liquid-metal fast reactors (PRISM)
It is claimed by proponents that fast reactors will be safe, economically competitive, proliferation-resistant and sustainable.
They are fueled by plutonium or highly enriched uranium and cooled by either liquid sodium or a lead-bismuth molten coolant. Liquid sodium burns or explodes when exposed to air or water, and lead-bismuth is extremely corrosive, producing very volatile radioactive elements when irradiated.
Should a crack occur in the reactor complex, liquid sodium would escape, burning or exploding. Without coolant, the plutonium fuel could reach critical mass, triggering a massive nuclear explosion, scattering plutonium to the four winds. One-millionth of a gram of plutonium induces cancer — and it lasts for 500,000 years. Extraordinarily, they claim that fast reactors will be so safe that they will require no emergency sirens and that emergency planning zones can be decreased.
There are two types of fast reactors: a simple, plutonium-fueled reactor and a “breeder,” in which the plutonium-reactor core is surrounded by a blanket of uranium 238, which captures neutrons and converts to plutonium.
The plutonium fuel, obtained from spent reactor fuel, will be fissioned and converted to shorter-lived isotopes, caesium and strontium, which last 600 years instead of 500,000. The industry claims that this process, called “transmutation,” is an excellent way to get rid of plutonium waste. But this is fallacious because only ten per cent is fissioned, leaving 90 per cent of the plutonium for bomb-making and so on.
Then there’s construction. Three small plutonium fast reactors are grouped together to form a module and three of these modules will be buried underground. All nine reactors will then be connected to a fully automated central control room operated by only three operators. Potentially, then, one operator could face a catastrophic situation triggered by the loss of off-site power to one unit at full power, another shut down for refuelling and one in startup mode. There are to be no emergency core cooling systems.
Fast reactors require massive infrastructure, including a reprocessing plant to dissolve radioactive waste fuel rods in nitric acid, chemically removing the plutonium and a fuel fabrication facility to create new fuel rods. A total of 14-23 tonnes of plutonium are required to operate a fuel cycle at a fast reactor, and just five pounds is fuel for a nuclear weapon.
Thus fast reactors and breeders will provide extraordinary long-term medical dangers and the perfect situation for nuclear-weapons proliferation. Despite this, the Coalition Government is considering their renaissance. https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/fukushima-the-nuclear-renaissance-and-the-morrison-government,12834
1 This Month
26 September – International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
PLEASE OPPOSE HR 8255 AND S.3639 – bills would accelerate satellite deployment, with no environmental review or safeguards – https://ncstd5li.quorum.us/campaign/169331/
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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