French nuclear giant scraps SMR plans due to soaring costs, will start over.
Another Small Modular Nuclear Reactor project goes down the toilet
This time it’s that great nuclear poster boy France that is facing the humiliation and embarrassment of wasting billions on “New Nuclear”
Last time it was the USA with the NuScale fiasco
Giles Parkinson Jul 2, 2024, https://reneweconomy.com.au/french-nuclear-giant-scraps-smr-plans-due-to-soaring-costs-will-start-over/
The French nuclear giant EdF, the government owned company that manages the country’s vast fleet of nuclear power stations, has reportedly scrapped its plans to develop a new design for small nuclear reactors because of fears of soaring costs.
EdF, which is now fully government owned after facing potential bankruptcy due to delays and massive cost over-runs at its latest generation large scale nuclear plants, had reportedly been working on a new design for SMRs for the last four years.
The French investigative outlet L’Informé reported on Monday that EdF had scrapped its new internal SMR design – dubbed Nuward – because of engineering problems and cost overruns. It cited company sources as saying EdF would now partner with other companies to use “simpler” technologies in an attempt to avoid delays and budget overruns.
Reuters confirmed the development, citing an email from a company spokesman that confirmed the program had been abandoned after the basic design had been completed.
“The reorientation consists of developing a design built exclusively from proven technological bricks. It will offer better conditions for success by facilitating technical feasibility,” an EDF spokesperson told Reuters via email.
Continue readingUnable to effectively operate its lone existing nuclear reactor, New Brunswick is betting on advanced options.
The International Panel found that sodium-cooled reactors proved expensive to build, complex to operate, prone to malfunctions, and difficult and expensive to repair. Sodium reacts violently with water and burns if exposed to air. Major sodium fires have occurred in previous reactors, often leading to lengthy shutdowns.
If NB Power needs outside assistance with a conventional reactor it has owned and operated for more than 40 years, one might question the wisdom of building two more featuring untested designs. Mr. Holland’s replacement as energy minister, Hugh Flemming, must now decide how comfortable he is with the province’s SMR ambitions.
Perhaps the most fundamental risk to New Brunswick’s SMR push is that the province can’t afford it.
MATTHEW MCCLEARN, JULY 2, 2024 https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-new-brunswick-nuclear-reactor-technology-arc-clean-moltex-energy/
Mike Holland was among Canada’s leading evangelists for small modular nuclear reactors. During his tenure as New Brunswick’s energy minister, from 2018 to when he stepped down on June 20, he vigorously supported plans by the province’s Crown utility, NB Power, to construct two different small reactor designs from startup companies: U.S.-based ARC Clean Technology and Britain’s Moltex Energy. This represents Canada’s most ambitious – and perhaps riskiest – foray into bleeding-edge nuclear technology.
In an interview shortly before he resigned to pursue an opportunity in the private sector, Mr. Holland recalled how SMRs arrived on his agenda soon after he assumed office. He began exploring what advanced reactors could mean for decarbonizing the province’s electricity sector and growing its economy, and concluded New Brunswick could become a hub for nuclear design and manufacturing, and export reactors around the world.
“I saw the opportunity for New Brunswick to not just participate, but be a leader in this,” he said. “I am someone that loves to be on the cutting edge.”
His enthusiasm and risk tolerance proved a boon for ARC and Moltex, two tiny startups that have neither licensed nor constructed a commercial reactor. Under Mr. Holland’s leadership, New Brunswick became an incubator and helped the companies attract government funds to continue their work.
But NB Power is already struggling with persistent problems at its lone existing reactor at Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station. It has been negotiating a partnership with Ontario Power Generation that could see the latter assume partial ownership and help fix the ailing plant.
If NB Power needs outside assistance with a conventional reactor it has owned and operated for more than 40 years, one might question the wisdom of building two more featuring untested designs. Mr. Holland’s replacement as energy minister, Hugh Flemming, must now decide how comfortable he is with the province’s SMR ambitions.
Unconventional thinking
Nearly all of the more than 400 nuclear reactors operating today use water to cool their highly radioactive cores. Water also acts as a “moderator,” slowing down the high-energy neutrons produced by nuclear fission. Though water-cooled reactors have dominated for decades, they cost huge sums to build and produce waste that remains hazardous for countless human lifetimes. They’re vulnerable to severe (albeit rare) accidents that can render surrounding areas uninhabitable.
Virtually every SMR is marketed as addressing these and other shortcomings – and most have ditched water as coolant and moderator.
According to documents released by New Brunswick’s energy ministry through the province’s freedom of information legislation to researcher Susan O’Donnell, and provided to The Globe and Mail, in 2017 NB Power reviewed dozens of SMRs it read about in nuclear industry publications. It came up with a short list of five, which it later narrowed to ARC and Moltex, and enticed both companies to set up headquarters in Saint John.
ARC and Moltex are pursuing what the industry calls “fast” neutron reactors, so named because they lack a moderator. The ARC-100 reactor would be cooled using liquid sodium metal and consume enriched uranium metal fuel. Moltex’s Stable Salt Reactor-Wasteburner (SSR-W), meanwhile, would use molten salt fuel placed in fuel assemblies similar to those in conventional reactors.
The SSR-W would require its own fuel reprocessing plant called WATSS (short for Waste to Stable Salt), which would convert Point Lepreau’s spent fuel into new fuel. For NB Power, that’s a major attraction: As of last summer, Point Lepreau had more than 170,000 Candu spent fuel bundles. Moltex says that’s enough to power its reactor for 60 years.
In May, 2019, NB Power sent a letter to Mr. Holland and Premier Blaine Higgs urging them to support fast reactors. The utility told its government masters that there was enough room at Point Lepreau for both reactors and that they could be up and running by 2030.
“These two technologies have different market applications and there is no downside to letting both of them work through the process,” the letter stated.
New Brunswick’s latest energy plan suggests electricity consumption will nearly double in the next few decades. NB Power’s challenge is to satisfy that demand while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions; Lori Clark, its chief executive, has cast SMRs as playing an important role in the utility’s efforts to reach net zero by 2035.
What New Brunswick covets most, however, is a shot of economic adrenalin.
Even optimists expect that SMR demonstration units will be too expensive to be economically attractive. Multiple units must be built to exploit economies of scale and reduce costs.
NB Power is counting on that. According to documents released under the federal Access to Information Act, the utility expects the first ARC-100 would be followed by 11 more units by mid-century. By then, up to 24 would be built in Canada, and the same number in other countries. And the first SSR-W would lead to 11 more built across Canada and two dozen more in the United States, Britain and Eastern Europe. If that happened, they’d be among the most successful models in history.
NB Power thought more than half of the components would be manufactured in New Brunswick. It also enthused about royalty payments on reactor sales, “potentially worth billions of dollars.”
Technical risks
But to realize any of that, New Brunswick’s SMR program must overcome technical challenges that have plagued the nuclear industry from its earliest days.
Edwin Lyman, a physicist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, has warned policy makers about the pitfalls of betting on “advanced” reactor designs, which he has studied over many years. “Developing new designs that are clearly superior to light water reactors overall is a formidable challenge, as improvements in one respect can create or exacerbate problems in another,” he wrote in a 2021 report.
Fast reactors, which originated in the earliest years of the nuclear age, bear this out. The U.S., Britain, the Soviet Union, France, Germany, Japan and India all pursued so-called “fast breeder” reactors that could produce more plutonium fuel than they consumed. A report that examined the history of those reactors, produced in 2010 by the International Panel on Fissile Materials, a group of arms control and non-proliferation experts, found member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development collectively invested about US$50-billion researching breeder reactors. Outside the OECD, Russia and India also spent heavily.
They didn’t have much to show for it. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, there are only two fast reactors currently generating electricity – both in Russia. The International Panel found that sodium-cooled reactors proved expensive to build, complex to operate, prone to malfunctions, and difficult and expensive to repair. Sodium reacts violently with water and burns if exposed to air. Major sodium fires have occurred in previous reactors, often leading to lengthy shutdowns.
As for molten salt reactors, there have only been two experimental exemplars, the most recent of which operated in the 1960s. Mr. Lyman’s 2021 report said molten salts were highly corrosive to many materials typically used in reactor construction. Moreover, “liquid nuclear fuels introduce numerous additional safety, environmental and proliferation risks.” Molten salt reactors likely couldn’t be built before the 2040s at the earliest, he concluded.
In addition to confronting such technical challenges, New Brunswick’s strategy also presupposes that reprocessing of spent fuel will be permitted and affordable. But a report published last year by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, the industry-controlled organization tasked with disposing of Canada’s reactor waste, was skeptical on both counts.
NB Power is also counting on circumstances that are beyond its control. According to a letter signed by former CEO Keith Cronkhite in 2020 and released under the Access to Information Act, New Brunswick’s plan hinges on Ontario and other provinces building multiple BWRX-300s. (The letter was sent to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.) If they do not, “SMR companies based in New Brunswick will not be able to attract private investment necessary to ever deploy a new reactor,” Mr. Cronkhite’s letter predicted.
The SMR plan is already falling behind schedule. At a rate hearing in June before the New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board, Brad Coady, vice-president of strategic partnerships and business development, said NB Power believes it is no longer possible to have SMRs operating by 2030; the earliest date for the first unit has been pushed back to 2032 or 2033.
Delays will have consequences, because NB Power needs options to replace its coal-fired generation while at the same time satisfying growing demand for electricity. The utility, he said, has been studying alternative scenarios “if we don’t have them in time.”
Paying for it
Perhaps the most fundamental risk to New Brunswick’s SMR push is that the province can’t afford it.
Last year, ARC and Moltex each estimated that developing their reactors would cost around $500-million per company. NB Power is Canada’s most heavily indebted utility, and its budgets must be approved by the province’s Energy and Utilities Board. It has limited ability to pay for crucial early steps such as studies necessary to establish what the environmental consequences of the SMRs might be. In published reports, NB Power has acknowledged that its research and development efforts might have to be sacrificed to meet debt-reduction targets.
David Coon, leader of New Brunswick’s Green Party, said NB Power faces huge capital spending to retire its Belledune coal-fired generating plant and refurbish its Mactaquac hydroelectric dam and transmission lines.
“That is why they’re really not putting much into this,” he said. “Their approach has been, well, if we get a new nuclear plant out of this that that doesn’t really cost us much of anything, then bonus!”
ARC and Moltex also don’t have the money. In late June, ARC parted ways with CEO William Labbe and laid off an undisclosed number of staff – a move some observers said was likely due to a shortage of funds. Mr. Chronkite’s 2020 letter warned that the two SMR developers were small startups that couldn’t afford to do work using their own resources, and were at immediate risk of insolvency.
“Without federal support this year to the SMR developers in New Brunswick, one or both companies are expected to close their offices in the next year,” Mr. Cronkhite’s letter stated.
Indeed, New Brunswick officials have counted on continuing and generous support from Canadian taxpayers. In his letter, Mr. Cronkhite called on the federal government to provide $70.5-million that year to ARC and Moltex – and more than $100-million the following year – to “keep the SMR development option in New Brunswick viable.” In 2022, the two companies would need another $91-million.
Ottawa obliged, but only partly. It gave Moltex $50.5-million in 2021. The federal government also provided ARC $7-million last year. The lobbying efforts continue: When NB Power board vice-chair Andrew MacGillivray received his mandate letter in May, 2023, it instructed him to “support efforts to acquire federal funding” for the SMRs.
New Brunswick’s own history suggests the risks inherent in counting on boundless federal support.
Andrew Secord, an economics professor at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, has studied decision-making in the 1970s that led to the construction of the original Point Lepreau reactor. In a 2020 paper, he detailed how Point Lepreau arose in part from an export-led strategy under which multiple large reactors would be built and their electricity exported to New England. NB Power (then known as the New Brunswick Electric Power Commission, or NBEPC) first focused on building interconnections with New England and then pivoted to building reactors.
This strategy failed by 1972, but by that point NBEPC was unwilling to change course. Over the next three years, it assumed ever greater risks as potential partners failed to materialize.
“NBEPC managers continued along the nuclear path, exhibiting higher risk behaviour in the process,” Mr. Secord wrote. “As NBEPC executives spent more time and resources on the nuclear option, their personal attachment and the associated institutional commitment increased.”
Mr. Coon said New Brunswick’s SMR plan so far has cost the provincial and federal governments only around $100-million. But it could start costing taxpayers and ratepayers “much more money” if things progress further.
“It seems like we haven’t learned our lesson in New Brunswick,” he said.
Small Modular Nuclear Reactors cost concerns challenge industry optimism
Reuters, Paul Day, Jun 27, 2024
Concerns over the potential cost of small modular reactors (SMRs) and the electricity they produce continue to cast a shadow over growing optimism for new nuclear.
Proponents say that the recent faltering history of large nuclear projects missing schedules and running over budget are just teething problems for a new industry in the midst of a difficult economic climate.
However, critics claim it as proof that nuclear is not economically viable at all, and it will take too long faced with pressing climate issues.
There is little doubt that new nuclear will, at least initially, be more expensive to develop, build, and run than many are hoping.
New Generation IV reactors, such as SMRs, are likely to produce hidden costs inherent in the development of first-of-a-kind technology, while high commodity and building material prices, stubbornly high inflation, and interest rates at levels not seen for decades are adding to mounting expenses for the new developers.
NuScale’s cancelled deal to supply its SMRs to a consortium of electricity cooperatives due to rising power price estimates prompted The Breakthrough Institute’s Director for Nuclear Energy Innovation Adam Stein to write that advanced nuclear energy was in trouble.
Speaking during an event at the American Nuclear Society (ANS) 2024 Annual Conference in June, Stein said nothing had changed to fix the fundamental challenges nuclear faces since he wrote that in November, but there was a greater sense of urgency.
“Commodity prices have come down slightly, though interest rates are largely still the same and those are risks, or uncertainties, that are outside of the developer’s control,” Stein said during an event at the American Nuclear Society (ANS) 2024 Annual Conference.
“Until those can be considered a project risk, instead of unknown uncertainties, they are not going to be controlled at all and can drastically swing the price of any single project.”
Enthusiastic hype
These criticisms clash with growing enthusiasm (critics say ‘hype’) surrounding the new technology.
Twenty two countries and 120 companies at the COP28 conference in November vowed to triple global nuclear capacity by 2050, and developers are making sweeping promises about the capabilities and affordability of their latest creations, many of which will not be commercially available in North America or Europe until the early 2030s.
SMRs, defined as reactors that generate 300 MW or less, cost too much, and deployment is too far out for them to be a useful tool to transition from fossil fuels in the coming 10-15 years, according to a recent study by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).
“SMRs are not going to be helpful in the transition. They’re not going to be here quick enough. They’re not going to be economic enough. And we really don’t have time to wait,” says co-author of the study Dennis Wamsted.
Existing SMRs in China (Shidao Bay), Russia (floating SMR such as the Akademik Lomonosov), and in Argentina (the still under-construction CAREM) have all cost significantly more than originally planned, the IEEFA says in the study ‘Small Modular Reactors: Still too expensive, too slow, and too risky.’
Construction work on the cutting-edge CAREM project has been stalled since May due to cost-cutting measures by Argentina’s President Javier Milei, the head of National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA) told Reuters.
The billions of dollars the U.S. and Canadian governments are pouring into nuclear power through subsidies, tax credits, and federally funded research, would be better spent on extra renewables, Wamsted says.
Some 260,000 MW of renewable energy generation, mostly solar, is expected to be added to the U.S. grid just through to 2028, the study says citing the American Clean Power Association, way before any new nuclear is expected to be plugged in.
“Federal funds to nuclear is, in our opinion, a waste of time and money,” says Wamsted.
High uncertainty…………………………………………….
https://www.reutersevents.com/nuclear/smr-cost-concerns-challenge-industry-optimism
Are the prospects for Small Modular Reactors being exaggerated? Five key characteristics examined
June 11, 2024 by Ed Lyman, Ed Lyman is Director, Nuclear Power Safety, at the Union of Concerned Scientists
Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are being presented as the next generation of nuclear technology. While traditional plants face cost overruns and safety issues, SMRs are seen by their champions as cheaper, safer, and faster to deploy. But Ed Lyman at UCS cites evidence that cast these claims into doubt.
In five sections of this article, he lists the reasons why. SMRs are not more economical than large reactors. SMRs are not generally safer or more secure than traditional large light-water reactors. SMRs will not reduce the problem of disposal of radioactive waste. SMRs cannot be counted on to provide reliable and resilient off-the-grid power (for facilities like data centres, bitcoin mining, hydrogen or petrochemical production). SMRs do not use fuel more efficiently than large reactors.
And where problems might be ironed out over time, the learning cycle of such technology is measured in decades during which costs will remain very high. SMRs may have a role to play in our energy future, says Lyman, but only if they are sufficiently safe and secure, along with a realistic understanding of their costs and risks.
Even casual followers of energy and climate issues have probably heard about the alleged wonders of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). This is due in no small part to the “nuclear bros”: an active and seemingly tireless group of nuclear power advocates who dominate social media discussions on energy by promoting SMRs and other “advanced” nuclear technologies as the only real solution for the climate crisis. But as I showed in my 2013 and 2021 reports, the hype surrounding SMRs is way overblown, and my conclusions remain valid today.
Unfortunately, much of this SMR happy talk is rooted in misinformation, which always brings me back to the same question: if the nuclear bros have such a great SMR story to tell, why do they have to exaggerate so much?
What are SMRs?
SMRs are nuclear reactors that are “small” (defined as 300 megawatts of electrical power or less), can be largely assembled in a centralised facility, and would be installed in a modular fashion at power generation sites. Some proposed SMRs are so tiny (20 megawatts or less) that they are called “micro” reactors. SMRs are distinct from today’s conventional nuclear plants, which are typically around 1,000 megawatts and were largely custom-built. Some SMR designs, such as NuScale, are modified versions of operating water-cooled reactors, while others are radically different designs that use coolants other than water, such as liquid sodium, helium gas, or even molten salts.
To date, however, theoretical interest in SMRs has not translated into many actual reactor orders. The only SMR currently under construction is in China. And in the United States, only one company — TerraPower, founded by Microsoft’s Bill Gates — has applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a permit to build a power reactor (but at 345 megawatts, it technically isn’t even an SMR).
The nuclear industry has pinned its hopes on SMRs primarily because some recent large reactor projects, including Vogtle units 3 and 4 in the state of Georgia, have taken far longer to build and cost far more than originally projected. The failure of these projects to come in on time and under budget undermines arguments that modern nuclear power plants can overcome the problems that have plagued the nuclear industry in the past.
Developers in the industry and the US Department of Energy say that SMRs can be less costly and quicker to build than large reactors and that their modular nature makes it easier to balance power supply and demand. They also argue that reactors in a variety of sizes would be useful for a range of applications beyond grid-scale electrical power, including providing process heat to industrial plants and power to data centres, cryptocurrency mining operations, petrochemical production, and even electrical vehicle charging station
Here are five facts about SMRs that the nuclear industry and the “nuclear bros” who push its message don’t want you, the public, to know.
1. SMRs are not more economical than large reactors. 2. SMRs are not generally safer or more secure than large light-water reactors. 3. SMRs will not reduce the problem of what to do with radioactive waste. 4. SMRs cannot be counted on to provide reliable and resilient off-the-grid power for facilities, such as data centers, bitcoin mining, hydrogen or petrochemical production. 5. SMRs do not use fuel more efficiently than large reactors
Continue readingU.S. Micro Nuclear Reactors happy to join with NATO military
Last Energy and NATO enter micro-nuclear energy partnership
The Engineer, Jason Ford, 04 Jun 2024
The NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence (ENSEC COE) and Washington, DC-based Last Energy are jointly investigating military applications for micro-nuclear power technologies
The partnership also intends to explore opportunities for future deployment on NATO military installations.
The research and development partnership, signed by Last Energy CEO Bret Kugelmass and NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence director Colonel Darius Uzkuraitis, marks the first agreement between the NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence and a nuclear energy company………………. https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/last-energy-and-nato-enter-micro-nuclear-energy-partnership
Energy buffs give small modular reactors a gigantic reality check
John Ketchum, CEO of nuclear power firm NextEra, has even said SMRs were nothing but “an opportunity to lose money in smaller batches”
Before signing any contract for an SMR, just get a fixed price in writing. If a developer won’t agree to it, they probably don’t have faith in their own estimates.
Too expensive, slow, and risky for investors, and they’re taking focus off renewables, say IEEFA experts
Brandon Vigliarolo, Mon 3 Jun 2024 , https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/03/small_modular_reactor_criticism/
Miniature nuclear reactors promise a future filled with local, clean, safe zero-carbon energy, but those promises quickly melt when confronted with reality, say a pair of researchers.
Known as small modular reactors, or SMRs, miniaturized atomic power plants have been touted as a way to ensure the world meets climate change mitigation goals as fossil fuels are phased out in favor of renewables and nuclear sources.
With a few SMR projects built and operational at this point, and more plants under development, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) concludes in a report that SMRs are “still too expensive, too slow to build, and too risky to play a significant role in transitioning away from fossil fuels.”
IEEFA doesn’t have many data points to pull from, with only three SMRs actually online around the world – one in China and two in Russia. A fourth, in Argentina, is still under construction and perfectly illustrates the point IEEFA researchers try to make: It’s running far over cost and is facing budget constraints that could affect its future.
The other three SMRs have run into similar issues. They’ve all been way more expensive than initially agreed upon, and proposals for SMRs in the US face related issues, the report finds.
Per-kilowatt hour costs for SMRs proposed in the US by NuScale, the first company to receive US regulatory approval for SMRs, have more than doubled since 2015. Costs projected by X-Energy and GE-Hitachi for their SMRs have similarly risen since initial proposals.
In most cases, these costs are rising before the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has even given its approval, IEEFA notes.
Pick none: Fast, good, low risk
If the cost of an SMR were high but the risk low, or if construction were quick, it might be worth considering further development. The report finds that SMRs are neither cheap, quick, nor reliable.
Along with those costs, IEEFA research points out that none of the SMRs built so far have come anywhere close to meeting proposed construction timelines. The two Russian units were supposed to be built in three years, but both took 13. The Shidao Bay SMR in China was estimated as a four-year project but took 12, while the ongoing CAREM 25 in Argentina was also proposed as a four-year development but has so far taken 13.
Similarly optimistic construction estimates have consistently shown up in US SMR project development presentations,” the report notes. Without speed or value to rely on, one would hope that an SMR project was at least low risk, but that doesn’t appear to be the case either.
Leaders at two nuclear power companies whose quotes are carried in the report “endorsed nuclear power in the abstract” as a way to transition away from fossil fuels, but both expressed concern over the investment risk.
John Ketchum, CEO of nuclear power firm NextEra, has even said SMRs were nothing but “an opportunity to lose money in smaller batches” at this point in time, which was cited in the report. Chris Womack, CEO at Southern Company, which recently finished building the first new US nuclear reactor this century, similarly expressed concerns about expanding his company’s nuclear portfolio.
Quit hogging the energy transition spotlight
The report’s data makes it seem like there’s not a lot going for SMRs, but “loud and persistent” advocates for the technology have managed to capture the spotlight anyway, say report authors David Schlissel, IEEFA director of resource planning analysis, and Dennis Wamsted, IEEFA energy analyst.
“A key argument from SMR proponents is that the new reactors will be economically competitive,” said Schlissel. “But the on-the-ground experience with the initial SMRs that have been built or that are currently under construction shows that this simply is not true.”
Meanwhile, all the time, energy, and money spent constructing SMRs is taking resources away from renewables that work, and would work now, the duo said. It’s also likely that, even though SMR operators intend their reactors to be complementary to other power sources on the grid, they’re far more likely to do the opposite, the report concludes – especially given the rise in construction costs and the need to break even.
“Developers bringing multibillion-dollar SMRs onto the electric grid would have every incentive to run them as much as possible,” the report surmises. “The less they run, the more their per megawatt-hour costs rise and the harder it will be for them to compete in the market.”
“Having invested billions, it is unlikely developers will willingly cycle their plants to accommodate renewables,” the report adds.
While some have predicted it might take a decade to get SMR technology to the point where it’s reliable, Schlissel and Wamsted believe the mini-reactors will continue to be too expensive, slow, and risky to play a reliable role in fossil fuel transition in the next 15 years. That said, developers are still going to push for the projects, so the pair reckon there’s a few things prospective buyers and investors should ensure – like crafting restrictions into contracts that prevent delays and risking costs from being pushed onto ratepayers.
Schlissel and Wamsted make several more recommendations for how to keep SMR projects from becoming too costly or blocking renewables, but the best one is the simplest: Before signing any contract for an SMR, just get a fixed price in writing. If a developer won’t agree to it, they probably don’t have faith in their own estimates.
Wamsted appears to have little faith SMR developers would agree to those terms.
“The comparison between building new SMRs and building renewable energy couldn’t be clearer,” Wamsted said of the pair’s recommendations. “Regulators, utilities, investors, and government officials should acknowledge this and embrace the available reality: Renewables are the near-term solution.”
Small modular nuclear reactors get a reality check in new report
New Atlas By Michael Franco, May 31, 2024
A new report has assessed the feasibility of deploying small modular nuclear reactors to meet increasing energy demands around the world. The findings don’t look so good for this particular form of energy production.
Small modular nuclear reactors (SMR) are generally defined as nuclear plants that have capacity that tops out at about 300 megawatts, enough to run about 30,000 US homes. According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), which prepared the report, there are about 80 SMR concepts currently in various stages of development around the world.
While such reactors were once thought to be a solution to the complexity, security risks, and costs of large-scale reactors, the report asks if continuing to pursue these smaller nuclear power plants is a worthwhile endeavor in terms of meeting the demand for more and more energy around the globe.
The answer to this question is pretty much found in the report’s title: “Small Modular Reactors: Still Too Expensive, Too Slow, and Too Risky.”
If that’s not clear enough though, the report’s executive summary certainly gets to the heart of their findings.
“The rhetoric from small modular reactor (SMR) advocates is loud and persistent: This time will be different because the cost overruns and schedule delays that have plagued large reactor construction projects will not be repeated with the new designs,” says the report. “But the few SMRs that have been built (or have been started) paint a different picture – one that looks startlingly similar to the past. Significant construction delays are still the norm and costs have continued to climb.”
Too Expensive
The cost of SMRs is at the forefront of the report’s argument against the deployment of the reactors. According to some of the data it provides, all three SMRs currently operating (plus one now being completed in Argentina) went way over budget, as this graph shows.
The report authors also point out that a project in Idaho called NuScale had to be scrapped because during its development between 2015 and 2023, costs soared from $9,964 per kilowatt to $21,561 per kilowatt. Additionally, the costs for three other small plants in the US have all skyrocketed dramatically from their initial cost assessments.
Not only are the excessive costs of building SMRs problematic in and of themselves, says the IEEFA, but the money being poured into the projects is money that is not being spent on developing other sources of energy that are cleaner, quicker to deploy, and safer.
“It is vital that this debate consider the opportunity costs associated with the SMR push,” write the authors. “The dollars invested in SMRs will not be available for use in building out a wind, solar and battery storage resource base. These carbon-free and lower-cost technologies are available today and can push the transition from fossil fuels forward significantly in the coming 10 years – years when SMRs will still be looking for licensing approval and construction funding.”
Too Slow
That last bit gets to another of the report’s findings: that building SMRs simply takes too much time. The Shidao Bay project in China, for example, was supposed to take four years to build, but actually took 12; the Russian Ship Borne project had an estimated completion time of three years, but took 13; and the ongoing CAREM project in Argentina was supposed to be done in four years, but it’s now in its 13th year of development. (another excellent graph on original)………………………………………………………………………
Too Risky
Both the unpredictable costs and the extraordinary building delays makes SMR development just too big of a risk, says the IEEFA. But that’s not the only potential peril. Because the technology for this small-scale nuclear facility is fairly new and untested, risks could exist in terms of functionality and safety as well. For example, the authors question if the new SMRs will actually be able to output the kind of power they claim. Based on cost and development estimates going so widely afield, the sense in the report is that power output claims could also be off.
In terms of safety, the report quotes a 2023 study for the US Air Force that said: “Since SMR technology is still developing and is not deployed in the US, information is scarce concerning the various costs for [operations & maintenance], decommissioning and end-of-life dissolution, property restoration and site clean-up and waste management.”
The authors also point out that because many SMRs are being built using identical technologies, if a component of that tech fails, it could easily affect reactors around the world……………………………
Conclusion
So: too expensive, too slow, and too risky. And not at all where we should be focussing our, um – energy – these days, as the study authors make clear in their conclusion.
“At least 375,000 MW of new renewable energy generating capacity is likely to be added to the US grid in the next seven years,” they say. “By contrast, IEEFA believes it is highly unlikely any SMRs will be brought online in that same time frame. The comparison couldn’t be clearer. Regulators, utilities, investors and government officials should acknowledge this and embrace the available reality: Renewables are the near-term solution.”https://newatlas.com/energy/modular-nuclear-reactors/—
Small Modular Reactors: Still too expensive, too slow and too risky.
Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
1 Report SMRs (Small Modular Reactors) Nuclear Transition United States
Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. May 29, 2024, David Schlissel and Dennis Wamsted more https://ieefa.org/resources/small-modular-reactors-still-too-expensive-too-slow-and-too-risky?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1jnn-FMHaMbUkjLSR0kbe-ku3uRRLcwq5jFcZfx62d4vHIZilLTK73YOg_aem_Abj940YmQyHY2fHN3alfZYFxXGCjmhy7qqSR1SLZ7HipqrGxyOaplVTSCuk7GjV3z8ZxriI0DSoGaIg4KFv_B5L1
Key Findings
Small modular reactors still look to be too expensive, too slow to build, and too risky to play a significant role in transitioning from fossil fuels in the coming 10-15 years.
Investment in SMRs will take resources away from carbon-free and lower-cost renewable technologies that are available today and can push the transition from fossil fuels forward significantly in the coming 10 years.
Experience with operating and proposed SMRs shows that the reactors will continue to cost far more and take much longer to build than promised by proponents.
Regulators, utilities, investors and government officials should embrace the reality that renewables, not SMRs, are the near-term solution to the energy transition.
The rhetoric from small modular reactor (SMR) advocates is loud and persistent: This time will be different because the cost overruns and schedule delays that have plagued large reactor construction projects will not be repeated with the new designs. But the few SMRs that have been built (or have been started) paint a different picture—one that looks startingly similar to the past. Significant construction delays are still the norm and costs have continued to climb.
IEEFA has taken a close look at the data available from the four SMRs currently in operation or under construction, as well as new information about projected costs from some of the leading SMR developers in the U.S. The results of the analysis show little has changed from our previous work. SMRs still are too expensive, too slow to build, and too risky to play a significant role in transitioning from fossil fuels in the coming 10 to 15 years.
We believe these findings should serve as a cautionary flag for all energy industry participants. In particular, we recommend that:
- Regulators who will be asked to approve utility or developer-backed SMR proposals should craft restrictions to prevent delays and cost increases from being pushed onto ratepayers.
- Utilities that are considering SMRs should be required to compare the technology’s uncertain costs and completion dates with the known costs and construction timetables of renewable alternatives. Utilities that still opt for the SMR option should be required to put shareholder funds at risk if costs and construction times exceed utility estimates.
Investors and bankers weighing any SMR proposal should carefully conduct their due diligence. Things will go wrong, imperiling the chances for full recovery of any invested funds.
State and federal governments should require that estimated SMR construction costs and schedules be publicly available so that utility ratepayers, taxpayers and investors are better able to assess the magnitude of the SMR-related financial risks that they may be forced to bear.
Finally, it is vital that this debate consider the opportunity costs associated with the SMR push. The dollars invested in SMRs will not be available for use in building out a wind, solar and battery storage resource base. These carbon-free and lower-cost technologies are available today and can push the transition from fossil fuels forward significantly in the coming 10 years—years when SMRs will still be looking for licensing approval and construction funding.
Altman-Backed Oklo Sees Data Centers Boosting Nuclear Demand, (though OKLO design not yet approved)
Will Wade, Bloomberg News
Bloomberg) — A day after announcing a deal to provide nuclear energy to a data center, Oklo Inc. says it expects to sign additional contracts from the power-hungry industry.
About 80% of Oklo’s inbound inquiries are coming from data center operators, according to Jacob DeWitte, chief executive officer of the company that is backed by Sam Altman, CEO of the AI firm OpenAI Inc. It went public this month through a merger with Altman’s AltC Acquisition Corp.
Oklo agreed Thursday to deliver 100 megawatts of power to Wyoming Hyperscalar to run a data center campus. “This is just a scratch on the tip of an iceberg,” DeWitte said in an interview Friday at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York. “There’s going to be a lot more.”
While utilities are racing to meet demand that’s forecast by some analysts to soar thanks to artificial intelligence and data centers, it will be years before Oklo can help meet that need. The Santa Clara, California-based company has yet to receive regulatory approval to build its reactor and DeWitte said it’s unlikely one will be in service before 2027.
Mini-Nukes, Big Bucks: The Interests Behind the Small Modular Reactor Push
Scandal-ridden SNC-Lavalin is playing a major role in the push for SMRs.
Then there’s Terrestrial Energy
the Breakthrough Energy Coalition (BEC) no longer makes its membership public, the original coalition included such familiar names as Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Marc Benioff (Salesforce), Michael Bloomberg, Richard Branson, Jack Ma (Alibaba), David Rubenstein (Carlyle Group), Tom Steyer, George Soros, and Mark Zuckerberg. Many of those names (and others) can now be found on the “Board and Investors” page of Breakthrough Energy’s website.
Why Canada is now poised to pour billions of tax dollars into developing Small Modular Reactors as a “clean energy” climate solution
by Joyce Nelson, January 14, 2021
https://watershedsentinel.ca/articles/mini-nukes-big-bucks-the-money-behind-small-modular-reactors/—
Back in 2018, the Watershed Sentinel ran an article warning that “unless Canadians speak out,” a huge amount of taxpayer dollars would be spent on small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), which author D. S. Geary called “risky, retro, uncompetitive, expensive, and completely unnecessary.” Now here we are in 2021 with the Trudeau government and four provinces (Saskatchewan, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Alberta) poised to pour billions of dollars into SMRs as a supposed “clean energy” solution to climate change.
It’s remarkable that only five years ago, the National Energy Board predicted: “No new nuclear units are anticipated to be built in any province” by 2040.
So what happened?
The answer involves looking at some of the key influencers at work behind the scenes, lobbying for government funding for SMRs.
The Carney factor
When the first three provinces jumped on the SMR bandwagon in 2019 at an estimated price tag of $27 billion, the Green Party called the plan “absurd” – especially noting that SMRs don’t even exist yet as viable technologies but only as designs on paper.
According to the BBC (March 9, 2020), some of the biggest names in the nuclear industry gave up on SMRs for various reasons: Babcock & Wilcox in 2017, Transatomic Power in 2018, and Westinghouse (after a decade of work on its project) in 2014.
But in 2018, the private equity arm of Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management Inc. announced that it was buying Westinghouse’s global nuclear business (Westinghouse Electric Co.) for $4.6 billion.
Two years later, in August 2020, Brookfield announced that Mark Carney, former Bank of England and Bank of Canada governor, would be joining the company as its vice-chair and head of ESG (environmental, social, and governance) and impact fund investing, while remaining as UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance.
“We are not going to solve climate change without the private sector,” Carney told the press, calling the climate crisis “one of the greatest commercial opportunities of our time.” He considers Canada “an energy superpower,” with nuclear a key asset.
Carney is an informal advisor to PM Trudeau and to British PM Boris Johnson. In November, Johnson announced £525 million (CAD$909.6 million) for “large and small-scale nuclear plants.”
SNC-Lavalin
Scandal-ridden SNC-Lavalin is playing a major role in the push for SMRs. In her mid-December 2020 newsletter, Elizabeth May, the Parliamentary Leader of the Green Party, focused on SNC-Lavalin, reminding readers that in 2015, then-PM Stephen Harper sold the commercial reactor division of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) “to SNC-Lavalin for the sweetheart deal price of $15 million
May explained, “SNC-Lavalin formed a consortium called the Canadian National Energy Alliance (CNEA) to run some of the broken-apart bits of AECL. CNEA has been the big booster of what sounds like some sort of warm and cuddly version of nuclear energy – Small Modular Reactors. Do not be fooled. Not only do we not need new nuclear, not only does it have the same risks as previous nuclear reactors and creates long-lived nuclear wastes, it is more tied to the U.S. military-industrial complex than ever before. That’s because SNC-Lavalin’s partners in the CNEA are US companies Fluor and Jacobs,” who both have contracts with US Department of Energy nuclear-weapons facilities.”
But, states May, “Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan has been sucked into the latest nuclear propaganda – that ‘there is no pathway to Net Zero [carbon emissions] without nuclear’.”
Terrestrial Energy
Then there’s Terrestrial Energy, which in mid-October 2020 received a $20 million grant for SMR development from NRCan’s O’Regan and Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry). The announcement prompted more than 30 Canadian NGOs to call SMRs “dirty, dangerous, and distracting” from real, available solutions to climate change.
The Connecticut-based company has a subsidiary in Oakville, Ontario. Its advisory board includes Stephen Harper; Michael Binder, the former president and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission; and (as of October) Dr. Ian Duncan, the former UK Minister of Climate Change in the Dept. of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
Perhaps more important, Terrestrial Energy’s advisory board includes Dr. Ernest Moniz, the former US Secretary of the Dept. of Energy (2013-2017) who provided more than $12 billion in loan guarantees to the nuclear industry. Moniz has been a key advisor to the Biden-Harris transition team, which has come out in favour of SMRs, calling them “game-changing technologies” at “half the construction cost of today’s reactors.”
In 2015, while the COP 21 Paris Climate Agreement was being finalized, Moniz told reporters that SMRs could lead to “better financing terms” than traditional nuclear plants because they would change the scale of capital at risk. For years, banks and financial institutions have been reluctant to invest in money-losing nuclear projects, so now the goal is to get governments to invest, especially in SMRs.
That has been the agenda of a powerful lobby group that has been working closely with NRCan for several years.
The “billionaires’ nuclear club”
The 2015 Paris climate talks featured what cleantechnica.com called a “splashy press conference” by Bill Gates to announce the launch of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition (BEC) – a group of (originally) 28 high net-worth investors, aiming “to provide early-stage capital for technologies that offer promise in bringing affordable clean energy to billions.”
Though BEC no longer makes its membership public, the original coalition included such familiar names as Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Marc Benioff (Salesforce), Michael Bloomberg, Richard Branson, Jack Ma (Alibaba), David Rubenstein (Carlyle Group), Tom Steyer, George Soros, and Mark Zuckerberg. Many of those names (and others) can now be found on the “Board and Investors” page of Breakthrough Energy’s website.
Writing in Counterpunch (Dec. 4, 2015) shortly after BEC’s launch, Linda Pentz Gunter noted that many of those 28 BEC billionaires (collectively worth some $350 billion at the time) are pro-nuclear and Gates himself “is already squandering part of his wealth on Terra Power LLC, a nuclear design and engineering company seeking an elusive, expensive and futile so-called Generation IV traveling wave reactor” for SMRs. (In 2016, Terra Power, based in Bellevue, Washington, received a $40 million grant from Ernest Moniz’s Department of Energy.)
According to cleantechnica.com, the Breakthrough Energy Coalition “does have a particular focus on nuclear energy.” Think of BEC as the billionaires’ nuclear club.
By 2017, BEC was launching Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), a $1 billion fund to provide start-up capital to clean-tech companies in several countries.
Going after the public purse
Bill Gates was apparently very busy during the 2015 Paris climate talks. He also went on stage during the talks to announce a collaboration among 24 countries and the EU on something called Mission Innovation – an attempt to “accelerate global clean energy innovation” and “increase government support” for the technologies. Mission Innovation’s key private sector partners include the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, the World Economic Forum, the International Energy Agency, and the World Bank.
An employee at Natural Resources Canada, Amanda Wilson, was appointed as one of the 12 international members of the Mission Innovation Steering Committee.
In December 2017, Bill Gates announced that the Breakthrough Energy Coalition was partnering with Mission Innovation members Canada, UK, France, Mexico, and the European Commission in a “public-private collaboration” to “double public investment in clean energy innovation.”
Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources at the time, Jim Carr, said the partnership with BEC “will greatly benefit the environment and the economy. Working side by side with innovators like Bill Gates can only serve to enhance our purpose and inspire others.”
Dr. M.V. Ramana, an expert on nuclear energy and a professor at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at UBC, told me by email: “As long as Bill Gates is wasting his own money or that of other billionaires, it is not so much of an issue. The problem is that he is lobbying hard for government investment.”
Dr. Ramana explained that because SMRs only exist on paper, “the scale of investment needed to move these paper designs to a level of detail that would satisfy any reasonable nuclear safety regulator that the design is safe” would be in the billions of dollars. “I don’t see Gates and others being willing to invest anything of that scale. Instead, they invest a relatively small amount of money (compared to what they are worth financially) and then ask for government handouts for the vast majority of the investment that is needed.”
Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Specialist at Beyond Nuclear, told me by email that the companies involved in SMRs “don’t care” if the technology is actually workable, “so long as they get paid more subsidies from the unsuspecting public. It’s not a question of it working, necessarily,” he noted.
Gordon Edwards, President of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, says governments “are being suckers. Because if Wall Street and the banks will not finance this, why should it be the role of the government to engage in venture capitalism of this kind?”
“Roadmap” to a NICE future
By 2018, NRCan was pouring money into a 10-month, pan-Canadian “conversation” about SMRs that brought together some 180 individuals from First Nations and northern communities, provincial and territorial governments, industry, utilities, and “stakeholders.” The resulting November 2018 report, A Call to Action: A Canadian Roadmap for Small Modular Reactors, enthusiastically noted that “Canada’s nuclear industry is poised to be a leader in an emerging global market estimated at $150 billion a year by 2040.”
At the same time, Bill Gates announced the launch of Breakthrough Energy Europe, a collaboration with the European Commission (one of BEC’s five Mission Innovation partners) in the amount of 100 million euros for clean-tech innovation.
Gates’ PR tactic is effective: provide a bit of capital to create an SMR “bandwagon,” with governments fearing their economies would be left behind unless they massively fund such innovations.
NRCan’s SMR Roadmap was just in time for Canada’s hosting of the Clean Energy Ministerial/Mission Innovation summit in Vancouver in May 2019 to “accelerate progress toward a clean energy future.” Canada invested $30 million in Breakthrough Energy Solutions Canada to fund start-up companies.
A particular focus of the CEM/MI summit was a CEM initiative called “Nuclear Innovation: Clean Energy (NICE) Future,” with all participants receiving a book highlighting SMRs. As Tanya Glafanheim and M.V. Ramana warned in thetyee.ca (May 27, 2019) in advance of the summit, “Note to Ministers from 25 countries: Prepare to be dangerously greenwashed.”
Greenwash vs public backlash
While releasing the federal SMR Action Plan on December 18, O’Regan called it “the next great opportunity for Canada.”
Bizarrely, the Action Plan states that by developing SMRs, our governments would be “supporting reconciliation with Indigenous peoples” – but a Special Chiefs Assembly of the Assembly of First Nations passed a unanimous 2018 resolution demanding that “the Government of Canada cease funding and support” of SMRs. And in June 2019, the Anishinabek Chiefs-in-Assembly (representing 40 First Nations across Ontario) unanimously opposed “any effort to situate SMRs within our territory.”
Some 70 NGOs across Canada are opposed to SMRs, which are being pushed as a replacement for diesel in remote communities, for use in off-grid mining, tar-sands development, and heavy industry, and as exportable expertise in a global market.
On December 7, the Hill Times published an open letter to the Treasury Board of Canada 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 more money into renewables, energy efficiency and energy conservation.”
No new money for SMRs was announced in the Action Plan, but in her Fall Economic Statement, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland touted SMRs and noted that “targeted action by the government to mobilize private capital will better position Canadian firms to bring their technologies to market.” That suggests the Canada Infrastructure Bank will use its $35 billion for such projects.
It will take a Herculean effort from the public to defeat this NICE Future, but along with the Assembly of First Nations, three political parties – the NDP, the Bloc Quebecois, and the Green Party – have now come out against SMRs.
Award-winning author Joyce Nelson’s latest book, Bypassing Dystopia, is published by Watershed Sentinel Books. She can be reached via www.joycenelson.ca.
Small Modular Nuclear Five Times The Price (letter)
by News Of The Area – Modern Media –
DEAR News Of The Area,
IN response to Derek Musgrove opinion regarding small modular nuclear generation.
Derek, the reason nuclear sub reactors are not used for domestic generation is because they use a more enriched fuel unsuitable for domestic SMRs.
If you research your topic for five minutes you will find only five SMRs operating in the world.
There are quite a number in development but they are either abandoned or going to produce power at five times the cost of other types of generation.
Nuclear power also needs huge amounts of water for cooling so it limits their location options.
Feel free to check these facts.
Not scaremongering but why would we want to pay five times the cost for power.
The reactor in Canada is heavily subsidised by their government.
While you fact check, search how many SMRs would Australia need.
Did you know in 2023 in South Australia 80 percent of their power generation was from renewables.
Regards,
Ian HALL,
Hawks Nest.
Constellation Energy looks to small nuclear reactors for the gross, ever-increasing energy needs of great steel data containers.
Constellation Energy eyes new nuclear for unprecedented data center power
demand.
Constellation Energy (CEG.O), opens new tab is considering building
next-generation nuclear plants on its existing sites to meet soaring demand
from data centers, executives with the Baltimore-based power company said
on Thursday. The largest operator of U.S. nuclear energy said it is looking
at adding new small modular reactors and other energy technologies to
deliver electricity to large load customers like data centers.
Reuters 9th May 2024
Sam Altman-backed nuclear start-up crashes after Wall Street debut
NEW YORK, https://www.malaymail.com/news/money/2024/05/11/sam-altman-backed-nuclear-start-up-crashes-after-wall-street-debut/133694 ― The share price of nuclear energy start-up Oklo, chaired by OpenAI boss Sam Altman, fell sharply yesterday on its first day of trading on Wall Street.
At around 3.40pm (1940GMT), the stock was down 53.9 per cent to US$8.40 (RM39.80).
Founded in 2013 by graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Oklo went public by merging with AltC Acquisition Corp, a listed company.
The latter is a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company), a company whose sole purpose is to enable another firm to enter Wall Street through a merger.
Since the deal with Oklo was announced in July last year, AltC’s share price has soared, gaining over 72 per cent.
But transactions involving a SPAC are often highly volatile, partly because they are more exposed to speculation than traditional IPOs.
Altman is involved in several cutting-edge sectors and invested in Oklo in 2015, also becoming its chairman.
According to company documents, Altman directly controls around three per cent of the capital.
Oklo plans to build small modular reactors (SMRs), which are theoretically quicker to build than conventional power plants and less complicated to construct in remote areas. Oklo also wants to offer nuclear fuel recycling.
Conventional nuclear reactors are hugely expensive and take a long time to construct, with major projects having become notorious for their budget and schedule overruns.
The startup does not yet have a site of its own, and in January 2022 was refused a licence to build an SMR in Idaho by the Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRC).
The NRC rejected the application on the grounds that there was a lack of information on the risks of accidents and the responses planned in such cases.
With the merger with AltC, Oklo raised US$306 million, which will be used to build the company’s first fission reactor, Aurora, in Ohio. ― AFP
South Korean state energy monopoly in talks to build new UK nuclear plant.
Kepco has held early-stage discussions with British officials over
mothballed Wylfa site. South Korea’s state energy monopoly is in talks
with the UK government about building a new nuclear power station off the
coast of Wales, in what could be a big boost to Britain’s plans for a new
nuclear fleet.
Kepco has held early-stage discussions with British
officials about a new facility at the Wylfa site in Anglesey, and a
ministerial meeting is expected this coming week, according to people
briefed on the matter.
In his March Budget, chancellor Jeremy Hunt
announced the government would buy the mothballed site and another from
Hitachi for £160mn. In 2019, the Japanese industrial group scrapped its
plans to develop a nuclear project at Wylfa, writing off £2.1bn in the
process.
Hunt’s move was designed to facilitate a fresh deal with a new
private sector partner to build a power station at Wylfa, which could boost
the government’s plans to replace Britain’s current ageing fleet of
nuclear power stations.
A consortium including US construction group
Bechtel and US nuclear company Westinghouse has already proposed building a
new plant on the Wylfa site using Westinghouse’s AP1000 reactor
technology.
Another industry figure said Wylfa’s future would depend on a
decision by GB Nuclear, the government quango which now owns the site. GBN
could give the go-ahead for a large reactor or reactors at Wylfa or judge
that it is a suitable site for building a cluster of new “small modular
reactors”.
Supporters of SMRs claim their modular design would make them
relatively quick and cheap to build. “Wylfa is now the next priority site
for the UK so it makes sense that Kepco are interested, but they just need
GBN to make a decision soon about whether they do want a traditional
nuclear power station there,” the figure said.
One senior Korean
government official struck a cautious note about the prospect of Kepco
buying the site, saying that building nuclear power stations in the UK was
“difficult”.
FT 12th May 2024
https://www.ft.com/content/3404a203-158e-4fe1-9f5d-f5fb64032ffc
France’s mini nuclear reactor plan – Nuward, gets another financial handout from the European Commission
The European Commission (EC) has approved, under European Union (EU) state
aid rules, a €300m ($320m) French measure to support Electricité de
France’s (EDF) subsidiary Nuward in researching and developing small
modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). The EC said the measure will contribute to
the achievement of the strategic objectives of the European industrial
strategy and the European Green Deal.
France notified to the Commission its
plan to grant €300m to Nuward to support its research and development
(R&D) project on SMR technology. The project aims to develop processes for
the design and construction of SMRs based on a simple and modular design
and with a power output equivalent to or less than 300 MWe. The front-end
design is the third phase of the overall Nuward project, which contains
five distinct phases.
In December 2022, the Commission already approved a
€50m French measure to support the second phase of the project, aimed at
acquiring new knowledge for the design and construction of SMRs. The aid
will take the form of a direct grant of up to €300m that will cover the
R&D project until early 2027. The measure will support Nuward in sizing the
modules and components of the SMRs and validating their integration in the
SMRs by means of numerical simulators and laboratory tests. Nuward will
also carry out industrialisation studies relating to the modular design and
mass production of SMRs. Finally, the measure will also support Nuward in
the preparation of the required safety demonstrations for the approval of
the project by the national nuclear safety authorities.
Nuclear Engineering International 1st May 2024
https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newseuropean-commission-approves-state-aid-for-nuward-smr-11725920
1 This Month
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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