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Proponents of Small Nuclear Reactors need a reality check – about the STAGGERING COST

a reality check is in order. A handful of small reactors is under construction but they have been subject to huge cost overruns and delays. William Von Hoene, senior vice-president of Exelon ‒ the largest operator of nuclear power plants in the US ‒ says that no more large reactors will be built in the US and that the cost of small reactors is “prohibitive”.

Rolls-Royce sharply reduced its small-reactor investment to “a handful of salaries” in 2018 and is threatening to abandon its R&D altogether unless the British government agrees to an outrageous set of demands and subsidies.

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

And they say that small nuclear reactors do not have military applications

Pentagon awards contracts to design mobile nuclear reactor Defense News

By: Aaron Mehta   3/9/20 , WASHINGTON — The Pentagon on Monday issued three contracts to start design work on mobile, small nuclear reactors, as part of a two-step plan towards achieving nuclear power for American forces at home and abroad.

The department awarded contracts to BWX Technologies, Inc. of Virginia, for $13.5 million; Westinghouse Government Services of Washington, D.C. for $11.9 million; and X-energy, LLC of Maryland, for $14.3 million, to begin a two-year engineering design competition for a small nuclear microreactor designed to potentially be forward deployed with forces outside the continental United States.

The combined $39.7 million in contracts are from “Project Pele,” a project run through the Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO), located within the department’s research and engineering side. The prototype is looking at a 1-5 megawatt (MWe) power range. The Department of Energy has been supporting the project at its Idaho National Laboratory…….

If the testing goes well, a commercially developed, Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensed reactor will be demonstrated on a “permanent domestic military installation by 2027,” according to DoD spokesman Lt. Col. Mike Andrews. “If the full demonstration proves to be a cost effective energy resilience alternative, NRC-licensed [reactors] will provide an additional option for generating power provided to DoD through power purchase agreements.”

The best way to differentiate between the programs may be to think of the A&S effort as the domestic program, built off commercial technology, as part of an effort to get off of local power grids that are seen as weak targets, either via physical or cyber espionage. Pele is focused on the prototyping a new design, with forward operations in mind — and may never actually produce a reactor, if the prototype work proves too difficult…… https://www.defensenews.com/smr/nuclear-arsenal/2020/03/09/pentagon-to-award-mobile-nuclear-reactor-contracts-this-week/

March 10, 2020 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

A sceptical look at NuScam’s small nuclear reactor plans

Recent experience supports skepticism. Westinghouse worked on an SMR design for a decade before giving up in 2014. Massachusetts-based Transatomic Power, a nuclear technology firm, walked away from a molten salt SMR in 2018, and despite an $111 million dollar infusion from the US government, a SMR design from Babcock & Wilcox, an advanced energy developer, folded in 2017. While the Russians have managed to get their state-funded SMR floating, its construction costs ran over estimates by four times, and its energy will cost about four times more than current US nuclear costs. 
Eventually, every nuclear conversation turns to radioactive waste and safety. SMRs using a pressurized water reactor will continue to generate highly radioactive spent fuel, yet no country has a permanent solution for how to safely store this kind of waste.  ……..
small modular reactors suffer from many of the same problems as large reactors, most notably safety issues
“It would be irresponsible for the NRC to reduce safety and security requirements for any reactor of any size.”

The Smaller Is Better Movement in Nuclear Power, Are miniature reactors really safer? Mother Jones  LOIS PARSHLEY, 8 Mar 20, 

Huge computer screens line a dark, windowless control room in Corvallis, Oregon, where engineers at the company NuScale Power hope to define the next wave of nuclear energy. Glowing icons fill the screens, representing the power output of 12 miniature nuclear reactors. Together, these small modular reactors would generate about the same amount of power as one of the conventional nuclear plants that currently dot the United States—producing enough electricity to power 540,000 homes. On the glowing screens, a palm tree indicates which of the dozen units is on “island mode,” allowing a single reactor to run disconnected from the grid in case of an emergency. 

This control room is just a mock-up, and the reactors depicted on the computer screens do not, in fact, exist. Yet NuScale has invested more than $900 million in the development of small modular reactor (SMR) technology, which the company says represents the next generation of nuclear power plants. NuScale is working on a full-scale prototype and says it is on track to break ground on its first nuclear power plant—a 720-megawatt project for a utility in Idaho—within two years; the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has just completed the fourth phase of review of NuScale’s design, the first SMR certification the commission has reviewed. The company expect final approval by the end of 2020. The US Department of Energy has already invested $317 million in the research and development of NuScale’s SMR project.

Continue reading →

March 9, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

USA desperately pushing the fantasy of Small Nuclear Reactors to India

March 2, 2020 Posted by | India, marketing, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

A Brief Study of Molten Salt Reactors

A Brief Study of Molten Salt Reactors  https://nonuclearpowerinaustralia.wordpress.com/2020/03/01/a-brief-study-of-molten-salt-reactors/  3 Mar 20, 

Source:
Burning waste or playing with fire? Waste management considerations for non-traditional reactors, Lindsay Krall &Allison MacfarlanePages 326-334 | Published online: 31 Aug 2018 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Volume 74, 2018. Issue 5 at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00963402.2018.1507791?scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=rbul20

Author information:

Lindsay Krall is a post-doctoral Macarthur fellow at the George Washington University Institute for International Science and Technology Policy. Her research focuses on policies for the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle, particularly as they pertain to radionuclide transport in the environment, systems and organizations for waste storage and disposal, and the long-term behavior of spent fuels from advanced reactors. Allison Macfarlane is Professor of Public Policy and International Affairs at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. She directs the school’s Institute for International Science and Technology Policy Program and is the former chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Macfarlane was a member of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future from 2010-2012.

“Abstract:

Nuclear energy-producing nations are almost universally experiencing delays in the commissioning of the geologic repositories needed for the long-term isolation of spent fuel and other high-level wastes from the human environment. Despite these problems, expert panels have repeatedly determined that geologic disposal is necessary, regardless of whether advanced reactors to support a “closed” nuclear fuel cycle become available. Still, advanced reactor developers are receiving substantial funding on the pretense that extraordinary waste management benefits can be reaped through adoption of these technologies. Here, the authors describe why molten salt reactors and sodium-cooled fast reactors – due to the unusual chemical compositions of their fuels – will actually exacerbate spent fuel storage and disposal issues. Before these reactors are licensed, policymakers must determine the implications of metal- and salt-based fuels vis a vis the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and the Continued Storage Rule.” end quote.Emphasis added for clarity. Mr. O’Brien and Mr. Bernardi need to consider the scientific and technical reality behind the gloss they want to disseminate.

March 2, 2020 Posted by | 2 WORLD, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

Unjustified hype over non existent Small Nuclear Reactors

These new nuclear reactors are so far perfectly safe, because they exist only on paper and are cooled only by ink. But declaring them a success before they are even built is quite a leap of faith.
This current media hype about modular reactors is very reminiscent of the drumbeat of grandiose expectations that began around 2000, announcing the advent of a Nuclear Renaissance that envisaged thousands of new reactors — huge ones! — being built all over the planet.

Let’s call SMRs what they are, Leaving out “nuclear” doesn’t minimize the danger, or the cost https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2020/02/23/lets-call-smrs-what-they-are/By Gordon Edwards, Michel Duguay and Pierre Jasmin,  February 23, 2020, On Friday the 13th, September 2019, the St John Telegraph-Journal’s front page was dominated by what many gullible readers hoped will be a good luck story for New Brunswick  – making the province a booming and prosperous Nuclear Energy powerhouse for the entire world.

After many months of behind-the-scenes meetings throughout New Brunswick with utility company executives, provincial politicians, federal government representatives, township mayors and First Nations, two nuclear entrepreneurial companies laid out a dazzling dream promising thousands of jobs – nay, tens of thousands! – in New Brunswick, achieved by mass-producing and selling components for hitherto untested nuclear reactors called SMNRs (Small Modular Nuclear Reactors) which, it is hoped, will be installed around the world by the hundreds or thousands!

On December 1, the Saskatchewan and Ontario premiers hitched their hopes to the same nuclear dream machine through a dramatic tripartite Sunday press conference in Ottawa featuring the premiers of the provinces. The three amigos announced their desire to promote and deploy some version of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors in their respective provinces. All three claimed it as a strategy to fight climate change, and they want the federal government to pledge federal tax money to pay for the R&D. Perhaps it is a way of paying lip service to the climate crisis without actually achieving anything substantial; prior to the recent election, all three men were opposed to even putting a price on carbon emissions.

Motives other than climate protection may apply. Saskatchewan’s uranium is in desperate need of new markets, as some of the province’s most productive mines have been mothballed and over a thousand uranium workers have been laid off, due to the global decline in nuclear power. Meanwhile, Ontario has cancelled all investments in over 800 renewable energy projects – at a financial penalty of over 200 million dollars – while investing tens of billions of dollars to rebuild many of its geriatric nuclear reactors. This, instead of purchasing surplus water-based hydropower from Quebec at less than half the cost.

Three previous “small reactor” failures in Canada so far

These new nuclear reactors are so far perfectly safe, because they exist only on paper and are cooled only by ink. But declaring them a success before they are even built is quite a leap of faith, especially in light of the three previous Canadian failures in this field of “small reactors”. Two 10-megawatt MAPLE reactors were built at Chalk River and never operated because of insuperable safety concerns, and the 10-megawatt “Mega-Slowpoke” district heating reactor never earned a licence to operate, again because of safety concerns. The Mega-Slowpoke was offered free of charge to two universities – Sherbrooke and Saskatchewan – and several communities, all of whom refused the gift. And a good thing too, as the only Mega-Slowpoke ever built (at Pinawa, in Manitoba) is now being dismantled without ever producing a single useful megawatt of heat.

This current media hype about modular reactors is very reminiscent of the drumbeat of grandiose expectations that began around 2000, announcing the advent of a Nuclear Renaissance that envisaged thousands of new reactors — huge ones! — being built all over the planet. That initiative turned out to be a complete flop. Only a few large reactors were launched under this banner, and they were plagued with enormous cost-over-runs and extraordinarily long delays, resulting in the bankruptcy or near bankruptcy of some of the largest nuclear companies in the world – such as Areva and Westinghouse – and causing other companies to retire from the nuclear field altogether – such as Siemens.

Speculation about that promised Nuclear Renaissance also led to a massive (and totally unrealistic) spike in uranium prices, spurring uranium exploration activities on an unprecedented scale. It ended in a near-catastrophic collapse of uranium prices when the bubble burst. Cameco was forced to close down several mines. They are still closed. The price of uranium has still not recovered from the plunge.

Large nuclear reactors have essentially priced themselves out of the market. Only Russia, China and India have managed to defy those market forces with their monopoly state involvements.  Nevertheless, the nuclear contribution to world electricity production has plummeted from 17 percent in 1997 to about 10 percent in 2018. In North America and Western Europe, the prospects for new large reactor projects are virtually nil, and many of the older reactors are shutting down permanently without being replaced.

During long construction times nuclear makes the climate problem worse

Many people concerned about climate change want to know more about the moral and ethical choices regarding low-carbon technologies: “Don’t we have a responsibility to use nuclear?”  The short reply is: nuclear is too slow and too expensive. The ranking of options should be based on what is cheapest and fastest — beginning with energy efficiency, then on to off-the-shelf renewables like wind and solar energy.

As a case in point, Germany installed over 30,000 megawatts of wind energy capacity in only 8 years, after deciding to close down all of its nuclear reactors by 2022. That is an impressive achievement – more than twice the total installed nuclear capacity of Canada. It would be impossible to build 30,000 megawatts of nuclear in only 8 years.

By building wind generators, Germany obtained some carbon relief in the very first year of construction, then got more benefit in the second year, even more benefit in the third, and so on, building up to a cumulative capacity of 30,000 MWe after 8 years. With nuclear, even if you could manage to build 30,000 megawatts in 8 years, you would get absolutely no benefit during that entire 8-year construction period.

In fact you would be making the problem worse by mining uranium, fabricating fuel, pouring concrete and building the reactor core and components, all adding to greenhouse gas emissions – earning no benefit until (and IF) everything is finally ready to function.

In the meantime (10 to 20 years), you will have starved the efficiency and renewable alternatives of the funds and political will needed to implement technologies that can really make an immediate and substantial difference.

In Saskatchewan, professor Jim Harding, who was director for Prairie Justice Research at University of Regina where he headed up the Uranium Inquiries Project, has offered his own reflection. Here is the conclusion of his December 2, 2019 comment:

“In short, small reactors are another distraction from Saskatchewan having the highest levels of GHGs on the planet – nearly 70 metric tonnes per capita. While the rest of Canada has been lowering emissions, those here, along with Alberta with its high-carbon tar sands, have continued to rise. Saskatchewan and Alberta’s emissions are now almost equal to all the rest of Canada. Shame on us!”

In the USA, engineers and even CEO’s of some of the leading nuclear companies are admitting that the age of nuclear energy is virtually over in North America. This negative judgment is not coming from people who are opposed to nuclear power, quite the opposite — from people lamenting the decline. See, for example, one major report from the Engineering faculty at Carnegie-Mellon University.

The SMR order book is filled with blank pages; there are no customers

That Carnegie-Mellon report includes Small Modular Nuclear Reactors in its analysis, without being any more hopeful for a nuclear revival on that account. The reason? It is mainly because a new generation of smaller reactors, such as those promised for New Brunswick, will necessarily be more expensive per unit of energy produced, if manufactured individually. The sharply increased price can be partially offset by mass production of prefabricated components; hence the need for selling hundreds or even thousands of these smaller units in order to break even and make a profit. However, the order book is filled with blank pages — there are no customers. This being the case, finding investors is not easy. So entrepreneurs are courting governments to pony up with taxpayers’ money, in the hopes that this second attempt at a Nuclear Renaissance will not be the total debacle that the first one turned out to be.

Over 150 designs and none built, tested, licensed or deployed

Chances are very slim however. There are over 150 different designs of “Small Modular Reactors”. None of them have been built, tested, licensed or deployed. At Chalk River, Ontario, a consortium of private multinational corporations, comprised of SNC-Lavalin and two corporate partners, operating under the name “Canadian Nuclear Laboratories” (CNL), is prepared to host six or seven different designs of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors — none of them being identical to the two proposed for New Brunswick – and all of these designs will be in competition with each other. The Project Description of the first Chalk River prototype Small Modular Reactor has already received over 40 responses that are posted on the CNSC web site, and virtually all of them are negative comments.

The chances that any one design will corner enough of the market to become financially viable in the long run is unlikely. So the second Nuclear Renaissance may carry the seeds of its own destruction right from the outset. Unfortunately, governments are not well equipped to do a serious independent investigation of the validity of the intoxicating claims made by the promoters, who of course conveniently overlook the persistent problem of long-lived nuclear waste and of decommissioning the radioactive structures. These wastes pose a huge ecological and human health problem for countless generations to come.

Finally, in the list of projects being investigated, one finds a scaled-down “breeder reactor” fuelled with plutonium and cooled by liquid sodium metal, a material that reacts violently or explodes on contact with air or water. The breeder reactor is an old project abandoned by Jimmy Carter and discredited by the failure of the ill-fated French SuperPhénix because of its extremely dangerous nature. In the event of a nuclear accident, the Tennessee Clinch River Breeder Reactor was judged capable of poisoning twelve American states and the SuperPhénix half of France.

One suspects that our three premiers are only willing to revisit these bygone reactor designs in order to obtain funding from the federal government while avoiding responsibility for their inaction on more sensible strategies for combatting climate changes – cheaper, faster and safer alternatives, based on investments in energy efficiency and renewable sources.

Gordon Edwards PhD, is President of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility. Michel Duguay, PhD, is a professor at Laval University. Pierre Jasmin, UQAM, is with Quebec Movement for Peace and Artiste pour la Paix.

 

February 24, 2020 Posted by | Canada, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

Small nuclear reactors are no better than large ones

This very well-written and informative article still does not examine the question “Is nuclear power, of any type REALLY a solution to climate change?” Why on earth are all these writers mindlessly buying the nuclear lobby’s spurious claim? The nuclear reactor itself emits a tiny amount of Carbon 14. The entire nuclear chain, from mining to waste storage is a huge carbon emitter. How many thousands of these so-called “small” reactors would have to be up and running in time to make any difference? This push for smrs will be useful only to the military, and only tax-payers will foot the bill.

small modular reactors suffer from many of the same problems as large reactors, most notably safety issues and the unresolved problem of what to do with long-lived radioactive waste.

even in a smaller form, nuclear power is expensive — it’s one of the costliest forms of energy, requiring substantial government subsidies to build and run, not to mention insure.

When It Comes to Nuclear Power, Could Smaller Be Better?  Yale Environment 360 , BY LOIS PARSHLEY 19 Feb 20, A handful of companies and governments are working to develop small-scale nuclear reactors that proponents say are safer, cheaper, and more compatible with renewables than traditional nuclear power. But critics contend the new technology doesn’t address concerns about safety and radioactive waste.

Huge computer screens line a dark, windowless control room in Corvallis, Oregon, where engineers at the company NuScale Power hope to define the next wave of nuclear energy. Glowing icons fill the screens, representing the power output of 12 miniature nuclear reactors. Together, these small modular reactors would generate about the same amount of power as one of the conventional nuclear plants that currently dot the United States — producing enough electricity to power 540,000 homes. On the glowing screens, a palm tree indicates which of the dozen units is on “island mode,” allowing a single reactor to run disconnected from the grid in case of an emergency.

This control room is just a mock-up, and the reactors depicted on the computer screens do not, in fact, exist. Yet NuScale has invested more than $900 million in the development of small modular reactor (SMR) technology, which the company says represents the next generation of nuclear power plants. NuScale is working on a full-scale prototype and says it is on track to break ground on its first nuclear power plant — a 720-megawatt project for a utility in Idaho — within two years; the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has just completed the fourth phase of review of NuScale’s design, the first SMR certification the commission has reviewed. The company expect final approval by the end of 2020. The U.S. Department of Energy has already invested $317 million in the research and development of NuScale’s SMR project.

NuScale is not alone in developing miniature reactors. In Russia, the government has launched a floating 70-megawatt reactor in the Arctic Ocean. China announced plans in 2016 to build its own state-funded floating SMR design. Three Canadian provinces — Ontario, New Brunswick, and Saskatchewan — have signed a memorandum to look into the development and deployment of small modular reactors. And the Rolls-Royce Consortium in the United Kingdom is working on the development of a 440-megawatt SMR.

Proponents say the time is ripe for this new wave of nuclear reactors for several reasons. First, they maintain that if the global community has any hope of slashing CO2 emissions by mid-century, new nuclear technologies must be in the mix. Second, traditional nuclear power is beset with problems. Many existing plants are aging, and new nuclear power construction is plagued by substantial delays and huge cost overruns; large-scale nuclear power plants can cost more than $10 billion. Finally, advocates say that as supplies of renewable energy grow, small modular reactors can better handle the variable nature of wind and solar power as SMRs are easier to turn on and leave running.

Critics of nuclear power, however, contend that small modular reactors suffer from many of the same problems as large reactors, most notably safety issues and the unresolved problem of what to do with long-lived radioactive waste. And opponents say that even in a smaller form, nuclear power is expensive — it’s one of the costliest forms of energy, requiring substantial government subsidies to build and run, not to mention insure. NuScale’s SMR is offering an artificial 6.5 cent-per-kilowatt-hour cap as an incentive to get its first project off the ground. Yet in September, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power announced that it had accepted a bid of electricity coming from renewables, with storage capacity that can deliver round-the-clock supply, at 2 cents a kilowatt-hour.

M.V. Ramana, the Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security at the University of British Columbia, says that as renewable prices plummet, nuclear power just can’t compete. More than a third of U.S. nuclear plants are now unprofitable or scheduled to close. Globally, nuclear energy now only supplies 11 percent of electricity, down from a record high of 17.6 percent in 1996. After the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan, Germany decided to close its nuclear industry altogether, and countries like Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy have declined to replace existing reactors or move forward with plans for new ones…….

SMR opponents maintain that no matter the size, nuclear power has unresolved cost and safety concerns. To realize savings through mass manufacturing, there would need to be a standardized SMR design, critics say; currently, there are dozens. And SMRs would also have to be built in large quantities. But for a company to invest in making reactors and their components, it would need a reliable market, and many private investors are still wary of the new technology. Andrew Storer, CEO of the Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Center, which forecasts markets for nuclear power manufacturers, says, as far far as supply chain companies go, “We’re advising people, ‘Don’t invest yet.’”

Recent experience supports skepticism. Westinghouse worked on an SMR design for a decade before giving up in 2014. Massachusetts-based Transatomic Power, a nuclear technology firm, walked away from a molten salt SMR in 2018, and despite an $111 million dollar infusion from the U.S. government, a SMR design from Babcock &Wilcox, an advanced energy developer, folded in 2017. While the Russians have managed to get their state-funded SMR floating, its construction costs ran over estimates by four times, and its energy will cost about four times more than current U.S. nuclear costs.

Eventually, every nuclear conversation turns to radioactive waste and safety. SMRs using a pressurized water reactor will continue to generate highly radioactive spent fuel, yet no country has a permanent solution for how to safely store this kind of waste. The U.S. has been looking for a place to put a permanent nuclear waste repository since 1982; in the meantime, 70 percent of the U.S.’s spent fuel is sitting in cooling pools, many of which are aging and vulnerable, and often in quantities much larger than what is considered safe.

Because NuScale hopes to replace coal-fired power plants in the U.S. and the UK, perhaps even building on the grounds of shuttered power plant sites in more populated areas, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering eliminating some standard safety measures, including a requirement for an emergency evacuation zone and the need for backup power. NuScale says that because SMRs contain smaller quantities of radioactive materials and can be sited underground, their risks are lower and they require less security staff.

This has raised sharp criticism from nuclear experts. Even the Union of Concerned Scientists, which has generally supported nuclear power, says, “It would be irresponsible for the NRC to reduce safety and security requirements for any reactor of any size.”

February 20, 2020 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

Rolls Royce plans small nuclear reactors near Snowdonia National Park in Wales.

February 15, 2020 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, UK | Leave a comment

Few permanent jobs in small modular nuclear reactors?

In Cumbria 12th Feb 2020, Plans to develop unique small nuclear reactors in Cumbria by Rolls-Royce should not be seen as a “saviour of the county”, one of its major rivals said.

in-Cumbria exclusively revealed in November that a consortium, led by
the engineering giant, was focusing its efforts on efforts on developing
its emerging Small Modular Reactors at existing nuclear licensed sites –
with Cumbria and Wales its top targets.

But John Coughlan, chief executive of TSP Engineering, based in Workington, said he was concerned that people would think the plans would prompt people to think thousands of jobs would be created. TSP Engineering is also developing its own version of the technology, and while Mr Coughlan acknowledged that they were rivals and that was a factor in him speaking out, he was also passionate about the local community. He said:

“Make no mistake. When Rolls-Royce talk about developing their reactors in Cumbria, they are talking about a construction site. “If they get the go-ahead for Cumbria, the reactors will be shipped in from elsewhere and built on the site. So you are probably looking at a large number of short-term construction jobs – say 1,000 – then only about 60 to 100 people with a permanent position there.

https://www.in-cumbria.com/news/18230333.rolls-royce-not-nuclear-saviour-cumbria-says-leading-rival-tsp-engineering/

February 15, 2020 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, UK | Leave a comment

Rolls Royce’s fantasy plan for so-called ‘mini’ nuclear reactors

January 25, 2020 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, UK | Leave a comment

As building large nuclear stations stall in UK, sites are picked for ‘small] nuclear reactors

REVEALED: Sites for revolutionary mini nuclear power stations led by Rolls-Royce are set to be built in the North of England

  • Whitehall is planning new small nuclear power plants in Cumbria and Wales
  • Britain’s eight large-scale nuclear power plants are reaching their end of life
  • Plans to build a new generation of large-scale nuclear power stations are stalled
  • Officials hope these smaller power stations will be able to plug the potential gap 

Daily Mail, By NEIL CRAVEN FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY  19 January 2020 | The first of a new generation of revolutionary mini nuclear power stations is to be built in the North of England and North Wales by a consortium led by Rolls-Royce, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

A number of existing licensed nuclear sites have already been informally discussed within Whitehall.

The sites under consideration include Moorside in Cumbria and Wylfa in North Wales, where plans for future large-scale reactor projects have recently been shelved/

Britain’s eight large-scale nuclear power plants are nearing the end of their collective lifespan, with most due to close by the end of the decade.

Now a consortium led by Rolls-Royce has tabled plans, subject to approval from regulators, to have the first small reactor plugged in by 2030, promising reliable, low-carbon electricity for decades to come.

It will be followed by up to 16 more mini reactors at other sites, with plans for all to be producing electricity.

It is understood that other locations being considered include Trawsfynydd in Snowdonia, North Wales…….

The pre-fabricated modules would then be transported to sites for construction. Officials have cautioned, though, that there could be public opposition in some areas to a nuclear facility being built nearby. ……..

Work at Wylfa by nuclear developer Horizon, owned by Japanese firm Hitachi, was suspended a year ago amid rising costs. Only months before, plans for a new nuclear power station at Moorside were scrapped after the Japanese giant Toshiba announced it was winding up the project.

A joint investment of £500 million between the Government and the Rolls-Royce consortium was proposed last summer. An initial award from the Government of £18 million was signed off in November, which the consortium will match.

One nuclear industry source said: ‘There is broad support for this programme from Government.’ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7903495/New-Rolls-Royce-mini-nuclear-power-stations-built-North.html

January 20, 2020 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, UK | 1 Comment

Small Modular Nuclear Reactors’ costs and toxicity

Small modular nuclear reactors – a case of wishful thinking at best, NB Media Cop. by Gordon Edwards, Michel Duguay, Pierre Jasmin, 21 Dec 19

“……….4 Small Modular – Nuclear – Reactors’ costs & toxicity

That Carnegie-Mellon report includes Small Modular Nuclear Reactors in its analysis, without being any more hopeful than we are. This is mainly because a new generation of smaller reactors, such as those promised for New Brunswick, will necessarily be more expensive per unit of energy produced, if manufactured individually. The sharply increased price can be partially offset by mass production of prefabricated components; hence the need for selling hundreds or even thousands of these smaller units in order to break even and make a profit. However, the order book is filled with blank pages — there are no customers. This being the case, finding investors is not easy. So entrepreneurs are courting governments to pony up with taxpayers’ money, in the hopes that this second attempt at a Nuclear Renaissance will not be the total debacle that the first one turned out to be.

Chances are very slim however. There are over 150 different designs of “Small Modular Reactors.” None of them have been built, tested, licensed or deployed. At Chalk River, Ontario, a consortium of private multinational corporations, comprised of SNC-Lavalin and two corporate partners, operating under the name “Canadian Nuclear Laboratories” (CNL), is prepared to host six or seven different designs of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors — none of them being identical to the two proposed for New Brunswick – and all of these designs will be in competition with each other. The Project Description of the first Chalk River prototype Small Modular Reactor has already received over 40 responses that are posted on the CNSC web site, and virtually all of them are negative comments.

The chances that any one design will corner enough of the market to become financially viable in the long run is unlikely. So the second Nuclear Renaissance may carry the seeds of its own destruction right from the outset. Unfortunately, governments are not well equipped to do a serious independent investigation of the validity of the intoxicating claims made by the promoters, who of course conveniently overlook the persistent problem of long-lived nuclear waste and of decommissioning the radioactive structures. These wastes pose a huge ecological and human health problem for countless generations to come.

Finally, in the list of projects being investigated, one finds a scaled-down “breeder reactor” fuelled with plutonium and cooled by liquid sodium metal, a material that reacts violently or explodes on contact with air or water. The breeder reactor is an old project abandoned by Jimmy Carter and discredited by the failure of the ill-fated French SuperPhénix because of its extremely dangerous nature. In the event of a nuclear accident, the Tennessee Clinch River Breeder Reactor was judged capable of poisoning twelve American states and the SuperPhénix half of France.

One suspects that our three premiers are only willing to revisit these bygone reactor designs in order to obtain funding from the federal government while avoiding responsibility for their inaction on more sensible strategies for combatting climate changes – cheaper, faster and safer alternatives, based on investments in energy efficiency and renewable sources.

By Gordon Edwards PhD, President of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility; with assistance by Michel Duguay, PhD, professor at Laval University & Pierre Jasmin, UQAM, Quebec Movement for Peace and Artiste pour la Paix. https://nbmediacoop.org/2019/12/21/small-modular-nuclear-reactors-a-case-of-wishful-thinking-at-best/

Gordon Edwards, PhD ccnr@web.ca
Michel Duguay, PhD michel.duguay@gel.ulaval.ca
Pierre Jasmin, jasmin.pierre@uqam.ca

This article is also published in French, link here.

January 11, 2020 Posted by | Canada, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

As conventional nuclear reactors fail economically, the pro nuclear turn to the fantasy of small nuclear reactors

Small modular nuclear reactors – a case of wishful thinking at best,  NB Media Coop, by Gordon Edwards, Michel Duguay, Pierre Jasmin,  21 Dec 19

On Friday the 13th, September 2019, the Saint John Telegraph-Journal’s front page was dominated by what many readers hoped will be a good luck story for New Brunswick – making the province a booming and prosperous Nuclear Energy powerhouse for the entire world. After many months of behind-the-scenes meetings throughout New Brunswick with utility company executives, provincial politicians, federal government representatives, township mayors and First Nations, two nuclear entrepreneurial companies laid out a dazzling dream promising thousands of jobs – nay, tens of thousands! – in New Brunswick, achieved by mass-producing and selling components for hitherto untested nuclear reactors called SMNRs (Small Modular Nuclear Reactors) which, it is hoped, will be installed around the world by the hundreds or thousands!

On December 1, the Saskatchewan and Ontario premiers hitched their hopes to the same nuclear dream machine through a dramatic tripartite Sunday press conference in Ottawa featuring the premiers of the provinces. The three amigos announced their desire to promote and deploy some version of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors in their respective provinces. All three claimed it as a strategy to fight climate change, and they want the federal government to pledge federal tax money to pay for the R&D. Perhaps it is a way of paying lip service to the climate crisis without actually achieving anything substantial; prior to the recent election, all three men were opposed to even putting a price on carbon emissions.

Motives other than climate protection may apply. Saskatchewan’s uranium is in desperate need of new markets, as some of the province’s most productive mines have been mothballed and over a thousand uranium workers have been laid off, due to the global decline in nuclear power. Meanwhile, Ontario has cancelled all investments in over 800 renewable energy projects – at a financial penalty of over 200 million dollars – while investing tens of billions of dollars to rebuild many of its geriatric nuclear reactors. This, instead of purchasing surplus water-based hydropower from Quebec a lot less expensive and more secure.

In a December 2 interview on QUB radio, Gilles Provost, spokesperson for the Ralliement contre la pollution radioactive (Movement against radioactive pollution, a Quebec-based group) and former environmental journalist at Le Devoir, criticized the announcement of the three premiers as ill-considered and premature, since none of the conjectural nuclear reactor prototypes exist in reality. Quite a contrast to the three premiers’ declarations, boldly claiming that “SMRs” (they leave out the “N” to minimize public opposition) will help solve climate change, knowing full well that it will take a decade or more before any benefits can possibly be realized – IF EVER.

These new nuclear reactors are so far perfectly safe, because they exist only on paper and are cooled only by ink. Declaring them a success before they are built is quite a leap of faith, especially in light of the three previous Canadian failures in this field of “small reactors.” Two 10-megawatt MAPLE reactors were built at Chalk River and never operated because of insuperable safety concerns, and the 10-megawatt “Mega-Slowpoke” district heating reactor never earned a licence to operate, again because of safety concerns. The Mega-Slowpoke was offered free of charge to two universities – Sherbrooke and Saskatchewan –both of whom refused the gift. And a good thing too, as the only Mega-Slowpoke ever built (at Pinawa, Manitoba) is now being dismantled without ever producing a single useful megawatt of heat.

2 “Nuclear renaissance” – clambering out of the dark ages?

This current media hype about modular reactors is very reminiscent of the drumbeat of grandiose expectations that began around 2000, announcing the advent of a Nuclear Renaissance that envisaged thousands of new reactors — huge ones! — being built all over the planet. That initiative turned out to be a complete flop. Only a few large reactors were launched under this banner, and they were plagued with enormous cost-over-runs and extraordinarily long delays, resulting in the bankruptcy or near bankruptcy of some of the largest nuclear companies in the world – such as Areva and Westinghouse – and causing other companies to retire from the nuclear field altogether – such as Siemens.

Speculation about that promised Nuclear Renaissance also led to a massive (and totally unrealistic) spike in uranium prices, spurring uranium exploration activities on an unprecedented scale. It ended in a near-catastrophic collapse of uranium prices when the bubble burst. Cameco was forced to close down several mines. They are still closed. The price of uranium has still not recovered from the plunge.

Large nuclear reactors have essentially priced themselves out of the market. Only Russia, China and India have managed to defy those market forces with their monopoly state involvements. Nevertheless, the nuclear contribution to world electricity production has plummeted from 17 percent in 1997 to about 10 percent in 2018. In North America and Western Europe, the prospects for new large reactor projects are virtually nil, and many of the older reactors are shutting down permanently without being replaced. By Gordon Edwards PhD, President of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility; with assistance by Michel Duguay, PhD, professor at Laval University & Pierre Jasmin, UQAM, Quebec Movement for Peace and Artiste pour la Paix. https://nbmediacoop.org/2019/12/21/small-modular-nuclear-reactors-a-case-of-wishful-thinking-at-best/

January 11, 2020 Posted by | Canada, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

Small Modular Nuclear Reactors – just a speculative technology, no use against climate change

January 9, 2020 Posted by | Canada, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

Is anyone really interested in Small Modular Nuclear Reactors? (- only those selling them)

comment on article below

Someone should have challenged the headline. Whose interest in Small Modular Reactors is growing?

Not the major nuclear firms.

At the graveyard wherein resides the “nuclear renaissance” of the 2000s, a new occupant appears to be moving in: the small modular reactor (SMR). … Over the past year, the SMR industry has been bumping up against an uncomfortable and not-entirely-unpredictable problem: It appears that no one actually wants to buy one.”

Overton notes that in 2013, MidAmerican Energy scuttled plans to build an SMR-based plant in Iowa. This year, Babcock & Wilcox scaled back much of its SMR program and sacked 100 workers in its SMR division. Westinghouse has abandoned its SMR program. As he explains:

“The problem has really been lurking in the idea behind SMRs all along. The reason conventional nuclear plants are built so large is the economies of scale: Big plants can produce power less expensively per kilowatt-hour than smaller ones.

“The SMR concept disdains those economies of scale in favor of others: large-scale standardized manufacturing that will churn out dozens, if not hundreds, of identical plants, each of which would ultimately produce cheaper kilowatt-hours than large one-off designs.

“It’s an attractive idea. But it’s also one that depends on someone building that massive supply chain, since none of it currently exists. … That money would presumably come from customer orders – if there were any. Unfortunately, the SMR “market” doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

“SMRs must compete with cheap natural gas, renewables that continue to decline in cost, and storage options that are rapidly becoming competitive. Worse, those options are available for delivery now, not at the end of a long, uncertain process that still lacks [US Nuclear Regulatory Commission] approval.

Interest in Small Modular Nuclear Reactors Is Growing. So Are Fears They Aren’t Viable, SMRs are the future of nuclear. Will they always be the future? GTM JASON DEIGN MARCH 14, 2018  The slow-moving small modular reactor (SMR) market saw some positive activity in recent weeks, even as one expert predicted the technology would never achieve commercialization.

Earlier this month, the World Nuclear Association reported that Ukraine had signed a memorandum of understanding with SMR developer Holtec International, aiming to turn the Eastern European nation into a manufacturing hub for Holtec’s SMR-160 reactors.

The Association said Holtec is planning a Ukrainian manufacturing plant to allow for partial localization of its 160-megawatt SMRs, so Ukraine’s nuclear operator Energoatom can use the design to replace two aging Russian VVER-440 reactors at its Rivne nuclear power plant.

The news came a week after the government of Canada announced a road-mapping exercise to explore the potential of SMRs in the country.

“The road map will be an important step in positioning Canada to advance next-generation technologies and become a global leader in the emerging SMR market,” said Natural Resources Canada, a federal institution.

This was welcome news for a technology that has been slow to achieve commercialization — and which some believe might never take off.

In the December 2017 edition of the National University of Singapore’s Energy Studies Institute Bulletin, for example, Canadian academic Professor M.V. Ramana provided a detailed argument for why SMRs could never be a viable technology.

Nuclear plants in general require high levels of capital, he noted, and high construction costs mean the electricity they provide ends up being more expensive than coal, gas and, more recently, wind and solar.

SMRs may be able to overcome the first problem, said Ramana, who is a professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs.

But SMRs could end up with even higher energy costs because the smaller reactors can’t take advantage of economies of scale unless they’re manufactured “by the thousands, even under very optimistic assumptions about rates of learning.”

Experience indicates such rates of learning may be rare in the nuclear industry. In France and the U.S., according to Ramana, reactor construction costs have historically risen rather than falling.

Also, mass production would need the industry to settle on a single SMR design. As of 2016 there were 48 listed by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Finally, said Ramana, for all the interest in SMRs, no country has yet got behind the technology enough for it to be commercialized. This likely indicates demand for the reactors is not as solid as proponents imagine.

“SMRs seem appealing to many countries at first sight,” Ramana told GTM. “But once they get into the actual nitty gritty of planning an SMR project, they realize that there are numerous problems.

“Economics are a significant challenge, as is the problem of finding sites to construct the many units that would have to replace a single nuclear reactor.” ….. https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/interest-in-small-modular-nuclear-grows?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

December 21, 2019 Posted by | 2 WORLD, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

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