Dr Helen Caldicott busts the media spin on ‘small nuclear reactors’
HELEN CALDICOTT: Small modular reactors — the next big thing?
https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/helen-caldicott-small-modular-reactors–the-next-big-thing,14342#disqus_thread By Helen Caldicott | 27 September 2020 Politicians debating nuclear power as an energy source, know little of the facts that make small modular reactors a bad idea, writes Dr Caldicott. AUSTRALIAN politicians are contemplating developing nuclear power for this country. In their ignorance, they are mooting “small modular reactors” (SMRs) about which they clearly know little.
The so-called “nuclear renaissance” died following the Fukushima catastrophe when one-sixth of the world’s nuclear reactors closed. However, global nuclear corporations – Toshiba, NuScale, Babcock & Wilcox, GE Hitachi, General Atomics and the Tennessee Valley Authority – did not accept defeat.
Their new strategy has been to develop small modular nuclear reactors without the dangers inherent in large reactors — safety, cost, proliferation risks and radioactive waste. But these claims are fallacious for the reasons outlined below.
Basically, there are three types of SMRs which generate less than 300 megawatts of electricity compared with current day 1000 megawatt reactors.
Light water reactors designs
These will be smaller versions of present-day pressurized water reactors using water as the moderator and coolant, but with the same attendant problems as Fukushima and Three Mile Island. Built underground, they will be difficult to access in the event of an accident or malfunction.
Mass-produced (turnkey production) large numbers must be sold yearly to make a profit. This is an unlikely prospect because major markets – China and India – will not buy U.S. reactors when they can make their own.
If safety problems arise – as in General Motors cars – they all must be shut down which will interfere substantially with electricity supply.
SMRs will be expensive because the cost per unit capacity increases with a decrease in reactor size. Billions of dollars of government subsidies will be required because Wall Street is allergic to nuclear power. To alleviate costs, it is suggested that safety rules be relaxed, including reducing security requirements and a reduction in the 10-mile emergency planning zone to 1,000 feet.
Non-light water designs
These are high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGR) or pebble bed reactors. Five billion tiny fuel kernels consisting of high-enriched uranium or plutonium will be encased in tennis-ball-sized graphite spheres which must be made without cracks or imperfections — or they could lead to an accident. A total of 450,000 such spheres will slowly and continuously be released from a fuel silo – passing through the reactor core – and then be re-circulated ten times. These reactors will be cooled by helium gas operating at very high temperatures (900 degrees Celsius).
A reactor complex consisting of four HTGR modules will be located underground, to be run by just two operators in a central control room. Claims are that HTGRs will be so safe that a containment building will be unnecessary and operators can even leave the site – “walk away safe” reactors.
However, should temperatures unexpectedly exceed 1,600 degrees Celsius, the carbon coating will release dangerous radioactive isotopes into the helium gas and at 2,000 degrees Celsius the carbon would ignite creating a fierce graphite Chernobyl-type fire.
If a crack develops in the piping or building, radioactive helium would escape and air would rush in, also igniting the graphite.
Although HTGRs produce small amounts of low-level waste they create larger volumes of high-level waste than conventional reactors.
Despite these obvious safety problems and despite the fact that South Africa has abandoned plans for HTGRs, the U.S. Department of Energy has unwisely chosen the HTGR as the “Next Generation Nuclear Plant”.
Liquid metal fast reactors (PRISM)
It is claimed by proponents that fast reactors will be safe, economically competitive, proliferation-resistant and sustainable.
They will be fueled by plutonium or highly enriched uranium and cooled by either liquid sodium or a lead-bismuth molten coolant. Liquid sodium burns or explodes when exposed to air or water and lead-bismuth is extremely corrosive producing very volatile radioactive elements when irradiated.
Should a crack occur in the reactor complex, liquid sodium would escape, burning or exploding. Without coolant, the plutonium fuel could reach critical mass, triggering a massive nuclear explosion scattering plutonium to the four winds. One-millionth of a gram of plutonium induces cancer and it lasts for 500,000 years. Extraordinarily, claims are made that fast reactors will be so safe they will require no emergency sirens and emergency planning zones can be decreased from ten miles to 1,300 feet.
There are two types of fast reactors: a simple plutonium fueled reactor and a “breeder” in which the plutonium reactor core is surrounded by a blanket of uranium 238 which captures neutrons and converts to plutonium.
The plutonium fuel, obtained from spent reactor fuel will be fissioned and converted to shorter-lived isotopes — caesium and strontium which last 600 years instead of 500,000. Called “transmutation”, the industry claims that this is an excellent way to get rid of plutonium waste. But this is fallacious because only ten per cent fissions, leaving 90 per cent of the plutonium for bomb-making etc.
Three small plutonium fast reactors will be grouped together to form a module and three of these modules will be buried underground. All nine reactors will then be connected to a fully automated central control room operated by only three operators. Potentially then, one operator could simultaneously face a catastrophic situation triggered by the loss of off-site power to one unit at full power, in another shut down for refuelling and in one in start-up mode. There are to be no emergency core cooling systems.
Fast reactors require a massive infrastructure including a reprocessing plant to dissolve radioactive waste fuel rods in nitric acid, chemically removing the plutonium and a fuel fabrication facility to create new fuel rods. A total of 10,160 kilos of plutonium is required to operate a fuel cycle at a fast reactor and just 2.5 kilos is fuel for a nuclear weapon.
Thus fast reactors and breeders will provide extraordinary long-term medical dangers and the perfect situation for nuclear weapons proliferation. Despite this, the industry is clearly trying to market them to many countries including, it seems, Australia.
You can follow Dr Caldicott on Twitter @DrHCaldicott. Click here for Dr Caldicott’s complete curriculum vitae.
Canada to splurge $billions on non-existent small nuclear reactors, ineffective and no use against climate change
GIBBONS: Nuclear power no solution to climate change https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/gibbons-nuclear-power-no-solution-to-climate-change, Author of the article:, Jack Gibbons, Sep 25, 2020 At a time when action on climate change has never been more urgent, the federal Liberals want to throw billions of dollars at non-existent technology that will not make a difference for decades, if ever.
But that’s pretty much the way things have always been when it comes to federal spending on nuclear power: As long as the word “nuclear” is attached, we put common sense aside and fund projects that lead to one dead end after another.
More than $400 million for Advanced CANDU reactors that never got built? You bet. Another $600 million on the infamous Maple medical isotope reactor design, which proved unsafe to operate? No problem.
Now the industry’s latest pitch is Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and off we go on another wild goose chase with Minister of Natural Resources Seamus O’Regan once again promising billions for technology that is nowhere in sight, let alone use.
Meanwhile, costs for wind and solar have plunged to the point where these energy sources are now outcompeting even natural gas.
Nuclear, for its part, is fading fast. Due to its high costs and safety concerns, nuclear’s share of the world electricity market has cratered in the past two decades. More places are now retiring aging reactors than building them.
The nuclear industry loves to claim they are a critical climate change solution — except on a cost per tonne basis.
Nuclear is like buying a Mercedes to go to the corner store.
Ontario pays as little as two cents a kilowatt hour (kWh) for energy efficient improvements that could displace the need for nuclear while reducing greenhouse gas pollution.
Alberta is now paying around five cents per kWh for solar and four cents for wind.
Ontario Power Generation says it will need to be paid 16.5 cents per kWh for nuclear by 2025.
A whole lot has changed since the bad old days of Ontario’s Green Energy Act.
Yes, the sun doesn’t always shine or the wind blow. Which is why it is fortunate that in Ontario we live beside a giant battery.
Quebec has an enormous water-power reservoir system that Hydro Quebec is keen to integrate with renewable sources for its out-of-province customers.
When we have surplus solar and wind, Quebec stores water. When not, it produces hydro power for export.
We have the connections necessary to make this system work and can expand them at a cost that looks like spare change next to what it costs to rebuild a nuclear reactor or get an SMR prototype built.
The nuclear industry is grasping at straws. Its technology is obsolete, its promises unfulfilled and its costs ever rising.
Betting on nuclear as a climate solution is just sticking our heads in the sand because SMR technology is decades away, extremely expensive, and comes with a nasty pile of security and waste headaches. Yes. Virginia, SMRs still produce lots of highly radioactive waste and we still have no place to put the stuff.
That our government would be this gullible is distressing, especially given the havoc already being wreaked by a changing climate.
We have simple, affordable, reliable and truly clean answers to our climate problem at our fingertips.
Yet our government sits and waits for the nuclear industry to call with some good news. And the phone never rings.
— Jack Gibbons is chairman of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance
Small modular nuclear reactors for Canada? – useless, expensive, untested, and a wasteful distraction
NB Media Co-op 22nd Sept 2020,Premier Blaine Higgs has endorsed so-called “small modular nuclear reactors” or SMRs. SMRs represent an untested technology but what we know on the basis of technical characteristics and historical precedent is that they will be expensive and any electricity they generate will not be economical. The nuclear industry is pushing small reactors because large reactors are simply not economical. Constructing nuclear plants is just too expensive—as Ontario’s government found out after its call in 2008 for bids to build two more reactors at the Darlington site.https://nbmediacoop.org/2020/09/22/no-business-case-for-new-nuclear-reactors-in-new-brunswick/
Sierra Club Canada (accessed) 23rd Sept 2020, No plan that gets us to net zero in a reasonable time frame includes new nuclear reactors. Nuclear is far too slow and expensive to deal with the climate emergency. Just like fossil fuel energy, nuclear produces wastes that pose unacceptable health hazards and economic costs.Utah lawmakers seek details on planned nuclear plant in Idaho
Cities and districts invested in the plant have until Oct. 31 — one of several so-called off-ramps — to bow out of the project.
During the committee hearing, Sen. Ron Winterton, R-Roosevelt, shared his concerns over the cities’ financial commitments.
“I want to feel warm and fuzzy” he said, but questioned the technology and potential risks…….
Under both the Obama and the Trump administrations, the NuScale project has received strong financial support, Squires said. The federal energy agency gave NuScale a competitive award of $226 million in 2013 to develop the technology. Two years later, the federal agency gave NuScale $16.7 million for licensing preparation. …….
Critics like the Utah Taxpayers Association, however, say the investment by Utah cities is too risky and they should not be acting as seed investors.
“We are not opposed to nuclear power, we are opposed to the financial risk,” said the association’s vice president, Rusty Cannon. ……….. https://www.deseret.com/utah/2020/9/19/21438026/news-nuclear-plant-in-idaho-lawmakers-seek-details-on-planned-nuscale-uamps
NuScam’s ”small” nuclear reactor design approved – but cost, safety, public acceptance hurdles loom against them
First U.S. Small Nuclear Reactor Design Is Approved, Concerns about costs and safety remain, however, Scientific American 
By Dave Levitan on September 9, 2020
- The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has approved the design of a new kind of reactor, known as a small modular reactor (SMR). The design, from the Portland, Ore.–based company NuScale Power, is intended to speed construction, lower cost and improve safety over traditional nuclear reactors…………
- some experts have expressed concerns over the potential expense and remaining safety issues that the industry would have to address before any such reactors are actually built. ………
- The NRC’s design and related final safety evaluation report (FSER) do not mean that the firm can begin constructing reactors. But utility companies can now apply to the NRC to build and operate NuScale’s design. With almost no new nuclear construction completed in the U.S. over the past three decades, SMRs could help reinvigorate a flagging industry.
NuScale’s SMR, developed with the help of almost $300 million from the U.S. Department of Energy, has a generating capacity of 50 megawatts—substantially smaller than standard nuclear reactors, which can range to well more than 1,000 megawatts (MW). A utility could combine up to 12 SMRs at a single site, producing 600 MW of electricity—enough to power a midsize city. The NRC says it expects an application for a 60-MW version of NuScale’s SMR in 2022……….
In a July 2020 report, NRC nuclear engineer Shanlai Lu discussed a complicated issue known as boron dilution, which could possibly cause “fuel failure and prompt criticality condition”—meaning that even if a reactor is shut down, fission reactions could restart and begin a dangerous power increase. And in another report, the NRC’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards also noted that “several potentially risk-significant items” are not yet completed, though it did still recommend that the NRC issue the FSER. The agency’s response to the latter report stated that those items will be further assessed when site-specific licensing applications—the step needed to actually begin building and operating a reactor—are submitted. ……..
Lyman says that in general, the NRC’s design certification process should reduce uncertainty for utilities aiming to build nuclear plants because they can reference a completed safety review. But he thinks the NuScale approval undermines that advantage. Whether the gaps in safety will result in further delays to NuScale’s time line remains to be seen. The NRC will undertake another review when the company’s 60-MW design is submitted. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/first-u-s-small-nuclear-reactor-design-is-approved/
Fluor could improve its finances by abandoning NuScam, as some cities pull out of ”small” nuclear reactor scheme
Fluor could improve earnings by reducing underperforming assets, including NuScaleBut two cities, Logan and Lehi, Utah have walked away from the project, and a third is now considering dropping its support because of risks and a lack of backers, according to officials.
Allen Johnson, the power department director for Bountiful, Utah, said chances are greater than 50-50 it will withdraw.
“You’ve got to have enough people to support it and some of the players I thought would be interested are not,” he said.
The defections are bad news for U.S. efforts to develop modular nuclear energy …
Combined, cities have so far committed to buying just under 200 megawatts of the plant’s planned 720 megawatts of power.
The U.S. Department of Energy has pumped more the $280 million into the project since 2013, and is expected to commit another $1.4 billion over the next nine years. The department did not respond to requests for comment…….
The consortium earlier this year pushed back the project’s commercial operation date to 2030 from 2026, Webb said, to provide more time for public input and opportunities for cities to reconsider their participation at various phases.
CITIES RETHINK COSTS
NuScale, based in Portland, Oregon, is majority owned by construction and engineering firm Fluor Corp.
The project would include 12 60-megawatt modules at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week approved NuScale’s design, the first such green light for a modular reactor.
Small modular reactors are meant to be cheaper and quicker to build than traditional reactors because they can be manufactured in factories. But critics say economies of scale are lost with the smaller plants.
The NuScale project’s projected cost of $6.1 billion has risen from $3.6 billion in 2017, Mark Montgomery, head of the municipal utility in Logan told officials there last month ahead of their vote to abandon the project.
Lehi withdrew from the project due to a lack of interest from other entities and increased costs, according to the Aug. 25 resolution approved by its city council.
“These cities should not be acting as venture capital investors,” said Rusty Cannon, vice president of the Utah Taxpayers Association, which has been pushing cities to leave.
Previous cost estimates did not account for financing and decommissioning, as well as higher labor, construction and materials costs over ten years, UAMPS spokesman Webb said, explaining the change.
NuScale said the project delay had been requested by UAMPS. It did not comment specifically on the city defections.
A Wednesday report written by M.V. Ramana a professor of disarmament and human security at the University of British Columbia said Fluor had cut its own investment in the project and excluded NuScale expenses from its financial forecasts because it was expecting additional funding from third party investors.
Financial analyst Jamie Cook of Credit Suisse said last year that Fluor could improve earnings by reducing underperforming assets, including NuScale. ………https://whtc.com/news/articles/2020/sep/02/some-us-cities-turn-against-first-planned-small-scale-nuclear-plant/1054578/
Small nuclear reactors – NuScam looking dodgy as parent company Fluor shares sink?
declined by -15.01% in the 3 months of the year. Over the past six months meanwhile, it has lost -19.89% and lost -47.51% year-on date. DBT News 25 August 20
Small nuclear reactor NuScam’s parent company Fluor sued over allegations of insider trading and deception
Fluor Board Sued Over Insider Trading, Accounting Allegations, Mike Leonard, Legal Reporter, Aug. 14, 2020, COURT: Del. Ch., TRACK DOCKET: No. 2020-0655 (Bloomberg Law Subscription, JUDGE: J. Travis Laster (Bloomberg Law Subscription), COMPANY INFO: Fluor Corp. (Bloomberg Law Subscripti
The board of Fluor Corp., a leading engineering and construction conglomerate that does significant business with the federal government, has been hit with a Delaware lawsuit claiming several of its members sold stock at inflated prices while conspiring to mask the company’s deteriorating finances.
“At the same time,” Fluor’s board and top executives “engaged in a pattern” of having the company “repurchase its own shares at over-inflated prices,” the 98-page Chancery Court complaint says. “This repurchase of inflated stock cost the company over $1.6 billion.”
The heavily redacted derivative suit, made public Wednesday, comes about three months after Fluor……….(subscribers only) https://news.bloomberglaw.com/mergers-and-antitrust/fluor-board-sued-over-insider-trading-accounting-allegations
Small nuclear reactor NuScam’s parent company Fluor – shares tumble afterdisclosure of accounting probe
Fluor Shares Tumble After Disclosure of SEC Accounting Probe, Fluor shares are tumbling after the engineering company disclosed an SEC probe into its past accounting and financial reporting. ROB LENIHAN, FEB 18, 2020
Fluor (FLR) – Get Report shares were tumbling after the engineering and construction company said the Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into the company’s past accounting and financial reporting.
The Irving, Texas, company also said in a statement that the SEC has asked for documents and information related to projects for which the Company recorded charges in the second quarter of 2019……. https://www.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/fluor-shares-tumble-after-engineering-company-discloses-sec-probe
Lehi City Council backs out of NuScam ‘small’ nuclear reactor project
Daily Herald 26 Aug 20,
The Lehi City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to withdraw the city from a multiagency nuclear power project that would provide nuclear power to cities across Utah, citing concerns over increasing costs.
The Carbon Free Power Project is an initiative by Oregon-based NuScale Power, the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems and the United States Department of Energy to build a small modular reactor power plant at the Idaho National Laboratory………
Earlier this month, the Utah Taxpayer Association called on cities to withdraw from the project ahead of the Sept. 14 deadline after a closed-door virtual town hall meeting on July 21 where officials warned of project delays, increased costs to cities and towns involved, and “dependence on unpredictable federal subsidies.”
“The UAMPS project will lock in 27 municipalities in Utah and several in surrounding states for a share of billions of dollars in costs and unclear risk in the pursuit of a cluster of small modular reactors (SMRs) touted by Oregon-based NuScale Power, which repeatedly has delayed timelines and increased costs associated with its SMRs,” Utah Taxpayer Association Vice President Rusty Cannon said in an Aug. 4 news release. “The risky project with massive cost escalations is being conducted largely out of the public eye.”
Earlier this month, the Utah Taxpayer Association called on cities to withdraw from the project ahead of the Sept. 14 deadline after a closed-door virtual town hall meeting on July 21 where officials warned of project delays, increased costs to cities and towns involved, and “dependence on unpredictable federal subsidies.”
“The UAMPS project will lock in 27 municipalities in Utah and several in surrounding states for a share of billions of dollars in costs and unclear risk in the pursuit of a cluster of small modular reactors (SMRs) touted by Oregon-based NuScale Power, which repeatedly has delayed timelines and increased costs associated with its SMRs,” Utah Taxpayer Association Vice President Rusty Cannon said in an Aug. 4 news release. “The risky project with massive cost escalations is being conducted largely out of the public eye.”
In November 2017, the total cost of the project was estimated at $3.6 billion. By November 2019, that number had increased to $4.2 billion. By July, the estimated cost had gone up to $6.1 billion.
That would cost Lehi $466 million at the city’s current subscription levels, Eves said. UAMPS would be responsible for paying $4.8 billion, while the DOE would pay $1.3 billion and NuScale Power would pay $5 million. ………… https://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/lehi-city-council-votes-to-back-out-of-nuclear-power-project-contract/article_0af6e67c-24e5-5427-9029-e52b9f9d63ae.html
Two U.S.cities cut their losses, pullout of dodgy NuScam “small” nuclear reactor project
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Lehi, Logan Back Out Of First-Of-Its-Kind Nuclear Power Plant Project Citing Financial Risk InKuer, By KATE GROETZINGER • 27 Aug 20, Two Utah cities have pulled out of a nuclear power plant investment — saying the financial risks are just too high. But 28 other towns and service districts in the state are still involved in the project, which is organized by a utility cooperative called Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, or UAMPS. The Carbon Free Power Project involves a first-of-its-kind technology called “small modular nuclear reactors”, which would produce around 720 megawatts of nuclear energy. UAMPS and the U.S. Department of Energy have invested $3 million in the project since it began in 2017. But the reactors are still in development, and it’s unclear how much the project — and the power — will ultimately cost. That’s one reason the city of Logan cited in its decision to leave the project ahead of a Sept. 30 deadline to invest in its next phase, which is expected to cost $130 million. Logan was planning to use seven megawatts of power from the plant and has put around $250,000 into the project based on that amount so far. The city would have had to put in another $654,000 over the next three years to remain invested in the project. The cost could continue to grow, according to Mark Montgomery, director of light and power for Logan. He told the city council that Logan could end up having to pay millions into the project during the second phase of its licensing period, from 2023 to 2025……. Montgomery also cited concerns that it’s still up in the air whether the Department of Energy will invest in the project. The department pledged to fully fund the first reactor in 2018, but it went back on that deal. Now, it plans to invest $1.4 billion in the project — about a quarter of its total $6 billion price tag. That agreement is not yet final and the appropriation would need to be approved by Congress. The city of Lehi also voted to leave the project during a city council meeting this week. So far, Lehi has invested $455,000 in the project for a 21 megawatt subscription. Power Director Joel Eves said the project has struggled to find new investors, while its budget almost doubled to $6 billion from $3.4 billion since 2017. “A big piece of this is project subscription, and that does make us nervous,” Eves said. “It seems like we’re going at this alone as UAMPS members.” ……. https://www.kuer.org/post/lehi-logan-back-out-first-its-kind-nuclear-power-plant-project-citing-financial-risk#stream/0 |
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City in Northern Utah pulls out of NuScam small nuclear reactors project
Northern Utah city opts out of planned nuclear power project over money concerns Deseret News, Amy Joi O’Donoghue @Amyjoi 16 Aug 24, 2020,
SALT LAKE CITY — Cost concerns over Logan’s participation in a next-generation nuclear power plant planned at Idaho National Laboratory led the city to withdraw from the project, and Lehi is considering a similar move in its council meeting Tuesday.
“My concerns were many and varied,” Logan Finance Director Richard Anderson said of last week’s decision
……. changes in funding by the U.S. Department of Energy for the Carbon Free Power Project caused Anderson concern, as it did for Mark Montgomery, the city’s light and power director, and prompted both of them to recommend Logan withdraw its participation.
Ultimately, the energy department committed to spend $1.4 billion on the project with an eye toward reducing carbon emissions, combating climate change and to position the country as a world leader in nuclear technology.
But critics say the proposed 720-megawatt plant is too risky and ratepayers — hence taxpayers — should not be footing the cost for technology they say is yet to be proven.
LaVarr Webb, spokesman for the municipal power association, said the investment schedule was specifically designed with these exit opportunities if cities or special districts become nervous.
The project, he added, will not proceed if costs prove too high.
The project has also come under criticism for what some say is a lack of transparency.
Earlier this month, the Utah Taxpayers Association urged cities to withdraw ahead of the deadline and complained about meetings in which groups were turned away unless they were project participants.
Rusty Cannon, vice president of Utah Taxpayers Association, said because the municipal power association is exempt from Utah’s open meeting laws, it can close its doors to others.
“We asked to observe a recent meeting and were denied access. That is the same response many others have also received,” Cannon said.
While association leaders have spent hours on video calls with the association and others, Cannon said that format does not provide the same answers.
Webb said meetings in which non-project participants were turned away, with perhaps the exception of one, are in line with why other governmental entities can close meetings under Utah law, such as contractual issues, litigation or personnel issues.
On Tuesday in Lehi, the City Council will consider a resolution outlining the city’s withdrawal from the project……. https://www.deseret.com/utah/2020/8/24/21399537/northern-utah-city-opts-out-of-planned-nuclear-power-project-over-money-concerns
Canada communities don’t want the so-called “clean” Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs)
even with SMRs under 300 megawatts, nuclear waste is a byproduct.
waste generated from SMRs would become a dangerous part of the transportation system “even if they do remove it.”
“It will be big, big transports of highly radioactive stuff, driving down the roads as an easy dirty bomb
the high cost of building infrastructure and then containing nuclear fallout and radiation are all concerns before they can go ahead.
Nuclear giants team up to develop reactors in Sask. and Ontario, Michael Bramadat-Willcock / Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, National Observer, AUGUST 23, 2020
Canada’s leading nuclear industry players announced an inter-provincial corporate partnership Thursday to support the launch of a research centre that will work on developing small modular reactors (SMRs) for use in Saskatchewan.
Saskatoon-based Cameco is the world’s biggest uranium producer and has long supplied fuel to Bruce Power, Ontario’s largest nuclear power company.SMRs are designed to produce smaller amounts of electricity, between 50 and 300 megawatts,……
The secretariat is mandated to develop and execute a strategic plan for the use of “clean-energy small modular reactors” in the province. ……
No timeframe or SMR sites were included in the announcement, but the government’s plans already have some northern residents raising alarms.
Committee for Future Generations outreach co-ordinator Candyce Paul of La Plonge at the English River First Nation told Canada’s National Observer that they haven’t been consulted on any aspects of the plan, but all signs point to the north as a site for the reactors.
Paul’s group fights nuclear waste storage in Saskatchewan and was instrumental in stopping a proposal that considered Beauval, Pinehouse and Creighton as storage locations in 2011.
“When we informed the communities that they were looking at planning to bury nuclear waste up here in 2011, once they learned what that entailed, everybody said no way. Eighty per cent of the people in the north said no way, absolutely not. It didn’t matter if they worked for Cameco or the other mines. They said if it comes here, we will not support it coming here,” she said.
Paul said she sees small modular nuclear reactors as another threat to the environment and to human safety in the region.
She noted that even with SMRs under 300 megawatts, nuclear waste is a byproduct.
“Even if they’re not burying nuclear waste here, they could be leaving it on site or hauling it through our northern regions and across our waterways,” Paul said.
She said that waste generated from SMRs would become a dangerous part of the transportation system “even if they do remove it.”
“It will be big, big transports of highly radioactive stuff, driving down the roads as an easy dirty bomb. You’d be driving down the road (behind a nuclear waste transport vehicle) and not know you’re following it,” Paul said.
Paul said the intent behind installing SMRs is anything but green and that the real goal is to prop up Saskatchewan’s ailing uranium industry and develop oilsands in the northwest.
Paul said that communities around Canada, and especially in the Far North, have long been pitched as sites for SMR development and have refused.
A 2018 brief from Pangnirtung Hamlet Council in Nunavut concluded “any Arctic-based nuclear power source should be an alternative energy choice of last resort.”
“None of our people are going to get trained for operating these. It supports people from other places. It doesn’t really support us,” Paul said.
SMRs have been pitched in the north as a way to move away from reliance on diesel fuel, which can be costly. Paul said any benefits of that remain to be seen.
She said companies would need to do environmental impact assessments for smaller reactors even though the exclusion zone around SMR sites is smaller.
“Even if the exclusion zone is only a few kilometres, a few kilometres affects a lot in an ecosystem and especially in an ecosystem that is wild,” Paul said.
“I’m not feeling confident in this at all, Canadian nuclear laboratories saying that it would only be a small radius exclusion zone. Well that’s our territory. That’s our land, our waters, our wildlife.
“It’s not their backyard, so they couldn’t care less.”
Brooke Dobni, professor of strategy at the University of Saskatchewan’s Edwards School of Business, told Canada’s National Observer that any development of small reactors would take a long time.
“It could be a good thing, but on the other hand, it might have some pitfalls. Those talks take years,” Dobni said.
He said nuclear reactors face bigger challenges because of public concerns about the environment and that the high cost of building infrastructure and then containing nuclear fallout and radiation are all concerns before they can go ahead.
“Anything nuclear is 25 years out if you’re talking about small reactors, those kinds of things to power up the city,” Dobni said.
“That technology is a long ways away and a lot of it’s going to depend on public opinion.
The court for that is the court of public opinion, whether or not people want that in their own backyard, and that’s the whole issue anywhere in the world.” https://www.humboldtjournal.ca/news/nuclear-giants-team-up-to-develop-reactors-in-sask-and-ontario-1.24191077
Small Modular Nuclear Reactors costs jump by $billions. Logan city abandons NuScam project
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Logan withdraws from nuclear power project seen as cutting-edge but risky, KSL.com
By Graham Dudley, KSL.com – Aug. 20, 2020 LOGAN — A hesitant Logan City Council agreed to follow staff recommendations Tuesday and voted to leave a nuclear power project that has been characterized by ballooning costs and funding uncertainties.The Carbon Free Power Project aims to begin producing nuclear power from state-of-the-art small modular reactors But the projected cost of the power plant jumped from about $3.6 billion in 2017 to more than $6.1 billion in 2020. Logan has already committed more than $400,000 to the project and would have paid over $650,000 more in the next three years to see it through its next phase, at which point the city would again have had the option to modify or withdraw from the agreement. The project involves the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, or UAMPS, a political subdivision of the state of Utah which supplies energy to communities in six Western states and of which Logan is a member. The reactors are being built by Oregon-based NuScale, and the Texas-based Fluor Corporation is involved in project construction Logan council members reviewed the city’s involvement in the Carbon Free Power Project during their Aug. 4 and Aug. 18 meetings, ultimately voting 4-1 to leave the agreement…….. https://www.ksl.com/article/50008552/logan-withdraws-from-nuclear-power-project-seen-as-cutting-edge-but-risky |
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City of Logan cuts its losses, withdraws from risky NuScam “small” nuclear reactor project
Logan withdraws from risky nuclear power project, Cache Valley Daily Charlie Schill August 19, 2020 LOGAN – Members of the Logan City Council voted Tuesday to end the city’s partnership in an increasingly expensive nuclear power project.
As a member of the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS), Logan City owned a partial interest in a first-of-its-kind nuclear plant proposed to be constructed at the Idaho National Laboratory.
Faced with Sept. 15 deadline to ante up more funding for the risky project, both Mark Montgomery, the city’s light and power director, and Logan Finance Director Richard Anderson recommended that Logan withdraw from the Carbon Free Power Project…….
Montgomery told city council members that Logan had invested about $400,000 in the Small Modular Reactor (SMR) project since 2017. If the city had opted to continue its participation in the project into its initial licensing phase through 2023, the price tag would have been another $654,000.
In early August, the Utah Taxpayers Association urged all Utah cities to reconsider their participation in the SMR project due to its potential for out–of-control costs………
In the original CFPP proposal, the U.S. Department of Energy was to foot the bill for the development of the project’s first module. After pledging up to $1.4 billion for those expenses, federal officials have since backed out of that agreement, leaving UAMPS holding the bag for the project’s first-of-its-kind risks.
Montgomery added that estimated cost of the project have also escalated since 2017, jumping from $3.6 billion to $6.1 billion as of July of this year……… https://www.cachevalleydaily.com/news/archive/2020/08/19/logan-withdraws-from-risky-nuclear-power-project/#.X0BMOOgzbIU
1 This Month
petition to oppose the rapid increase of space-military industry threatening Jeju Island and the region.
[Petition by April 19th (KST)] Stop the joint military-Hanwha Systems-Jeju Provincial Government Sea Launch!
World Nuclear Power. Reactors 1951-2026, 75 Years of Nuclear Power.
Interactive Map– https://dv.worldnuclearreport.org/
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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