OpenAI’s Sam Altman calls for an international agency like the UN’s nuclear watchdog to oversee AI
By Associated Press • Updated: 07/06/2023 – 15:06
The creator of ChatGPT has suggested an international agency like the UN’s nuclear watchdog could police and regulate the technology.
Artificial intelligence (AI) poses an “existential risk” to humanity, a key innovator warned during a visit to the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, suggesting an international agency like the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) be created to oversee the ground-breaking technology.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the creator of wildly popular chatbot ChatGPT, is on a global tour to discuss the significance of AI.
“We face serious risk. We face existential risk,” said Altman.
……………………. Hundreds of industry leaders, including Altman, have signed a letter in May that warns “mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war”…………………………………….. more https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/06/07/openais-sam-altman-calls-for-an-international-agency-like-the-uns-nuclear-watchdog-to-over
Robotic “dogs” to help clean up Dounreay nuclear site
A ‘pack’ of robotic ‘dogs’ have been harnessed to help Dounreay with
monitoring work on site. Spot, a robotic quadruped (‘dog’) from Boston
Dynamics, has the ability to climb stairs, avoid obstacles, and move over
rough ground, allowing it to monitor and collect data in hazardous areas.
Dounreay and Createc, the systems integrator for Spot, are working together
on a series of 7 use cases for the ROV, that will be carried out over the
next 12 months. A dedicated Createc employee will be based on site to
initially lead the projects, and will train Dounreay staff to use the
robot. Heather Fairweather is the innovation team’s project manager for
the work. She says that the use cases will demonstrate the multi-tasking
value of the ROV, and its ability to carry out practical work.
Dounreay 6th June 2023
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/robotic-dogs-arrive-on-site
Small nuclear reactors for the moon
Westinghouse Electric and Astrobotic are to develop nuclear reactors and
power grids for use in space exploration for NASA and the Department of
Defense. The US-nuclear firm and space land and rover company have agreed
to collaborate on the development of space nuclear technology and delivery
systems.
Last year, Westinghouse was awarded a NASA/DOE contract to provide
an initial design concept for a fission lunar surface power system.
Westinghouse is developing a scaled-down version of the 5-MWe eVinci
microreactor to power spacecraft in orbit or for deployment on the surface
of planetary bodies such as the Moon or Mars.
Aerospace Testing 6th June 2023
Amidst all the enthusiastic promotion of Small Nuclear Reactors, there’s still the admission that SMRs are simply unaffordable
The future of energy: small modular reactors (SMRs) and nuclear power, small caps, By Colin Hay June 5, 2023
‘………………………………………………………………………………………… A recent report from international energy analysts Wood Mackenzie, suggested that lower costs technological developments such as small modular reactors (SMRs) may help speed up the introduction of new nuclear power plants……………………
However, the company added that for nuclear power to flourish, governments, developers and investors must work together to establish a new nuclear ecosystem, one that makes nuclear affordable………………
According to one Wood Mackenzie report, ‘The nuclear option: Making new nuclear power viable in the energy transition’, despite policy support and market growth, cost is the biggest economic hurdle to the uptake of more nuclear power and the much-vaunted small modular reactors systems…………………..
“The nuclear industry will have to address the cost challenge with urgency if it is to participate in the huge growth opportunity that low-carbon power presents. At current levels, the cost gap is just too great for nuclear to grow rapidly,” said David Brown, a Director, Energy Transition Service at Wood Mackenzie, and lead author of the report.
Mr Brown said scaling up the SMR market will depend on how fast costs fall to a level that is competitive against other forms of low-carbon power generation.
According to Wood Mackenzie estimates, conventional nuclear power currently has a levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) of at least four times that of wind and solar……………..
CSIRO plays down SMR’s Australian potential
Australia’s leading science agency, the CSIRO, has also recently raised the cost issue with regard to the local introduction of new nuclear technology.
In a recent report, “The question of nuclear in Australia’s energy sector”, the CSIRO noted that there has been increased debate around the use of nuclear power in Australia.
………. the report suggested that at present, the numbers don’t stack up.
“… a review of the available evidence makes it clear that nuclear power does not currently provide an economically competitive solution in Australia – or that we have the relevant frameworks in place for its consideration and operation within the timeframe required,” the CSIRO report said.
……. The report noted that only two SMRs are currently in operation, located in Russia and China, and both have experienced cost blowouts and delays.
Paul Graham, a CSIRO energy economist and lead author of the Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO) GenCost report, says more data needs to be provided to support the push for nuclear power in Australia.
He said that with the use of standard formula for levelised costs, plus the additional calculations specific to storage and transmission, wind and solar come in at a maximum of $83 per megawatt hour in 2030.
“In contrast, SMRs come in at $130 to $311 per megawatt hour.”…………………………………………….. m https://smallcaps.com.au/future-energy-small-modular-reactors-smrs-nuclear-power/
Scientists heat nuclear reactor heated to 100 MILLION degree Celsius – hotter than the SUN (what could possibly go wrong?)
- British company achieved the milestone using a ‘spherical tokamak’ called ST40
- Nuclear fusion reactors copy the energy-producing process of stars like our sun
By JONATHAN CHADWICK FOR MAILONLINE , 2 June 2023
Described as the ‘holy grail’, the milestone was achieved using the ST40 ‘spherical tokamak’ – a ‘cored-apple’ shaped nuclear device in Oxfordshire – and the team is now working on a fusion reactor that can connect to the national grid in the 2030s.
The milestone is short of the record set by Chinese scientists in 2021, who ran their reactor at 120 million degrees Celsius. ……………………………………………………………………………….
Funded by the UK government, STEP will be located at the existing West Burton power station in Nottinghamshire, it was announced last October……………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12147389/Nuclear-fusion-breakthrough-Holy-grail-power-production-closer-reality.html
Panellists discuss nuclear documentary ‘Atomic Bamboozle’ and warn against return of nuclear power .
Activists show, discuss nuclear documentary ‘Atomic Bamboozle’ at Kiggins in Vancouver, Film, panelists warn against return of nuclear power,
By Scott Hewitt, Columbian staff writer, June 2, 2023, https://www.columbian.com/news/2023/jun/02/activists-show-discuss-nuclear-documentary-atomic-bamboozle-at-kiggins-in-vancouver/
Get used to the phrase “small modular nuclear reactor” and its abbreviation, SMR. A global debate about this old-made-new energy idea is already heating up, with big implications for the people and environs of the Pacific Northwest.
SMRs are either the cleaner, safer, cheaper future of nuclear power or the return of the same old bundle of hazards, dressed up in newly attractive camouflage.
“They’re going to make nuclear energy cool again,” said former Trump administration energy secretary Rick Perry (consistently mispronouncing the word “nuclear”) in a news clip featured in the new documentary film “Atomic Bamboozle.”
“Atomic Bamboozle” is the latest in a series of timely, social-issue documentaries directed by Jan Haaken, a retired Portland State University psychology professor. Last year, Haaken produced a film about the courtroom victories of local oil-train protesters called “Necessity: Climate Justice and the Thin Green Line,” which screened, along with a panel discussion, at Vancouver’s Kiggins Theatre.
The same will happen at a Wednesday screening of “Atomic Bamboozle” at Kiggins. Environmental activists featured in the film will discuss the potential resurgence of nuclear power in the Pacific Northwest through supposedly safe, small, factory-built nuclear plants.
Panelists are Cathryn Chudy and Lloyd Marbet of the Oregon Conservancy Foundation; Desiree Hellegers, English professor and director of the Collective for Social and Environmental Justice at Washington State University Vancouver; public interest attorney Dan Meek; Dr. Patricia Kullberg, former medical director of the Multnomah County Health Department; “Atomic Days” author Joshua Frank; and film director Haaken.
(Frank’s book about the decommissioned Hanford nuclear site in Eastern Washington, “Atomic Days: The Most Toxic Place in America,” is the Fort Vancouver Regional Library system’s “Revolutionary Reads” book for this year. Free copies of the book are available to all at library branches.)
Climate wedge
Although small modular nuclear reactors are still more blueprint than reality, they’ve become a wedge issue among some environmentalists who are desperate to beat climate change, said Chudy, who lives in Vancouver.
“SMRs sound pretty cool but there are very big problems that they don’t want to talk about,” Chudy said during a phone interview with The Columbian.
“Atomic Bamboozle” reviews the troubled history of Oregon’s only commercial nuclear power plant, Trojan, which operated from 1976 through 1992 near Rainier, just across the Columbia River from Kalama. Trojan’s cooling tower dominated the skyline until it was demolished in 2006, but problems plagued the plant throughout its short life, including construction flaws, unexpected cracks, steam leaks and discovery of previously unknown earthquake fault lines nearby.
“We had assurances the plant was safe. The public relations around Trojan were amazing,” said Chudy, a pediatric mental health therapist at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in Portland.
Chudy said today’s youth are struggling as never before with existential worry about a world that grown-ups have failed to steward. Proposed SMRs represent an opportunity to choose wisely and safely now rather than punting complicated problems into an unknown future, she said.
“Kids don’t trust adults to make good decisions,” Chudy said. “We are all putting our lives in the hands of people we elect … but I don’t think we can rely on them to steer the ship in the right direction without all of us being involved.”
Unsolved problems
Both Oregon and Washington have adopted clean energy policies for the future, Chudy said, but both include a loophole for nuclear power because nuclear plants do not emit carbon pollution.
She argues that nuclear power is actually a big cause of carbon pollution and a driver of global warming from many sources other than operating the plants themselves, including uranium mining as well as construction, decommissioning and materials transportation.
Necessary economies of scale are another serious question about nuclear power, Chudy added.
SMR boosters like them because they’re small. But what they contain is standard, old-school nuclear technology that’s simply operating on a tiny scale, M.V. Ramana, professor of physics, public policy and global affairs at the University of British Columbia, said in the film.
Early experiments with nuclear power started small too, Ramana said, but grew huge in pursuit of financial efficiency. Nothing has changed about that, he argues in the film, and new forecasts show the productions costs of nuclear power climbing.
“All nuclear reactors used to be small. The only way the nuclear industry could figure out to reduce cost was to go to larger reactors,” Ramana said. “There’s no way small modular reactors are going to be economically competitive.”
Soaring projected costs have led some members to drop out of a consortium of Western cities now pursuing an SMR on the Snake River in Idaho, according to Reuters.
The risk of nuclear accidents always remains, Ramana said in the movie. But siting decisions are made by politicians and investors in state and national capitals, far removed from the action.
US announces $46 million in funds to eight nuclear fusion companies
By Timothy Gardner, WASHINGTON, May 31 (Reuters) – Eight U.S. companies developing nuclear fusion energy will receive $46 million in taxpayer funding to pursue pilot plants attempting to generate power from the process that fuels the sun and stars, the Department of Energy said on Wednesday.
Generating more energy from a fusion reaction than goes into the fusion plant to heat fuel to temperatures of more than 100 million Celsius has eluded scientists for decades.
…………..”The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to partnering with innovative researchers and companies across the country to take fusion energy past the lab and toward the grid,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a release.
The awardees are:
-Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS)
-Focused Energy Inc
-Princeton Stellarators Inc
-Realta Fusion Inc
-Tokamak Energy Inc
-Type One Energy Group
-Xcimer Energy Inc
-Zap Energy Inc
The funding, which comes from the Energy Act of 2020, is for the first 18 months. Projects may last up to five years, with future funding totaling $415 million contingent on congressional approval and engineering and scientific milestones.
“Participating companies only get paid if they deliver results and the public program verifies the science is sound,” said Bob Mumgaard, the CEO and founder of CFS.
Looking to develop fusion plants that use lasers or magnets, private companies and government labs spent $500 million on their supply chains last year, according to a Fusion Industry Association (FIA) survey.
They plan to spend about $7 billion by the time their first plants come online, and potentially trillions of dollars mainly on high-grade steel, concrete and superconducting wire in a mature industry, estimated to be sometime between 2035 and 2050.
Reporting by Timothy Gardner in Washington Editing by Matthew Lewis and Diane Craft https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-announces-46-million-funds-eight-nuclear-fusion-companies-2023-05-31/
France’s triple dependence on nuclear fuel .
the main argument of this policy is “national energy independence”, moreover making a misleading shortcut from energy to electricity and from it nuclear power, an imaginary symbol of supposed independence.
Tuesday, May 30, 2023, by Bernard Laponche , Jean-Claude Zerbib, m https://www.global-chance.org/IMG/pdf/gc_la_triple_de_pendance_mai_2023_v2.pdf
Introduction
With 56 reactors spread over 18 EDF nuclear power plants, approximately 70% of electricity production in France is ensured by the use of nuclear energy, thanks to the production of heat by the combination of fission and chain reaction in reactors.
This situation makes France the most “nuclearized” country in the world in proportion to its population and the third in level of production after the United States and China, which are much more populous.
The program of reactors currently in operation (including the two Fessenheim reactors being dismantled) was launched in the early 1970s and reinforced by the “Messmer Program” of 1974, on the occasion of the first “oil shock”, inaugurating the “all-electric-all-nuclear” policy which continued until the construction of the Flamanville EPR in 2007, which has still not started.
The current government places itself in this line by advocating the extension of the duration of operation of the current reactors and the construction of a certain number of reactors of the EPR2 sector, heir to the EPR.
As at the time, and although times have changed, the main argument of this policy is “national energy independence”, moreover making a misleading shortcut from energy to electricity and from it nuclear power, an imaginary symbol of supposed independence. Let us admit, however, that the design and construction of the reactors are “national”, although much equipment is imported, the fact remains that the design is essentially that of the enriched uranium and pressurized water reactors of Westinghouse origin, and that the “francization” carried out at the beginning of the 1980s now raises a lot of questions, in particular with the discovery of cracks caused by corrosion under stress or thermal fatigue, which plague a certain number of reactors, including the most recent ones.
On the other hand, independence is far from being acquired on the side of the “nuclear fuel” which “boils the pot”. Indeed, natural uranium, the raw material for fission, has been completely imported for several decades. The suppliers are numerous but, among the main ones, Kazakhstan, Niger, Uzbekistan, Australia, Canada, three present geopolitical risks. But, we are told, since France has an enrichment plant, a reprocessing plant and fuel fabrication plants, we could rest easy.
The reality is much more complex.
On the other hand, independence is far from being acquired on the side of the “nuclear fuel” which “boils the pot”. Indeed, natural uranium, the raw material for fission, has been completely imported for several decades. The suppliers are numerous but, among the main ones, Kazakhstan, Niger, Uzbekistan, Australia, Canada, three present geopolitical risks. But, we are told, since France has an enrichment plant, a reprocessing plant and fuel fabrication plants, we could rest easy.
The reality is much more complex.
The purpose of this article is to assess:
- The tonnages of uranium which are delivered directly to France by the producing country, in the form of yellow cake and then undergo all the transformations, up to being put into the form of assemblies;
- The tonnages of natural uranium transiting through a third country, to arrive in France in the form of enriched uranium, gaseous or solid, or even fuel assemblies produced abroad;
- EDF’s depleted uranium enrichment operations in Russia;
- EDF and Orano’s reprocessing uranium enrichment operations in Russia.
- Manufacture of fuel assemblies, partly carried out abroad.
Thus will be established the triple dependence, total or partial, in the supply of natural uranium, in the enrichment of natural uranium, depleted uranium and reprocessed uranium and, in the manufacture of fuel assemblies.
This article is dedicated to the memory of André Guillemette, member of Global Chance and ACRO, expert in issues related to the reprocessing of irradiated fuels and the plutonium industry, author of several articles on these subjects, in particular in collaboration with Jean-Claude Zerbib, published on the Global Chance website ( www.global-chance.org ).
To read the full text https://www.global-chance.org/IMG/pdf/gc_la_triple_de_pendance_mai_2023_v2.pdf—
Call on ratepayers to fund a study for small nuclear reactors in Clark County
Nuclear power may again be on horizon for Clark County , By Lauren Ellenbecker, Columbian staff writer, June 2, 2023
Clark Public Utilities delays decision on helping fund study
“…………………..Energy Northwest invited Clark Public Utilities to participate in a feasibility study on its proposed small nuclear reactor development in Richland. The agency is considering creating four to 12 modular reactors, projected to generate 320 to 960 megawatts of power — less than its existing Columbia Generating Station, which has a capacity of 1,200 megawatts.
During a Clark Public Utilities Board of Commissioners meeting in May, Energy Northwest representatives sought $200,000 of ratepayer funds for the study, which is projected to cost $4 million. The body did not approve the request, as its three-member vote was split.
Commissioners Nancy Barnes and Jane Van Dyke both requested more time to consider Energy Northwest’s request and speak with other utilities, saying further clarity was needed.
Commissioner Jim Malinowski, who sits on Energy Northwest’s board of directors, advocated for Clark Public Utilities’ involvement. By providing funding, the utility would be “keeping the effort live” and showing there’s regional support for nuclear energy, he said.
Following the May meeting, skeptics said that discussions surrounding Energy Northwest’s project haven’t been substantive or transparent to the public, given the agency’s initial request for ratepayer funds.
“It seems this proposed financial investment is on a fast track with no obvious reason for the rush and shortchanges the public’s opportunity to ask questions and weigh meaningfully,” Cathryn Chudy of Vancouver wrote to the Clark Public Utilities commission.
Commissioners are expected to revisit Energy Northwest’s small modular reactor developments at their June 6 meeting.
Energy Northwest is meeting with Washington’s 28 public utility districts and municipalities for investments to its feasibility study, as well as reaching out to utilities in Oregon and Idaho. Eight utilities in Washington have contributed to date. https://www.columbian.com/news/2023/jun/02/nuclear-power-may-again-be-on-horizon-for-clark-county/
Canadian reactors that “recycle” plutonium would create more problems than they solve
Bulletin, By Jungmin Kang, M.V. Ramana | May 25, 2023
In 2021, nine US nonproliferation experts sent an open letter to Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. In their letter, the experts expressed their concern that the Canadian government was actually increasing the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation by funding reactors that are fueled with plutonium. Earlier that year, the Federal Government had provided 50.5 million Canadian dollars to Moltex Energy, a company exploring a nuclear reactor design fueled with plutonium. The linkage to nuclear weapons proliferation has also led several civil society groups to urge the Canadian government to ban plutonium reprocessing.
Much of the concern so far has been on Canada setting a poor example by sending a “dangerous signal to other countries that it is OK to for them to extract plutonium for commercial use.” But Moltex plans to export its reactors to other countries raise a different concern. Even if a country importing such a reactor does not start a commercial program to extract plutonium, it would still have a relatively easy access to plutonium in the fuel that the reactor relies on to operate. Below we provide a rough estimate of the quantities of plutonium involved—and their potential impact on nuclear weapons proliferation—to help explain the magnitude of the problem. But there is more. By separating multiple radionuclides from the solid spent fuel and channeling it into waste streams, Moltex reactors will only make the nuclear waste problem worse.
Moltex’s technological claims. Moltex established its Canadian headquarters in the province of New Brunswick after it received an infusion of 5 million Canadian dollars from the provincial government. The company offers two products: a molten salt reactor and a proprietary chemical process that Moltex terms “waste to stable salts” technology. Moltex claims that, by using its chemical process, it can “convert” spent fuel from Canada’s deuterium uranium nuclear reactors (CANDUs) into new fuel that can be used in its reactor design. Moltex essentially claims it can “reduce waste.” In light of the problematic history associated with molten salt reactors, Moltex’s proposed reactors, and especially the chemical process needed to produce fuel, deserve more scrutiny. These will have serious implications for nuclear policy.
In its response to the open letter from the US nonproliferation experts, Moltex dismissed the ability of outsiders to comment, arguing that experts “are not aware of [its proprietary] process as only high-level details are made public.” Moltex has been indeed sparse in what it shared publicly about its technologies. Still, there is much one can surmise from earlier experiences with the processing of spent fuel and from basic science. With some simple calculations based on these high-level details provided by Moltex so far—and taking those at face value, i.e., without evaluating the feasibility of the design or their plans—we show that there is reason to be concerned about the amounts of plutonium that will be used in the reactor.
[Technical explanation here about chemical processes]…………………………………………………………………………….
Moltex’s proposed technology has not yet been evaluated by the International Atomic Energy Agency for how well it can be safeguarded; nor is it possible to evaluate how well the technology can be safeguarded in advance of a final design. But there is good reason to think that a determined country—one that might not play by the rules set by the IAEA—might find a way to divert some plutonium from Moltex’s chemical process to use it in nuclear weapons.
Diversion has been a long-standing concern with pyroprocessing, which is closely related to what Moltex is proposing. …………………………………………………………more https://thebulletin.org/2023/05/canadian-reactors-that-recycle-plutonium-would-create-more-problems-than-they-solve/
No, There Won’t Be Nuclear-Powered Commercial Shipping This Time Either
Clean Technica 25 May 23
Nuclear for commercial ships is so obviously flawed from a business perspective that I didn’t even bother to include it in my quadrant chart of sexy vs impractical maritime decarbonization technologies.
A while ago, I published my sexy-practical quadrant chart for maritime shipping decarbonization. Sharp-eyed readers noted an omission from it: nuclear power for commercial ships. While I make no claims to be encyclopedic, I do try to be relatively thorough, and it honestly didn’t occur to me to include it. Imagine my surprise that a private nuclear commercial shipping representative, CTO Giulio Gennaro of Core Power Energy, was on the panel with me at Stena Sphere’s technical summit in Glasgow.
My take is that all inland shipping and two-thirds of short sea shipping will just go to battery-electric eventually. There will be hybrid solutions where when the batteries are replaced, the pure battery range will increase and less fuel will be consumed. And biofuels will take care of the rest……………………………………………………………..
As an indicator of that niche going away, while there are over 900 ultra large crude carriers in service, only one — yes, that’s not a typo, only a single ship of that class — was on order earlier this year. No one is buying them because everyone knows that they have a good chance of being stranded assets. As I found out this week, smaller carriers are being ordered, but the ones most suitable for nuclear aren’t.
He made it clear that they were arguing for small molten salt nuclear reactors (which I guess would be MSR SMRs?), but no one pressed him on commercial demonstration of that technology. For context, there are two prototype, non-grid connected, tiny MSRs in operation in China the last time I checked. This technology has been around since the 1960s and was never commercialized. And as the product doesn’t exist today, it won’t exist in any volumes for a decade at least. They have a preferred technology, but I see no evidence of a specific design. They appear to be doing more promotion of the idea rather than development of a product. https://cleantechnica.com/2023/05/26/no-there-wont-be-nuclear-powered-commercial-shipping-this-time-either/
Nuclear Fusion breakthrough hits hurdles as five experiments fail
Japan Times, BY DAVID R. BAKER, BLOOMBERG 17 May 23,
The U.S. government lab that made a long-awaited breakthrough in fusion energy late last year has run five similar experiments since then without being able to replicate the results.
The milestone came in December as the the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory near San Francisco reported achieving the first fusion reaction that produced more energy than it took to create — a threshold known as ignition. The achievement opened the possibility of power plants one day running on nuclear fusion, the same energy source as the sun.
Since then, the lab has run five similar experiments, shooting the world’s most powerful laser at small diamond capsules filled with hydrogen, said Lawrence Livermore Director Kim Budil. But so far, ignition hasn’t been achieved again…………….
Speaking at an event at the lab Monday celebrating December’s breakthrough, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the federal government would spend $45 million over the next four years to create a series of research hubs pursuing the kind of fusion achieved at Lawrence Livermore, known as inertial confinement. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/05/09/business/nuclear-fusion-experiments-fail/
Stanford-led research finds small modular reactors will exacerbate challenges of highly radioactive nuclear waste
Small modular reactors, long touted as the future of nuclear energy, will actually generate more radioactive waste than conventional nuclear power plants, according to research from Stanford and the University of British Columbia.
BY MARK SHWARTZ, 30 May, News Stanford
Nuclear reactors generate reliable supplies of electricity with limited greenhouse gas emissions. But a nuclear power plant that generates 1,000 megawatts of electric power also produces radioactive waste that must be isolated from the environment for hundreds of thousands of years. Furthermore, the cost of building a large nuclear power plant can be tens of billions of dollars.
To address these challenges, the nuclear industry is developing small modular reactors that generate less than 300 megawatts of electric power and can be assembled in factories. Industry analysts say these advanced modular designs will be cheaper and produce fewer radioactive byproducts than conventional large-scale reactors.
But a study published May 31 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has reached the opposite conclusion.
“Our results show that most small modular reactor designs will actually increase the volume of nuclear waste in need of management and disposal, by factors of 2 to 30 for the reactors in our case study,” said study lead author Lindsay Krall, a former MacArthur Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). “These findings stand in sharp contrast to the cost and waste reduction benefits that advocates have claimed for advanced nuclear technologies.”
…………………………………. In the U.S. alone, commercial nuclear power plants have produced more than 88,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel, as well as substantial volumes of intermediate and low-level radioactive waste. The most highly radioactive waste, mainly spent fuel, will have to be isolated in deep-mined geologic repositories for hundreds of thousands of years. At present, the U.S. has no program to develop a geologic repository after spending decades and billions of dollars on the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada. As a result, spent nuclear fuel is currently stored in pools or in dry casks at reactor sites, accumulating at a rate of about 2,000 metric tonnes per year.
Simple metrics
Some analysts maintain that small modular reactors will significantly reduce the mass of spent nuclear fuel generated compared to much larger, conventional nuclear reactors. But that conclusion is overly optimistic, according to Krall and her colleagues.
“Simple metrics, such as estimates of the mass of spent fuel, offer little insight into the resources that will be required to store, package, and dispose of the spent fuel and other radioactive waste,” said Krall, who is now a scientist at the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company. “In fact, remarkably few studies have analyzed the management and disposal of nuclear waste streams from small modular reactors.”
Dozens of small modular reactor designs have been proposed. For this study, Krall analyzed the nuclear waste streams from three types of small modular reactors being developed by Toshiba, NuScale, and Terrestrial Energy. Each company uses a different design. Results from case studies were corroborated by theoretical calculations and a broader design survey. This three-pronged approach enabled the authors to draw powerful conclusions.
“The analysis was difficult, because none of these reactors are in operation yet,” said study co-author Rodney Ewing, the Frank Stanton Professor in Nuclear Security at Stanford and co-director of CISAC. “Also, the designs of some of the reactors are proprietary, adding additional hurdles to the research.”
Neutron leakage
Energy is produced in a nuclear reactor when a neutron splits a uranium atom in the reactor core, generating additional neutrons that go on to split other uranium atoms, creating a chain reaction. But some neutrons escape from the core – a problem called neutron leakage – and strike surrounding structural materials, such as steel and concrete. These materials become radioactive when “activated” by neutrons lost from the core.
The new study found that, because of their smaller size, small modular reactors will experience more neutron leakage than conventional reactors. This increased leakage affects the amount and composition of their waste streams.
“The more neutrons that are leaked, the greater the amount of radioactivity created by the activation process of neutrons,” Ewing said. “We found that small modular reactors will generate at least nine times more neutron-activated steel than conventional power plants. These radioactive materials have to be carefully managed prior to disposal, which will be expensive.”
The study also found that the spent nuclear fuel from small modular reactors will be discharged in greater volumes per unit energy extracted and can be far more complex than the spent fuel discharged from existing power plants.
“Some small modular reactor designs call for chemically exotic fuels and coolants that can produce difficult-to-manage wastes for disposal,” said co-author Allison Macfarlane, professor and director of the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia. “Those exotic fuels and coolants may require costly chemical treatment prior to disposal.”
“The takeaway message for the industry and investors is that the back end of the fuel cycle may include hidden costs that must be addressed,” Macfarlane said. “It’s in the best interest of the reactor designer and the regulator to understand the waste implications of these reactors.”
Radiotoxicity
The study concludes that, overall, small modular designs are inferior to conventional reactors with respect to radioactive waste generation, management requirements, and disposal options.
One problem is long-term radiation from spent nuclear fuel. The research team estimated that after 10,000 years, the radiotoxicity of plutonium in spent fuels discharged from the three study modules would be at least 50 percent higher than the plutonium in conventional spent fuel per unit energy extracted. ……..more https://news.stanford.edu/2022/05/30/small-modular-reactors-produce-high-levels-nuclear-waste/?fbclid=IwAR3hUe5R3zYb25eJ-8dJzM_vXATq4Du7Hk_XEhdeED_BTvwCqm0XLo3mE8o
Helion and Microsoft Lead World Down Nuclear Fusion Rabbit Hole
manufacturing the lasers used at Livermore and creating other inputs to set up the fusion process require much more energy than is accounted for in the final equation.
there’s so much money in the system, and so much desire to have this technological solution, people are very excited — and totally ignoring the fact that there is no result that has any energy output to it.”
Gizmodo, Molly Taft, May 12, 2023
Are we closer to the “Holy Grail” of clean energy? Silicon Valley wants you to believe.
This week, nuclear fusion startup Helion announced that it had inked a first-of-its-kind deal with Microsoft to provide 50 megawatts of power from a yet-to-be built power plant, all within the next five years. Unlike nuclear fission, the process that powers all the nuclear power plants existing today, nuclear fusion could create potentially unlimited energy. It’s a dream that scientists and engineers have been chasing for decades, with little luck.
The announcement from Helion and Microsoft is historic — and raises a lot of thorny questions about fusion, the role of tech in promoting new energy sources, and whether all this talk about fusion is even doing any good for the planet.
What is nuclear fusion, and why has it been so difficult to achieve?
Nuclear fusion is, simply put, the same process that powers the Sun. The Sun turns matter into energy through the enormous pressures and high temperatures at its core.
“If you smash atoms together hard enough and in a hot enough and dense enough environment, you can get essentially free energy,” said Charles Seife, a journalism professor at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and the author of Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking. “It’s enormous amounts of energy from very little fuel,” he told Earther.
Physicists have been chasing the dream of replicating the fusion process since the 1940s, when research into building nuclear reactors began. It quickly became clear that the problem was not replicating fusion itself but rather creating conditions in which the process produces more energy than it takes in. Fusion needs an enormous amount of energy, and almost all of the demonstrations of fusion scientists have accomplished thus far have not been able to reach the point where the energy output is greater than the input.
Seife said that the Livermore announcement is significant but pointed out that manufacturing the lasers used at Livermore and creating other inputs to set up the fusion process require much more energy than is accounted for in the final equation. He’s less impressed by the numerous nuclear fusion startups that have cropped up in Silicon Valley and elsewhere in recent years.
“I think there’s been something of a hype cycle” around fusion recently, he said. “There’s been a lot of venture capital flowing, and people have gotten better and better at leveraging dumb money into hype. You’ve got a lot of startups blooming everywhere that are replicating stuff that we were able to do in the 1960s in small labs, and putting their own spin on it. Because there’s so much money in the system, and so much desire to have this technological solution, people are very excited — and totally ignoring the fact that there is no result that has any energy output to it.”
What is Helion, and what is it promising?
Speaking of startups: enter Helion. Helion was founded in 2013 and was helped along by an infusion of cash from startup accelerator Y Combinator in 2014. That year, its CEO claimed that Helion could get a fusion reactor up and running in three years; two years ago, he said that the company would be able to generate fusion power and “go after commercially installed power generation” by 2024.
Despite the repeated misses on the timeline, Helion broke ground on its first reactor site in 2021, thanks in part to a $US375 million investment from Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sam Altman. It has now become the first fusion company to ink an actual power purchasing agreement for its services, and says that it will start supplying power to Microsoft in 2028 — more than 10 years after it initially said its reactor would be built.
Earther reached out to Helion to ask about its confidence in the timeline given its past misses. The recent results of its sixth prototype of a fusion reactor, a spokesperson wrote in an email, “give us great confidence that our timeline is realistic and that we can build the first fusion power plant by 2028.”
Can they actually do it?
Despite the company’s cheery outlook, there’s a lot of scepticism from experts around the Helion and Microsoft announcement, particularly the truncated timeline — including from Seife, who nevertheless says that he understands the hype.
“It’s so beautiful on paper,” Seife said. “That’s the appeal of it.”
Beyond Helion’s ability to perfect a process in five years that decades of research hasn’t yet gotten us to, there’s also a marked difference between advancing the science of fusion itself — which would alone be an incredible feat — and harnessing fusion for energy. A lot of the funding behind nuclear fusion in recent years in the U.S. has focused on achieving ignition, without an additional focus on creating usable energy from fusion; it’s a whole separate ballgame to actually put energy on the grid with the process. (Building a power plant alone is already a big infrastructure project that can take a couple years at best.)
“The classic joke is, ok, if you can produce energy, make me a cup of tea,” Seife said. “Once you make me a cup of tea, I will consider paying you money to do something, but first, make me a goddamn cup of tea.”
Is banking on fusion good for the planet?
A spokesperson for Helion told Earther in an email that the details of its power purchasing agreement with Microsoft won’t be made public. “That said, this is a real PPA, with commitments and obligations as well as penalties for failing to meet them,” the spokesperson said.
There are many questions left unanswered — has Microsoft paid Helion any money up-front? What are those commitments, obligations, and penalties, specifically? And, perhaps most importantly from a climate perspective, how much is Microsoft banking on this carbon-free fusion power?
………………………….. we don’t have much time to make the big changes we need. Creating plans that rely on technologies that haven’t been fully tested — and listening to Silicon Valley technocrats who keep making big promises and aren’t held to account when they don’t deliver — wastes valuable time, energy, and money that we could be spending on the clean energy technologies that we have today or are much nearer to deployment…… https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2023/05/helion-and-microsoft-lead-world-down-nuclear-fusion-rabbit-hole/
Microsoft just made a huge, far-from-certain bet on nuclear fusion
Microsoft just made a huge, far-from-certain bet on nuclear fusion, The Verge 10 May 23,
Microsoft just signed a jaw-dropping agreement to purchase electricity from a nuclear fusion generator. Nuclear fusion, often called the Holy Grail of energy, is a potentially limitless source of clean energy that scientists have been chasing for the better part of a century.
A company called Helion Energy thinks it can deliver that Holy Grail to Microsoft by 2028. It announced a power purchase agreement with Microsoft this morning that would see it plug in the world’s first commercial fusion generator to a power grid in Washington. The goal is to generate at least 50 megawatts of power — a small but significant amount and more than the 42MW that the US’s first two offshore wind farms have the capacity to generate today.
To say that’s a tall order would be the understatement of the year. “I would say it’s the most audacious thing I’ve ever heard,” says University of Chicago theoretical physicist Robert Rosner. “In these kinds of issues, I will never say never. But it would be astonishing if they succeed.”
Experts’ optimistic estimates for when the world might see its first nuclear fusion power plant have ranged from the end of the decade to several decades from now.
Helion’s success depends on achieving remarkable breakthroughs in an incredibly short span of time and then commercializing its technology to make it cost-competitive with other energy sources. Nevertheless, Helion is unfazed.
“This is a binding agreement that has financial penalties if we can’t build a fusion system,” Helion founder and CEO David Kirtley tells The Verge. “We’ve committed to be able to build a system and sell it commercially to [Microsoft].”……………………………………
The most advanced attempts at generating electricity through nuclear fusion involve shooting powerful laser beams at a tiny target or relying on magnetic fields to confine superheated matter called plasma with a machine called a tokamak.
Helion uses neither of those methods. The company is developing a 40-foot device called a plasma accelerator that heats fuel to 100 million degrees Celsius. It heats deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen) and helium-3 into a plasma and then uses pulsed magnetic fields to compress the plasma until fusion happens. (The company has a Youtube video that illustrates the process in much more detail.
Helion claims that the machine should eventually be able to recapture the electricity used to trigger the reaction, which can be used to recharge the device’s magnets.
Figuring out how to be energy efficient is crucial to make fusion power a reality. After all, you need extreme heat and pressure to force atoms to fuse together. ………………
Assuming Helion can pull this all off, it still has to ensure that it can do so in an affordable way. The cost of the electricity it generates for consumers would need to be comparable to or cheaper than today’s power plants, solar, and wind farms. The company isn’t sharing what price it agreed to in its power purchase agreement with Microsoft, but Kirtley says the company’s goal is to one day get costs down to a cent a kilowatt hour.
……………………as has been the case with dreams of nuclear fusion for decades — we’ll have to wait and see. https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/10/23717332/microsoft-nuclear-fusion-power-plant-helion-purchase-agreement
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