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Following Biden climate summit, USA govt keen to promote and export Small Nuclear Reactors

A Spotlight on Advanced Nuclear after the White House Climate Summit– JD Supra, 30 Apr 21. -”…….. With the nuclear ban lifted by the Development Finance Corporation for investment in innovation projects, the U.S. government acknowledged the importance of nuclear in the transition to [?] clean energy in developing economies. 

………..  the Department of State announced the launch of its Foundational Infrastructure for the Responsible Use of Small Modular Reactor Technology (FIRST) Program. Through an initial $5.3 million investment, this program will strengthen international collaboration between the U.S. and partner countries seeking to deploy nuclear energy in their clear energy initiatives. This cooperation includes supporting the deployment of advanced nuclear technologies, including small modular reactors (SMRs),…….

May 1, 2021 Posted by | politics, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The nuclear menace from under the seas and from high in the sky- theme for May 21

Why would anyone persist in pushing Small Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) and pretending that they can solve climate change, when they clearly cannot?

Well, the answer is – if you’re a toxic macho nuclear zealot or a nuclear weapons corporation – ( Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and General Dynamics etc)- this myth about SMRs is manna from heaven.

It means that the tax-payer, not private enterprise investors, will take over the SMR push – and the military-industrial-complex will race away with nuclear sites and weapons in space, and with powerful killer nuclear submarines.

Meanwhile those billionaire nuclear gurus – Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, , Richard Branson, Jack Ma and othes , will be laughing all the way to the bank, as they promote ”peaceful, nuclear-powered” space travel.

The global media promotes the joy and delight of space travel, rarely acknowledging its intimate connection with militarism. And there’s a crazy sort of national pride – hubris in being in the space race.

The space race to what? Apart from the obvious – nuclear war and annihilation, there’s the danger of ecosystem plutonium pollution from accidents and leaks, drastic accidents, and the gobbling up of public funds that might otherwise go to the public good – health, education, welfare, climate ation – heck – even good international relations!

The USA and Russia have long been in a toxic competition to militarily control the world especially by nuclear submarines. There’s a strange and unwarranted confidence that nuclerar submarines are ”clean” and somehow ”safe”. That’s because they release their radioactive trash unseen, into the world’s ocean waters. When they have an accident, well they just sink, and their poisonous mess is invisible. Dead nuclear submarines seem to be no trouble, hidden on the sea floor. Now that the world has become (a bit) aware of the radioactive danger of nuclear submarines, the dead ones lie in port, as nobody really knows what to do with them, how to clean up the nuclear mess.

In this time of pandemic, it is urgently necessary to put the brakes on NATO, and Russia – in regard to the increasing danger to the world, of nuclear submarines. Even more than cruise ships, they can be a hot-bed of coronavirus – making them even more unsafe in a number of ways.

May 1, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, Christina's themes, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, weapons and war | 3 Comments

The purpose of USA space research is clearly military – they don’t even pretend any more.

US Nuclear Marks Beginning of Age of Space Mining as It Signs Historic Trade Agreement, US Nuclear Corp, April 28, 2021,

Source: US Nuclear Corp.  Los Angeles, CA, April 28, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — via NewMediaWire — On April 15, 2021, US Nuclear Corp. (OTCQB: UCLE) signed a historic trade agreement with Solar System Resources Corporation that marked the beginning of the age of space trade and mining.  The new agreement sets preliminary prices for the high value materials to be extracted.  It also establishes and expands our cislunar and solar system value chain and adds SatRevolution as a new partner.  The agreement is a continuation of the Letter of Intent signed on February 5, 2021, and outlines how US Nuclear and Solar Systems Resources Corp. plan to cooperate building a value chain starting with mining and selling valuable helium-3 and lanthanide metals and other materials from space deposits.

Solar Systems Resources Corporation Sp. z o. o. is a space mining company that conducts localization, in-situ verification, and mining of space resources.  A third strategic partner, SatRevolution S.A., a leading provider of nanosatellites, is also participating in construction of the value chain mentioned in the agreement.  The deal, if completed in full, could be worth many hundreds of billions of dollars and will pave the way to a new frontier mining resources in space.    

The agreement is in the form of a Memorandum of Understanding, and highlights include:

……….. The parties will endeavor to support the US (and allies), NATO military, and the development of the operational capabilities of the US Space Force……  https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/04/28/2218641/0/en/US-Nuclear-Marks-Beginning-of-Age-of-Space-Mining-as-It-Signs-Historic-Trade-Agreement.html

April 29, 2021 Posted by | space travel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Call for debate and scrutiny of proposed nuclear fusion power plant


Call for debate and scrutiny of proposed nuclear fusion power plant, 28 Apr 2021  Nation CYMRU, Alex Seabrook, local democracy reporter

A call has been made for a proper debate and scrutiny over a proposed nuclear fusion power plant near Barry.

Vale of Glamorgan council put forward Aberthaw, a recently closed coal-fired power plant, as a potential site for a fusion prototype.

The UK government last year called for suggestions for possible sites to pioneer the technology which could generate electricity with low carbon emissions.

But opposition councillors on the Vale council have claimed the cabinet has “rushed through” its decision to suggest Aberthaw as a site.

Plaid Councillor Ian Johnson said: “It was strange that the council leadership did not consult with other parties or ask a cross-party scrutiny committee to consider issues before making the expression of interest about a possible future use of the Aberthaw plant.

“Even though it is an early point, many people will have questions about the technology, the impact of the development and the process, and discussing this in scrutiny would open up the debate and ensure transparency.”

Fusion technology is still in its infancy and no fusion reactor has ever created more power than it consumes. But scientists say it could be cleaner and safer than fission, the nuclear technology currently used to generate electricity.

If Aberthaw is chosen, the council is hoping the power plant could bring lots of high-tech high-paid jobs to the region. Westminster should decide on a site by the end of next year, and the power plant would be built by 2040, costing about £2 billion.

Controversial’ 

But the Vale’s cabinet used controversial emergency powers last month to put forward Aberthaw as a site, without consulting the full council or any scrutiny committees. Council leader Neil Moore said this was due to the deadline for suggestions at the end of last month.

However, Westminster made the initial call for suggestions in December last year, meaning the council had four months in total to debate and scrutinise the decision to put forward Aberthaw. The council debated the issue in a meeting this week, after the deadline passed.

Conservative Cllr Gordon Kemp said: “This is being dealt effectively without allowing any proper consideration or scrutiny. It’s an extremely significant matter, even if we ignore the issue of public concern over such a proposal.

“We’re looking at potentially a colossal, massive investment in the Vale. It could create many jobs, so I think it’s something that should have been discussed.

“I appreciate there are always deadlines on this. But I’m very concerned and surprised this wasn’t put before cabinet and scrutiny committees [earlier].”… https://nation.cymru/news/call-for-debate-and-scrutiny-of-proposed-nuclear-fusion-power-plant/

April 29, 2021 Posted by | technology, UK | Leave a comment

No future for new nuclear

 ‘the claim that any nuclear reactor system can “burn” or “consume” nuclear waste is a misleading oversimplification. Reactors can actually use only a fraction of spent nuclear fuel as new fuel, and separating that fraction increases the risks of nuclear proliferation and terrorism.’ 

mini-PWR designs, like NuScale’s Small Modular Reactor. – the UCS is none too keen on SMRs, as witness its earlier report on them –it says ‘small isn’t always beautiful’. A more recent review of SMRs by Prof. M.V. Ravana, from the University of British Columbia, looking more at the economics, came to similar conclusions: ‘Pursuing SMRs will only worsen the problem of poor economics that has plagued nuclear power and make it harder for nuclear power to compete with renewable sources of electricity.’ 

No future for new nuclear— https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2021/04/no-future-for-new-nuclear.htmlAn arguably definitive study 25 Apr 21, of new advanced non-water cooled nuclear options, including molten salt reactors and liquid sodium cooled fast reactors, from the US Union of Concerned Scientists, concludes that none can be ready for at least a decade, more like two, and there are none that meet safety, security, sustainability criteria, apart possibly from once-through breed and burn reactors. If we want nuclear it says it would more sensible just to upgrade the standard, more familiar, water cooled reactors.

It sets the scene by noting that, in the United States, so-called Light Water Reactors (PWRs and BWRs) have dominated, these using ordinary water to cool their hot, highly radioactive cores, as opposed to reactors like the Canadian CANDU that use ‘heavy water’, with a double neutron hydrogen isotope, as a moderator. Support for LWRs has continued, despite some economic problems, which have bedevilled expansion in the US and elsewhere: ‘new nuclear plants have proven prohibitively expensive and slow to build, discouraging private investment and contributing to public skepticism’. 

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April 27, 2021 Posted by | technology, USA | Leave a comment

Be aware – Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) for space rockets has everything to do with the mkilitary, and funding for weapons makers

US Military Seeks Nuclear Space Flight Test by 2025, VOA 26 Apr 21,

The U.S. military has chosen three companies to develop nuclear thermal propulsion, or NTP systems to be tested in space by 2025. The goal is to test the space travel technology in cislunar space – the area between Earth and the moon.

What is NTP?  What is NTP?

The U.S. Department of Energy describes on its website how an NTP system works. It needs a radioactive material such as uranium and another element, such as hydrogen, in liquid form. The liquid propellant is pumped through a reactor core. This causes uranium atoms to break apart inside the core and release heat. The heat turns the propellant into gas, which expands through an opening to produce thrust.

The contracts to produce a flight demonstration of NTP technology were awarded by the military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. The winning contractors were General Atomics, Blue Origin and Lockheed Martin. DARPA did not announce how much the contracts were worth.

In a recent announcement about the project, DARPA said the area of space, or “space domain,” will be very important to business, scientific discovery and national defense. Establishing “space domain awareness in cislunar space…will require a leap-ahead in propulsion technology,” the agency said……..

NTP and NASA

The U.S. space agency NASA has long been interested in nuclear propulsion systems to power its spacecraft of the future. But the technology has not yet been demonstrated…….. https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/us-military-seeks-nuclear-space-flight-test-by-2025/5864011.html

April 27, 2021 Posted by | space travel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Chernobyl story continues

Chernobyl: The next phase   https://www.ebrd.com/news/2021/chernobyl-the-next-phase.html By Axel  Reiserer, 23 Apr 2021

At 01:23:40 on 26 April 1986, the failure of a routine test at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, caused reactor 4 to explode, releasing parts of its radioactive core. It was the worst nuclear accident the world had ever seen, with far-reaching political, economic and ecological consequences. Thirty-five years on, Chernobyl is still as well-known as it was a generation ago.

Fires broke out, causing the main release of radioactivity into the environment. Wind carried contaminated particles over Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, as well as parts of Scandinavia and wider Europe. The 50,000 inhabitants of the adjacent town of Pripyat were evacuated, never to return.

The accident destroyed reactor 4, killing 30 operators and firemen within three months and causing numerous other deaths in weeks and months that followed. To this day, it remains the only accident in the history of the civil use of nuclear power when radiation-related fatalities occurred. The precise number of short- and longer-term victims remains heavily disputed.

By 06:35 on 26 April, all fires at the power plant had been extinguished, apart from the fire inside reactor 4, which continued to burn for many days. Some 5,000 tonnes of boron, dolomite, sand, clay and lead were dropped from helicopters in a bid to extinguish the blaze. When the destroyed reactor was later enclosed in a provisional structure – the so-called sarcophagus – these fuel-containing materials were also walled in.

The sarcophagus was built under extremely hazardous conditions and unprecedented time pressure. By November 1986, a steel and concrete shelter was in place to lock away the radioactive substances inside the ruined reactor building and to act as a radiation shield. It was always intended as a temporary measure, with an estimated lifespan of 20-30 years

The search for a long-term solution started soon after, alongside the massive challenge of cleaning up the accident site. By the end of 1991, the Soviet Union had dissolved and newly independent Ukraine had been left with the Chernobyl legacy. Following a G7 Action Plan to improve nuclear safety in central and eastern Europe, the Nuclear Safety Account was set up at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in 1993. Two years later, the scope of the programme was extended to include Chernobyl.

A breakthrough came with the Shelter Implementation Plan in 1997, which provided a road map of how to the tackle the immediate and longer-term tasks. In the same year, the G7 officially invited the EBRD to set up and manage the Chernobyl Shelter Fund, which became the main vehicle for all efforts to ensure that the destroyed reactor 4 remained in an environmentally safe and secure state.

Emergency repairs in 1998 and 1999 prevented the imminent collapse of the sarcophagus, as well as a vent stack that was endangering the adjacent turbine hall over reactor 3, which was still in operation. It was only at the end of 2000 that all nuclear power generation in Chernobyl ceased. The following year saw a landmark decision to build an arch-shaped steel structure, called the New Safe Confinement (NSC), to seal off reactor 4.

In the subsequent years, several tasks were carried out simultaneously. Detailed technical work on the NSC started. The site had to be stabilised and prepared for the construction work. The first project the EBRD managed was the construction of a liquid radioactive waste treatment plant (LRTP) to handle some 35,000 cubic metres of low- and intermediate-level liquid waste at the site. Meanwhile, the safe storage of the spent fuel assemblies from reactors 1, 2 and 3 came into focus.

All this has been achieved. The LRTP has been operational since 2014. A new interim storage facility for the treatment and storage of spent fuel has been built and, after successful hot tests, is currently awaiting a permanent licence from the Ukrainian regulator. The NSC, the most visible Chernobyl project, was slid into position in late 2016 and then handed over to the Ukrainian authorities.

In total, the Bank has managed close to €2 billion in donor funds through the Chernobyl Shelter Fund and Nuclear Safety Account. Of this, the EBRD provided €715 million of its own resources to complete the Interim Storage Facility and New Safe Confinement.

Today, the New Safe Confinement dominates the skyline over Chernobyl, as the sarcophagus once did. The steel structure is 108 metres high and 162 metres long, with a span of 257 metres and a lifetime of at least 100 years. It was assembled in two stages in a cleaned area near the accident site and, despite its size and weight of 36,000 tonnes, was pushed 327 metres into position. It is the largest moveable structure ever built.

This is not where the story ends, however. The fact that the NSC has a lifespan of 100 years means that the next phase of work now has to be planned, agreed and implemented. The estimated 200 tonnes of radioactive nuclear fuel inside reactor 4 are now shielded by the New Safe Confinement. However, parts of the sarcophagus are becoming unstable and will have to be removed at some point. Once this is done, work will come closer to the reactor’s interior.

The EBRD remains a key partner in these efforts. Following a request by Ukraine, in November 2020, the Bank established the new International Chernobyl Co-Operation Account, aimed at creating an integrated plan for the site to serve as the basis for developing and implementing longer-term projects. The new fund will hold it first assembly meeting on Tuesday – fittingly one day after the 35th anniversary. The Chernobyl story continues.

April 24, 2021 Posted by | safety, technology, Ukraine, wastes | 2 Comments

USA: Small nuclear reactors cannot meet the critical climate need – now, or ever

The critical need for deep carbon pollution reductions this decade calls on us to focus on the low-carbon technologies we have now. And those are wind and solar. SMRs will be a dollar short and a day too late. They cannot meet critical climate deadlines, not by 2030 or 2035, and likely never.

Advanced Nuclear Dreaming in Washington State, CounterPunch, PATRICK MAZZA  19 Apr 21, It was once known by one of the most inadvertently appropriate acronyms ever, WPPSS, the Washington Public Power Supply System.  “Whoops!,” as they called it, in the early 1980s brought on what was then the worst municipal bond default in U.S. history trying to build five nuclear reactors in Washington state at once, completing only one.

But faith in the nuclear future lives on at “Whoops!,” today rebranded as Energy Northwest. On April 1, the day perhaps also inadvertently fitting, the consortium of Washington state public utilities announced a move aimed at the first advanced nuclear reactor deployment in the U.S. Energy Northwest will partner with Grant County Public Utility District, a member utility serving a desert county in the center of the state, and X-energy, a leading developer of the nuclear industry’s bright shining hope, the small modular reactor (SMR)…………….

The WPPSS default was part of the first wave of nuclear failures in the U.S. In the wake of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, approximately 100 proposed nuclear plants were cancelled. Recent years have seen a second round of failures. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 put $25 billion in nuclear subsidies on the table. That jumpstarted all of four nuclear reactors, two each in Georgia and South Carolina.  The only way Wall Street would touch the projects was to make ratepayers carry the risk by paying for “work in progress” before the first watt is delivered. South Carolina ratepayers won’t even see that. Cost overruns killed the project there in 2017 after $9 billion was thrown away, setting up a political and court fight over whether ratepayers will continue to be soaked.  The last two standing, Georgia’s Vogtle plants, were to have cost $14 billion and come on line in 2016-17. Now costs have doubled to $28 billion and scheduled completion this year and next is considered unlikely.

IS THE SMR A SOLUTION?

SMRs are the nuclear industry’s answer to avoid such failures in the future. Instead of being custom-built and individually licensed, SMRs are intended to cut costs by licensing a single design manufactured at a plant and sent for final assembly to their operating site.  Smaller than the 1,000-megawatt-plus plants with which we’re familiar, SMRs are 100 MW or less, and designed with safety features to prevent meltdowns such as experienced at Japan’s Fukushima plant in 2011. Though there are questions about that, as covered below…………..

CAN THE SMR SAVE THE CLIMATE?

For now, the question is whether SMRs such as X-energy’s can really revive the nuclear industry, and most importantly, provide a climate solution with low-carbon electrical power in a meaningful timeframe. The answer, by simple logic, is no

…………Though deep carbon cuts must start quickly, the Washington state partnership gives a completion date for its SMR pilot project as 2027-28. Considering the nuclear industry’s track record, delays and cost overruns are likely. And that would only be the beginning of a long-process to create the entire manufacturing supply chain needed to make SMRs an economical alternative. If they can be. The key issue is economies of scale.

“Power generation scales on volume of the reactor vessels,” notes Arjun Makhijani, who has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, with a specialization in nuclear fusion, from the University of California at Berkeley. “The materials and labor scale more slowly.  That’s a basic reason that there are economies of scale and big reactors were built.”

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) cites a study which shows that a reactor with 1,100 MW capacity would cost three times as much to build as a 180 MW plant, but produce six times the electricity, “so the capital cost per kilowatt would be twice as great for the smaller plant.”

SMRs lose those economies of scale, but proponents hope to make that up with mass manufacturing and licensing, avoiding costs of custom-built plants.

ROCKY ROAD TO MASS PRODUCTION

“The road to such mass manufacturing will be rocky,” Makhijani and M.V. Ramana write in a recent article, “Why Small Modular Reactors Won’t Help Counter the Climate Crisis.” “Even with optimistic assumptions about how quickly manufacturers could learn to improve production efficiency and lower cost, thousands of SMRs, which will all be higher priced in comparison to large reactors, would have to be manufactured for the price per kilowatt for an SMR to be comparable to that of a large reactor.”

That sets up “a chicken-and-egg economic problem,” they write. “Without the factories, SMRs can never hope to achieve the theoretical cost reductions that are at the heart of the strategy to compensate for the lack of economies of scale. But without the cost reductions, there will not be the large number of orders to stimulate the investments needed to set up the supply chain in the first place.”………….

WE DON’T NEED NUCLEAR

The world is running out of time to address all the concerns facing SMRs and advanced reactor designs in general.

“If you look at the cold facts from a climate point of view we have a shortage of time and money. New reactors cannot help materially,” Makhijani told The Raven. “How are we going to have a carbon-free electricity system by 2035 in which SMRs will play a significant role when the first one isn’t even supposed to come on line till the late 2020s? Those who are advocating new nuclear reactors should address the time constraint, and whether we can do it without nuclear. If we could not do it without, that would be another question. But we can. So there should be no question.”

Many studies document the capacity of wind and solar to replace fossil fuel electricity. The challenge of varying sunlight and wind speeds is met with a smart grid that can adjust energy demand to available supply and link diverse geographies. So when the wind is blowing on the Great Plains, it can supply juice while clouds block sunlight in Chicago. For times when none of that is sufficient, storage in many forms can be used, from batteries to pumped storage reservoirs. Even household water heaters. If all else fails, backup generators fueled with stored hydrogen can be brought into play.  Hydrogen can be electrolyzed from water through solar and wind energy that would otherwise go unused because generation exceeds the demands of the grid.


Mark Jacobson of Stanford has done many studies documenting the capacity of wind, water and solar to meet all energy needs. A NOAA study showed carbon pollution from electricity could be cut up to 80% from 1990 levels by 2030, largely with wind and solar, needing no new nuclear and energy storage, while actually cutting electricity costs. That would require building a continental grid with efficient high-voltage DC lines to link diverse geographies. A study done by Makhijani for the Institute for Environmental and Energy Research, of which he is president, lays out a path to zero carbon electricity in Maryland.

ANOTHER WHOOPS?

Despite towering obstacles facing SMRs, from economic chicken-and-egg problems of ramping up production, to unsolved waste and proliferation issues, to remaining safety questions, the nuclear faithful at Energy Northwest soldier on. Yes, they now have operated a nuclear plant successfully since the 1980s, though questions have been raised about earthquake hazards in light of emerging seismic knowledge. Washington state has enacted a goal of 100% clean electricity by 2045, and nuclear advocates see it filling a role.  In any event, new nuclear power from SMRs will be incapable of supplying a significant portion of low-carbon energy until well into the 2030s, even if economic and other issues are resolved.

All that time, any new nuclear reactors will be facing continuing cost declines in wind, solar and storage, as well as increasing deployment of smart grid technologies and advanced long-distance power transmission. If the Washington state partnership’s SMR installation actually is built and operated, with the 2027-8 timeline likely to be stretched out and the projected $2.4 billion cost figure likely to be exceeded, it could well be a costly white elephant, a relic of faith in a technology whose time has passed. The critical need for deep carbon pollution reductions this decade calls on us to focus on the low-carbon technologies we have now. And those are wind and solar. SMRs will be a dollar short and a day too late. They cannot meet critical climate deadlines, not by 2030 or 2035, and likely never.  https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/04/19/advanced-nuclear-dreaming-in-washington-state/

April 24, 2021 Posted by | climate change, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | 1 Comment

”Advanced” nuclear reactors not necessarily better. NuScale’s ”small” nuclear reactors not really small

  Johnson Loves Pie in the Sky nuClear News N0. 131 April 2021 ………….. NuScale In Jan 2021, a UK company, Shearwater, announced a partnership with US NuScale to develop 3GW hybrid off-shore wind/SMR plant to produce electricity & hydrogen. (9) The NuScale option, whether as a standalone plant or a hybrid with offshore wind, suffers from the fact that while the individual reactors are small, they are designed to be in as cluster of 12 – about 1GW capacity – making it effectively a large reactor. Until a project being built in the USA is completed and operating efficiently and economically, it will remain an unproven and risky investment. 
The NuScale SMR design is further ahead than Rolls Royce’s, since they have been working on it since 2003. It is a 77MW reactor designed to be deployed in clusters of 12 – so 924MW altogether. NuScale has only one potential project – Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) – with USDOE funding for part of the project but not sufficient investors yet for rest of project. 

M.V. Ramana (Liu Institute for Global Issues, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, The University of British Columbia) argues that higher construction and operational costs per unit of    electricity generation capacity will make electricity from SMRs more expensive than electricity from large nuclear power plants. An assessment of the markets for these technologies, suggests they are inadequate to justify constructing the necessary manufacturing facilities. (10) 
Economics of scale would suggest that SMRs would be more expensive per unit of electricity than large-scale reactors. Proponents argue that they can make up for the lost economies of scale by savings through mass and modularized manufacture in factories and resultant learning. Learning in this context refers primarily to the reduction of cost with increased construction. It is often quantified through a learning rate, which is defined as the percentage cost reduction associated with a doubling of units produced. Sustained learning would require just one or two standard reactor designs to be built in large quantities. However, there are roughly six dozen SMR designs are in various stages of development in multiple countries.

Although there is no data on jobs from SMRs—because SMRs have not been deployed at any meaningful level to measure employment figures—the literature is clear that nuclear power generates fewer jobs than renewables like solar and wind energy per unit of energy generated. (11) (12) 
Several advocates have argued that SMRs are capable of load following to balance intermittent renewables. From a technical point of view, shutting down, restarting, or varying the output power are all more challenging for nuclear power plants, especially water-cooled reactors, compared to other electricity sources. Further, although load following may be technically possible, operating reactors in this mode would decrease their economic competitiveness. The challenge arises from the fact that nuclear power plants have high fixed (capital) costs. Therefore, it makes more economic sense to operate them continuously near their maximum capacity in order to improve the return on investment. Given the already poor economic prospects for SMRs, this penalty will essentially rule out deployment of these technologies in a load-following mode.   

Ramana concludes that pursuing SMRs will only worsen the problem of poor economics that has plagued nuclear power and make it harder for nuclear power to compete with renewable sources of electricity. The scenario is even more bleak as we look to the future because other sources of electricity supply, in particular combinations of renewables and storage technologies such as batteries, are fast becoming cheaper. Finally, because there is no evidence of adequate demand, it is financially not viable to set up the manufacturing facilities needed to mass produce SMRs and advanced reactors. All of these problems might just end up reinforcing The Economist magazine’s observation from the turn of the century: ‘‘nuclear power, which early advocates thought would be ‘too cheap to meter’, is more likely to be remembered as too costly to matter’’.

 Professor Dave Elliott is also sceptical about claims that SMRs can reduce costs. Delivery of power at £40-60/MWh is promised, but there is still some way to go before any project actually goes ahead and we can see if the promises hold up in practice. He says most designs are basically variants of ideas proposed, and in some cases tested, many decades ago, but mostly then abandoned. The most developed is the NuScale reactor, which is basically PWR technology. Rolls Royce is also promoting a mini-PWR design, which, it is claimed, will be ready for grid use by 2030. Some of the other SMR proposals are less developed and may take more time to get to   that stage. But it is claimed that one of the more novel design, the Natrium fast reactor system, proposed by Terrapower and backed by Bill Gates, will be on line this decade. Given that this makes use of liquid sodium and molten salt heat storage, that is quite a claim.

If they are going to be economically viable, some say that SMRs will have to be run in Combined Heat and Power ‘Cogen’ mode, supplying heat for local used, as well as power for the grid. That implies that they will have to sited in or near large heat loads i.e. in or near urban areas. Will local residents be keen to have mini-nuclear plants nearby? That issue is already being discussed in the USA, with some urban resistance emerging. A key issue in that context is that it has been argued that since they allegedly will be safer, SMRs will not need to have such large evacuation zones as is the norm for standard reactors, most of which are sited in relatively remote area. (13)


  “Advanced” is not always better The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), examines all the proposed new types of reactor under development in the US and fails to find any that could be developed in time to help deal with the urgent need to cut carbon emissions. 

The US government is spending $600 million on supporting these prototypes. While the report goes into details only about the many designs of small and medium-sized reactors being developed by US companies, it is a serious blow to the worldwide nuclear industry because the technologies are all similar to those also being underwritten by taxpayers in Canada, the UK, Russia and China. This is a market the World Economic Forum claimed in January could be worth $300 billion by 2040. Edwin Lyman, who wrote the report, and is the director of nuclear power safety in the UCS Climate and Energy Program, thinks the WEF estimate is extremely unlikely. He comments on nuclear power in general: “The technology has fundamental safety and security disadvantages compared with other low-carbon sources.” He says none of the new reactors appears to solve any of these problems. The industry’s claims that their designs could cost less, be built quickly, reduce the production of nuclear waste, use uranium more efficiently and reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation have yet to be proved. The developers have also yet to demonstrate that the new generation of reactors has improved safety features enabling them to shut down quickly in the event of attack or accident. (14)   

One of the industry’s ideas for using the power from these reactors to produce “green hydrogen” for use in transport or back-up energy production is technically feasible, but it seems likely that renewable energies like wind and solar could produce the hydrogen far more cheaply, the report says. 


“Advanced” reactors often present greater proliferation risks, says Lyman. “In many cases, they are worse with regard to … safety, and the potential for severe accidents and potential nuclear proliferation. ‘Advanced’ Isn’t Always Better”. (15) 
Lyman says, if nuclear power is to play an expanded role in helping address climate change, newly built reactors must be demonstrably safer and more secure than current generation reactors. Unfortunately, most “advanced” nuclear reactors are anything but. A comprehensive analysis of the most prominent and well-funded non-light-water reactor (NLWR) designs   concluded that they are not likely to be significantly safer than today’s nuclear plants and pose even more safety, proliferation, and environmental risks than the current fleet. (16)    https://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/nuClearNewsNo131.pdf

April 24, 2021 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, UK, USA | Leave a comment

Britain’s unlikely-to-succeed bet on Rolls Royce small nuclear reactors

 

…..Advanced Modular Reactors are unlikely to be available before 2045 if ever – much too late to be any help in tackling the climate emergency. .….

Small Modular Reactors s will only proceed if the risk to RR money is minimal. That means RR will only put serious effort into design development with government guarantees given now, before the design exists, and it has been reviewed by ONR, a demonstration plant has been completed, and costs are known. 

SMRs will only proceed if the risk to RR money is minimal. That means RR will only put serious effort into design development with government guarantees given now, before the design exists, and it has been reviewed by ONR, a demonstration plant has been completed, and costs are known. 

UK taxpayers would have to provide a large proportion of the cost of design development, navigating the regulators design assessment and assist in the setting up of component production lines. It would also have to guarantee orders for a minimum of 16 reactors, which, even on Rolls Royce’s unrealistic cost estimate, would be a commitment to spend nearly £30bn before it has progressed beyond a conceptual design.

Johnson Loves Pie in the Sky nuClear News N0. 131 April 2021, We saw in June 2020 (nuClear News No. 126) how the Nuclear Innovation and Research Advisory Board (NIRAB) has been advising the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) that we need three streams of nuclear product development and deployment:

 • large-scale Light Water Reactors (LWRs), which are currently available and suitable for baseload electricity generation;
 • small modular reactors (SMRs), which are based on the same proven technology and can offer additional flexibility to meet local energy needs;

 • advanced modular reactors (AMRs), which typically have a higher temperature output, enabling them to contribute to decarbonisation through heat and hydrogen production, as well as generate electricity at competitive costs. 

Small modular and advanced nuclear reactors are proposed, supposedly, as potential ways of dealing with some of the problems of large nuclear reactors —specifically economic competitiveness, risk of accidents, link to proliferation and production of waste. Yet Gregory Jaczko, Former Chair US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, says Advanced Nuclear Technologies should only be supported “if they can compete with renewables & storage on deployment cost & speed, public safety, waste disposal, operational flexibility & global security. There are none today.” (1) 

The UK Government’s Policy Paper on ‘Advanced Nuclear Technologies’ (ANTs) specifies two broad categories of ANT. Firstly, Generation III water-cooled reactors similar to existing nuclear power station reactors but smaller, it calls Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). This is despite the fact that the Rolls Royce design which it is supporting is 470MW – much larger than the maximum 300MW defined by IAEA as small.   

  Secondly, Generation IV which use novel cooling systems or fuels to offer new functionality (such as industrial process heat) it calls Advanced Modular Reactors (AMRs). (2) 

In July 2019 the UK Government gave an initial £18m to Rolls-Royce to help them develop the design for an SMR. This was to be matched with funding from the consortium led by Rolls-Royce (and including Assystem, SNC Lavalin/Atkins, Wood, Arup, Laing O’Rourke, BAM Nuttall, Siemens, National Nuclear Laboratory, and Nuclear AMRC). (3)

A year earlier, in June 2018, as part of the UK government’s £200 million Nuclear Sector Deal, £56 million was put towards the development and licensing of advanced modular reactor designs. Eight non-light water reactor (non-LWR) vendors each received £4 million to perform detailed technical and commercial feasibility studies. Those vendors were Advanced Reactor Concepts, DBD, LeadCold, Moltex Energy, Tokamak Energy, U-Battery Developments, Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC), and Westinghouse Electric Company UK. (4) This was Phase One of the Advanced Modular Reactor (AMR) Feasibility and Development Project. Then in July 2020 Phase Two was announced with 3 AMRs receiving a share of £40m: U-Battery (4MW hig   temperature reactor), Westinghouse (450MW lead-cooled fast reactor) & Tokamak (fusion). A possible further £5m was also made available to regulators to support this. (5) In November 2020, Boris Johnson’s 10 Point Plan confirmed the Government’s commitment to advancing large, small and advanced reactors, and announced an Advanced Nuclear Fund of up to £385 million which included:


 • funding of up to £215 million for Small Modular Reactors (SMRs); • up to £170 million for Advanced Modular Reactors (AMRs); • up to £40 million to develop regulatory frameworks and support UK supply chains to help bring these technologies to market.

According to the Energy & Climate Change Intelligence Unit (ECIU) the investment in small modular reactors (SMRs) was less than expected. “If I was in the SMR game I’d be disappointed with this because £2bn support for a small initial fleet of reactors has been paired back to just over £500M.” (6) 


Professor Steve Thomas says the 3 AMRs are unlikely to be available before 2045 if ever – much too late to be any help in tackling the climate emergency. (7) 

The Rolls Royce (RR) SMR design is still at an early stage. It was only announced in 2016. It is slightly larger than the first unit at Fukushima (470MW vs 439MW) and much larger than the Trawsfynydd Magnox reactors, which were 250MW. Rolls Royce claims the first reactor could be operational by 2030, but it’s hard to see how this can be achieved. Even if achieved it is probably too late. By 2030 only Sizewell B and possibly Hinkley Point C will be operating and if the UK is to meet its targets of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 68% by 2030 and 78% by 2035, we should by then be well on the road to a low carbon economy with a limited nuclear capacity   

  Thomas says SMRs will only proceed if the risk to RR money is minimal. That means RR will only put serious effort into design development with government guarantees given now, before the design exists, and it has been reviewed by ONR, a demonstration plant has been completed, and costs are known. 

Rolls-Royce told the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee in 2016 that 7GW of power would “be of sufficient scale to provide a commercial return on investment from a UKdeveloped SMR, but it would not be sufficient to create a long-term, sustainable business for UK plc.” Therefore, any SMR manufacturer would have to look to export markets to make a return on their investment.

 Rolls Royce is making extraordinary demands on the UK Government that it must commit to before further significant development work takes place. Thomas says RR would need:   

  •  Exclusive access to UK market; 

• Matched funding (minimum) up to end of Generic Design Assessment;   
  Sharing of costs for production line facilities (to produce 2 reactors per year); 

• Guaranteed orders for 7GW (16 reactors).

 UK taxpayers would have to provide a large proportion of the cost of design development, navigating the regulators design assessment and assist in the setting up of component production lines. It would also have to guarantee orders for a minimum of 16 reactors, which, even on Rolls Royce’s unrealistic cost estimate, would be a commitment to spend nearly £30bn before it has progressed beyond a conceptual design. The first plant must be made using production lines so all 16 reactors must be ordered now & by the time the first is completed, another 8 will be on their way. (8)   

 Rolls Royce claims a construction time of 4 years & costs (after 5 units) of £1.8bn (£3800/kW), which means electricity at £40-60/MWh. These claims are extraordinary but very similar to those made for Hinkley Point C. In 2000, it had been claimed the EPR would be built in four years or less and would cost $1000/kW (about £800/kW). In fact, all EPR’s that have been built have gone far over budget and all will take much more than 4 years to construct. The latest cost estimate for Hinkley Point C is about £27bn (2020 money) or about £8400/kW. Rolls Royce’s claims must therefore be taken with a very large pinch of salt. 

Steve Thomas comments: 
“The UK Government’s ‘Green Industrial Revolution’ 10-point plan of November 2020 seemed to include a major strengthening of the commitment to Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). However, closer examination shows much of the money is far from committed and the focus is on technologies that have little chance of contributing to meeting the UK’s target of zero-carbon by 2050. There remains no firm commitment to the Rolls Royce SMR and it must be hoped the government is unwilling to gamble the huge sums of money Rolls Royce is demanding to be promised if it is to progress the design from the early stage it is currently at.”   ………   https://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/nuClearNewsNo131.pdf


April 24, 2021 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, UK | Leave a comment

Artificial Intelligence is already a serious problem in military systems

Worried about the autonomous weapons of the future? Look at what’s already gone wrong, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, By Ingvild Bode, Tom Watts, April 21, 2021……..a close look at the history of one common type of weapons package, the air defense systems that militaries employ to defend against missiles and other airborne threats, illuminates how highly automated weaponry is actually a risk the world already faces……   while many policymakers say they want to ensure humans remain in control over lethal force, the example of air defense systems shows that they face large obstacles.

Weapons like the US Army’s Patriot missile system, designed to shoot down missiles or planes that threaten protected airspace, include autonomous features that support targeting. These systems now come in many different shapes and sizes and can be typically operated in manual or various automatic modes. In automatic modes, the air defense systems can on their own detect targets and fire on them, relegating human operators to the role of supervising the system’s workings and, if necessary, of aborting attacks. The Patriot air defense system, used by 13 countries, is “nearly autonomous, with only the final launch decision requiring human interaction,” according to research by the Center for Strategic and International Studies………..

Our research on the character of human-machine interaction in air defense systems suggests that over time, their use has incrementally reduced the quality of human oversight in specific targeting decisions. More cognitive functions have been “delegated” to machines, and human operators face incredible difficulties in understanding how the complex computer systems make targeting decisions……….

A study of air defense systems reveals three real-world challenges to human-machine interaction that automated and autonomous features have already created. These problems are likely to grow worse as militaries incorporate more AI into the high-tech weapons of tomorrow.
Targeting decisions are opaque.

The people who operate air defense systems already have trouble understanding how the automated and autonomous features on the weapons they control make decisions…………

The history of Patriot systems operated by the US Army, for instance, includes several near-miss so-called “friendly fire” engagements during the First Gulf War in the 1990s and in training exercises…….. . Rather than addressing the root-causes of these deficiencies or communicating them to human operators, the military appears to have framed the issues as software problems that could be fixed through technical solutions.

Another problem that operators of air defense systems encounter is that of automation bias and over-trust. Human operators can be overly confident of the reliability and accuracy of the information they see on their screens. 

Operators can lose situational awareness………..  In real terms, the machines are now performing the bulk of the cognitive skills involved in operating an air defense system, not just the motor and sensory tasks……….
The tragic 1988 downing of an Iranian Air flight carrying 290 passengers and crew by a US Navy warship, the Vincennes, illustrates how human operators in the midst of combat can misinterpret computer outputs and make fatal mistakes. ………..

Improvements in the speed and maneuverability of modern weaponry continue to reduce the time human operators have to decide whether to authorize the use of force. Take what happened to an unfortunate Ukraine International Airlines jet as a recent example. The Iranian operators of a Tor-M1 system near Tehran’s airport shot down the civilian plane carrying 176 passengers and crew members in January 2020, only minutes after the plane took off…………

Regulating autonomous weapons.   In our assessment, the decades long process of integrating automated and autonomous features into the critical functions of air defense systems has contributed toward an emerging norm governing the use of air defense systems. The norm is that humans have a reduced role in use of force decisions……..

Countries have been debating possible regulations on lethal autonomous weapons systems at the United Nations since 2014. Many states have agreed in principle that human responsibility for using weapons systems has to be retained to ensure that autonomous weapons systems are used in compliance with international humanitarian law. But this raises two questions. First, how can human control over the use of force be defined; and second, how can such control be measured to ensure that it is people, not machines, who retain ultimate control over the use of force?

Almost a decade after a nonprofit called Article 36 introduced the concept of meaningful human control, there is no agreement on what exactly makes human control meaningful. ………………..The current crop of more-or-less autonomous weapons has created norms for human control over lethal force, and policymakers need to understand how these may undermine any (potential) international efforts to regulate autonomous weapons systems.  https://thebulletin.org/2021/04/worried-about-the-autonomous-weapons-of-the-future-look-at-whats-already-gone-wrong/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=MondayNewsletter04262021&utm_content=DisruptiveTechnology_AlreadyWrong_04212021

April 24, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, technology | Leave a comment

Washington’s nuclear industry a costly failure for ratepayers. Now they’re about to fail again, with small nuclear reactors

Advanced Nuclear Dreaming in Washington State, CounterPunch, PATRICK MAZZA  19 Apr 21……………..The WPPSS default was part of the first wave of nuclear failures in the U.S. In the wake of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, approximately 100 proposed nuclear plants were cancelled. Recent years have seen a second round of failures. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 put $25 billion in nuclear subsidies on the table. That jumpstarted all of four nuclear reactors, two each in Georgia and South Carolina.  The only way Wall Street would touch the projects was to make ratepayers carry the risk by paying for “work in progress” before the first watt is delivered. South Carolina ratepayers won’t even see that. Cost overruns killed the project there in 2017 after $9 billion was thrown away, setting up a political and court fight over whether ratepayers will continue to be soaked.  The last two standing, Georgia’s Vogtle plants, were to have cost $14 billion and come on line in 2016-17. Now costs have doubled to $28 billion and scheduled completion this year and next is considered unlikely.

IS THE SMR A SOLUTION?

SMRs are the nuclear industry’s answer to avoid such failures in the future. Instead of being custom-built and individually licensed, SMRs are intended to cut costs by licensing a single design manufactured at a plant and sent for final assembly to their operating site.  Smaller than the 1,000-megawatt-plus plants with which we’re familiar, SMRs are 100 MW or less, and designed with safety features to prevent meltdowns such as experienced at Japan’s Fukushima plant in 2011. Though there are questions about that, as covered below.

X-energy’s proposed plant is 80 MW. The Washington partnership envisions clustering four to make a 320-MW complex, with costs estimated at $2.4 billion. Half is to come from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP), and half from private investors, apparently leaving ratepayers out of the picture this time.

ARDP in 2020 made two $80 million grants to advanced nuclear reactor developers, one to X-energy, and the other to TerraPower, a venture in which Bill Gates has invested. The latter, slated to be 345 MW, aims at eventual scales as large as today’s plants, so it is not an SMR. The TerraPower liquid-sodium cooled reactor concept has its own set of issues. Liquid-sodium reactors have suffered operating difficulties and fires, and pose potential weapons proliferation hazards. The Raven will look at TerraPower in a future post……..

ROCKY ROAD TO MASS PRODUCTION

“The road to such mass manufacturing will be rocky,” Makhijani and M.V. Ramana write in a recent article, “Why Small Modular Reactors Won’t Help Counter the Climate Crisis.” “Even with optimistic assumptions about how quickly manufacturers could learn to improve production efficiency and lower cost, thousands of SMRs, which will all be higher priced in comparison to large reactors, would have to be manufactured for the price per kilowatt for an SMR to be comparable to that of a large reactor.”

That sets up “a chicken-and-egg economic problem,” they write. “Without the factories, SMRs can never hope to achieve the theoretical cost reductions that are at the heart of the strategy to compensate for the lack of economies of scale. But without the cost reductions, there will not be the large number of orders to stimulate the investments needed to set up the supply chain in the first place.”

That is leaving aside the prospect of a design defect being discovered after many SMRs have been deployed. In the 1990s, multiple Westinghouse-built reactors suffered common steam generator problems, resulting in lawsuits. “If an error in a mass-manufactured reactor were to result in safety problems, the whole lot might have to be recalled, as was the case with the Boeing 737 Max and 787 Dreamliner jetliners,” Makhijani and Ramana write. “But how does one recall a radioactive reactor? What will happen to an electricity system that relies on factory-made identical reactors that need to be recalled?”

The economic hurdles of SMRs posed by its competitors are overwhelming.

“Lazard, a Wall Street financial advisory firm, estimates the cost of utility-scale solar and wind to be about $40 per megawatt-hour,” Makhijani and Ramana write. “The corresponding figure for nuclear is four times as high, about $160 per MWh – a difference that is more than enough to use complementary technologies, such as demand response and storage, to compensate for the intermittency of solar and wind.”

While costs for competitors declines, nuclear costs continue to escalate. Cost for a proposed Idaho project by NuScale, another SMR developer, has doubled from an estimated $3 billion in 2015 to $6.1 billion in 2020  “long before any concrete has been poured,” Makhijani and Ramana note……….  https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/04/19/advanced-nuclear-dreaming-in-washington-state/

April 24, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

Bill Gates and 28 other billionaires pushing their small nuclear reactors, on the pretext that they’re ”clean”

Billionaires leading push for nuclear reactors in Canadian mining

By Joyce Nelson, Rabble, April 19 2021https://rabble.ca/news/2021/04/billionaires-leading-push-nuclear-reactors-canadian-miningThis is part two of a two-part series on small modular reactors.

In January 2019, Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, warned that the Trudeau government has a “desire to build small modular nuclear reactors [SMRs] all over Canada, especially in the North, to support the accelerated exploitation of natural resources.” Edwards included an excerpt from Nuclear Energy Insider, published January 16, 2019, which stated: “Canada’s large mining sector is seen as a key early market for SMR plants as operators look to reduce carbon emissions and costs.”

That “early market” for small modular reactors has been cleverly targeted by a key lobby group. As I wrote for Watershed Sentinel, Bill Gates and 28 other billionaires and “high-net-worth” individuals launched the Breakthrough Energy Coalition at the 2015 Paris climate talks to lobby for small nuclear reactor development as “clean technology” in dozens of countries, including Canada.

This billionaires’ nuclear club has been working closely for years with Natural Resources Canada in the push for small modular reactors, especially for use in off-grid mining………………….

With Gates and his billionaires’ nuclear club backing KoBold, it’s likely that their off-grid mining projects would welcome government financing for small modular reactors.

When asked about the situation, Mining Watch Canada’s Jamie Kneen told me by email:

“On the one hand, the mining industry faces so much risk in the markets that it’s unlikely to add to that risk by jumping on an unproven technology [like SMRs]. On the other hand, the mining industry is used to leaving masses of toxic waste behind for others to deal with — and getting away with it — so it’d be a perfect fit.”

Three political parties are fully against small modular reactors: the NDP, the Bloc Québécois, and the Green Party — worth remembering if the federal budget causes an election.

This is part one of a two-part series on small modular reactors. Read part one here.

Freelance writer Joyce Nelson is the author of seven books. She can be reached via www.joycenelson.ca

https://rabble.ca/news/2021/04/billionaires-leading-push-nuclear-reactors-canadian-mining

April 20, 2021 Posted by | Canada, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | 2 Comments

Trudeau government’s extraordinary push for small nuclear reactors – tax breaks, no environmental assessment …

Budget may reveal extent of federal support for risky new nuclear reactors. Rabble.Ca   Joyce Nelson 15 Apr 21, Across Canada, environmentalists and First Nations will be closely watching the April 19 release of the federal budget to see just how far the Trudeau Liberals will go in their push for small modular reactors (SMRs).

In September 2020, Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources Seamus O’Regan endorsed SMRs and stated that there is “no pathway to net zero [carbon emissions] without nuclear,” which prompted David Suzuki to famously tell the CBC: “I want to puke.”

Apparently, many share that feeling.

More than 100 Indigenous and civil society groups across Canada are now opposed to the new nuclear reactors, which are being pushed by the federal government and four provinces — Saskatchewan, Ontario, New Brunswick and Alberta — as so-called “clean energy” and a supposed solution to climate change.

These governments argue that the reactors would be the replacement for diesel in remote communities and for use in off-grid mining, tar-sands development, heavy industry, and as exportable expertise in a global market.

But opponents call SMRs “dirty, dangerous and distracting” from real climate solutions.

Even before the budget, the Trudeau Liberals have already taken several steps to advance development of the reactors, especially for use in off-grid mining.

Steps towards small reactors

The feds endorsed the March 2019 Canadian Minerals and Metals Plan, drawn up by federal, provincial and territorial governments. That plan urges governments to “accelerate efforts to develop and adopt clean energy sources, especially for northern, remote and isolated communities that rely on diesel” and “continue to study the feasibility of small modular reactors in mining operations, as well as the potential market for this technology.”

Then, in September 2020, Canada and the U.S. agreed to collaborate on the financing and production of rare-earth and other key metals, which are necessary for a wide range of products including batteries, solar panels, electric vehicles, AI, and weaponry.

After the December 2020 release of the “SMR Action Plan,” the federal government also decided that there would be no environmental impact assessments for small modular reactors, and that tax incentives should be given for this so-called “clean technology.”

The recent mandate letter to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland directs her to “cut tax rates by 50 per cent for companies that develop and manufacture zero-emission technology” in order to “make Canada a world leader in clean technology.”

As rabble.ca noted, “[t]he Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) has just given a green light to the preferred industry solution for disposal of nuclear reactors — entomb and abandon them in place, also known as ‘in-situ decommissioning.’ This paves the way for the introduction of a new generation of ‘small modular’ nuclear reactors or SMRs.”

While this would be a disaster for the environment and nearby communities, it would be a boon for the nuclear industry and the off-grid mining sector, which would not have to deal with the fallout and repercussions of such nuclear waste once a mining project is finished.

Important policy change

On December 7, 2020 the Hill Times published an open letter to Treasury Board from more than 100 women leaders across Canada, stating:

“We urge you to say ‘no’ to the nuclear industry that is asking for billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to subsidize a dangerous, highly polluting and expensive technology that we don’t need. Instead, put money into renewable, energy efficiency and energy conservation.”………….. https://rabble.ca/news/2021/04/budget-may-reveal-extent-federal-support-risky-new-nuclear-reactors

April 20, 2021 Posted by | Canada, politics, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

Iran to enrich uranium to 60% after ‘wicked’ nuclear site attack,

Iran to enrich uranium to 60% after ‘wicked’ nuclear site attack, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-56743560 14 Apr 21, Iran will produce 60%-enriched uranium in retaliation for a suspected Israeli attack on a nuclear site, President Hassan Rouhani says, bringing it closer to the purity required for a weapon.

A blast knocked out the power system at Natanz on Sunday, causing damage to thousands of uranium centrifuges.

Mr Rouhani warned the perpetrators that enrichment would now be ramped up as a response to “your wickedness”.

But he reiterated that Iran’s nuclear activities were “exclusively peaceful”.

France, Germany and the UK expressed “grave concern” at the move, saying Iran had “no credible civilian need for enrichment at this level”.

The three countries are parties to a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, under which it is permitted to enrich uranium up to 3.67% purity to make reactor fuel. Weapons-grade uranium is 90%-enriched or more.

Iran began producing 20%-enriched uranium – a level that takes most of the overall effort required to get to weapons-grade – in January as part of its response to the US sanctions reinstated by former President Donald Trump when he abandoned the accord three years ago.

Israel, which sees Iran’s nuclear programme as a potential threat to its existence and is critical of Joe Biden’s efforts to revive the deal, has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in the Natanz incident. But public radio cited intelligence sources as saying it was a cyber operation by Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence agency.

US intelligence officials told the New York Times that a large explosion completely destroyed the power system that supplied an underground hall at Natanz where uranium hexafluoride gas was fed into centrifuges to separate out the most suitable isotope for nuclear fission, called U-235.

The head of the Iranian parliament’s research centre, Alireza Zakani, said on Tuesday that several thousand centrifuges were “damaged or destroyed in one instant” and that “the main part of our enrichment capacities” were eliminated.

On Tuesday night, Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced it had just started enriching uranium up to 60% purity for the first time in response to the attack.

“We expect to accumulate the product next week,” Kazem Gharibabadi tweeted. “This will improve significantly both the quality and quantity of radiopharmaceutical products.”

Iran will also install 1,000 additional centrifuges at Natanz and replace damaged IR-1 centrifuges – the oldest and least efficient – with more advanced IR-6 models, significantly increasing its enrichment capacity.

President Rouhani told a cabinet meeting on Wednesday that, while Iranian security agencies had yet to provide their final reports on the attack, “apparently it is the crime of the Zionists”. Iran does not recognise Israel’s right to exist and often refers to it as the “Zionist state”.

“You cannot conspire against the Iranian nation and commit a crime in Natanz; we will cut off your arms when you commit a crime,” he said.

“What you did was nuclear terrorism; what we’ve done is legal,” he added.

Mr Rouhani said those responsible wanted to derail the indirect talks between US and Iranian officials in Vienna which are aimed at reviving the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

“We know what you are trying to do; you want us to be empty-handed at the talks but we’re attending the negotiations with an even fuller hand.”

ran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, later warned that US officials did not want to “accept the truth” and often made suggestions that were “not even worth looking at”.

“Sanctions must be removed first. Once we are certain that has been done, we will carry out our commitments,” he said.

The governments of France, Germany and the UK said enriching uranium up to 60% was “a serious development” since it constituted “an important step in the production of a nuclear weapon”.

“Iran’s announcements are particularly regrettable given they come at a time when all JCPOA participants and the United States have started substantive discussions, with the objective of finding a rapid diplomatic solution to revitalise and restore the JCPOA. Iran’s dangerous recent communication is contrary to the constructive spirit and good faith of these discussions.”

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Iran’s decision was “provocative”.

In their annual threat assessment released on Tuesday, US intelligence agencies said they continued to “assess that Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities that we judge would be necessary to produce a nuclear device”.

April 15, 2021 Posted by | Iran, politics, technology | Leave a comment

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