nuclear-news

Mini nuclear reactors claim to be the cheap, effective, action for reaching net zero carbon emissions: UK and others are buying this!

Mini nuclear reactors vie for key role in UK’s push to hit climate targets, Ft.com 21 Oct 21, SMRs promise huge cost savings over traditional large-scale plans, Ever since the Wylfa nuclear power plant on Anglesey stopped generating electricity in December 2015, communities on the Welsh island that are supportive of atomic power have been waiting for its revival. This week that likelihood increased when the UK government named a site near where the old reactors are being decommissioned as a possible location for a new large-scale plant or the first place in the UK to host a new technology under development, known as small modular reactors (SMRs). 

One of the big selling points of SMRs is that they promise huge cost savings over traditional large-scale reactors. Rolls-Royce, the UK engineering group which is leading a consortium to produce a UK design, expects the first five SMR reactors to cost £2.2bn each, falling to £1.8bn for subsequent units. The government’s decision this week to give nuclear a central role in its net zero emissions strategy has given fresh impetus to replacing Britain’s existing reactors, which are all due to be retired by the end of 2035. Ministers committed a total of £505m in funding to the nuclear initiative, which calls for a mix of large plants, SMRs and other emerging technologies.

More than £200m of that funding is soon expected to be channelled into the consortium led by Rolls-Royce. It has been seeking private match-funding so it can submit its SMR reactor design to the extensive regulatory approval process before the end of the year. Wylfa had been earmarked for a new plant under British plans to build a new generation of large-scale reactors, financed mainly by the private sector, that dates back to 2006. But successive governments have struggled to attract private capital to these projects, where cost-overruns are commonplace because of the engineering risks in such complex structures.

So far work has only started on one: Hinkley Point C in Somerset and costs have spiralled with the latest estimate put at £23bn. The developer behind the proposed Wylfa plant, Japan’s Hitachi, pulled the plug last year after failing to reach a financing agreement with the UK government, although a US consortium is trying to resurrect it.

The UK is not alone in pushing smaller reactors. Other governments around the world looking to tap nuclear power to meet their challenging decarbonisation targets are also showing interest in the technology. Along with the promise of much lower build costs, the smaller power plants are also attractive because of their footprint. The UK, for example, has a limited number of sites suitable for large plants.

France, one of the world’s leaders in nuclear engineering, this month announced €1bn in funding for state-backed utility EDF to develop its own SMR technology by the early 2030s. The technology is similar to existing pressurised water reactors that are used in nuclear power plants today. But the key difference is that the small, modular design would allow the parts to be built in factories ready for quick assembly at the chosen location. This, SMR advocates argue, not only cuts costs and the long lead times but also avoids many of the construction risks that bedevil larger plants………..

……. Rolls-Royce is tight-lipped about its SMR fundraising but Tom Samson, who heads the consortium, said he was in talks with a “number of interested investors and developers in deploying the technology”. If the design gets regulatory approval, a process that can take up to five years, Rolls-Royce believes it could complete its first 470 megawatt SMR plant by 2031. After that it expects to build two units a year.  

At 470MW the plant would have a generating capacity similar to some of Britain’s earliest reactors but would be about seven times less capable than the proposed next large-scale plant in the UK: Sizewell C on England’s east coast.  

………. Among those other options are what the UK dubs “advanced modular reactors”. One of the most viable designs looks to be a high temperature gas-cooled reactor. The technology is being tested in a number of countries, including Japan. The government set a target this week of having the first advanced modular reactor demonstrator in Britain “in the early 2030s”. But analysts question whether any of these technologies would be commercialised in time to help the UK reach its 2035 target for a carbon neutral grid.  

 Moreover, some environmentalists argue a big challenge is the UK’s lack of experience with modularisation manufacturing techniques that are key to their economics. “We have never done it,” said Tom Burke, co-founder of E3G, a climate think-tank, arguing that modularisation would require a “very large factory” that could only be funded with a long line of orders.  

Burke questioned how it would be possible to secure those orders when the first SMR is, as yet, unproven. But Rolls-Royce’s Samson remains unfazed. In contrast to future large atomic plants, which are likely to require a financing model that will be underpinned by British households through their energy bills, modularisation promises a radical shift in funding nuclear power. He conceded that government backing would be needed to help finance the initial manufacturing set-up and first orders but insisted private capital would ultimately pay for the bulk of the fleet. “This is an important transition for us.  https://www.ft.com/content/7da30202-2db9-4ab3-9428-458a9d8728bd?signupConfirmation=success

October 23, 2021 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, UK | Leave a comment

Rolls Royce ”small” nuclear reactors – not really small, not useful against climate change, but useful for military purposes

Answers to the energy and climate crises are needed NOW. These answers are available based on a comprehensive programme of developing renewable energy and energy conservation technologies.

Every pound wasted on nuclear power will be a pound taken away from faster and more effectivesolutions offered by renewable energy and energy conservation.

It is reported that the Tory government will restate its support on Monday, 18 October to buiding a fleet of modular nuclear reactors. The favoured reactor is the Rolls Royce SMR, namely ‘Small ModularReactor’. This term is very misleading as the Rolls Royce reactor would produce 450MW of electricity, which is more than the output of the old Magnox station at Trawsfynydd, and the same size as one of old big Magnox reactors at Wylfa.

It is known that Rolls Royce are asking for huge public subsidies to realise their nuclear ambitions. This movement towardsbuilding reactors to produce electricity is closely related to their wish to safeguard skills in the reactors they provide for submarines carrying nuclear weapons. Civil and military nuclear are two sides of the same coin. Rolls Royce claim they would like to build 18 SMRs.

How far will the government be prepared to go to fund a far from new technology and like larger nuclear reactors, is open to accidents and radioactive leaks, and produces poisonous and lethal radioactive waste.

Also mentioned is the possibility of Bechtel/Westinghouse trying to push the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor on the Johnson government to be developed at the Wylfa site.  This is the very reactor on the V.C.Summer site in South Carolina that
bankrupted Toshiba Westinghouse in 2017. That happened due to huge overspending and the project was abandoned 40% of the way into construction. It was therefore no surprise that the NUGen Consortium project to build three AP1000s at Moorside near Sellafield collapsed in 2018. Nobody was prepared to invest in it. Exactly the same fate as the Hitachi/Horizon plan at Wylfa. Johnson and his ministers in the Treasury and the Business,

Energy and Industrial Stratregy Department are missing the point entirely as they cling on to past imperial grandeur by blindly
promoting nuclear power. Nuclear power is dirty, dangerous, extortionately expensive, and a threat to environmental and human health. Nuclear power will do nothing to tackle the present energy crisis, nor will it effectively counteract the effects of climate change., and we certainly cannot afford to waste the fifteen years needed to build large new nuclear stations

Answers to the energy and climate crises are needed NOW. These answers are available based on a comprehensive programme of developing renewable energy and energy conservation technologies. Every pound wasted on nuclear power will be a pound taken away from faster and more effectivesolutions offered by renewable energy and energy conservation.

 People Against Wylfa B 18th Oct 2021

https://www.stop-wylfa.org/   

October 19, 2021 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, UK | Leave a comment

British government’s enthusiasm for mini nuclear reactors, led by Rolls Royce and 8 other organisations

Brexit Britain strikes historic £210m deal with Rolls-Royce to create nuclear reactors

BREXIT Britain is set to see its emissions slashed as the Government is poised to make a landmark deal with Rolls-Royce to fund a fleet of nuclear mini-reactors.

Express UK, By JACOB PAUL, Mon, Oct 18, 2021   The move is set to help Prime Minister Boris Johnson race to his target of zero-carbon electricity by 2035 in a move set to impress ahead of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in less than two weeks time. Mr Johnson visited Rolls-Royce’s Bristol factory on Friday, where he was shown their state-of -the-art facility by their CEO, Warren East. A consortium led by Rolls-Royce had already secured £210million in backing from private investors for the small modular reactor (SMR) project, a sum that the Government is expected to match and even surpass.

Confirmation is expected before the spending review on October 27.

The consortium called UK SMR, is set to rebrand British engineering firm Rolls-Royce SMR under a request from the Government.   Tom Greatrex, chief executive of the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), said: “Match-funding for Rolls-Royce would be a huge signal to private investors that the government wants SMRs alongside new large-scale stations to hit net zero.

It would also show investors that the Government believes in nuclear as a green technology.”

 Government support will help with the consortium’s multi-billion pound plans to build 16 SMRs up and down the country………………  Rolls-Royce is also being advised by HSBC, which has helped it secure £210million from private investors, which was a condition set by the government for them to hand out at least the same amount of funding.

This move could also signal a possible U-turn  from the Government on their scheduled phasing out of nuclear power in the UK.

 13 nuclear reactors capable of producing 7.8GW of power currently produce around 20 percent of the nation’s electricity.

But over half of that capacity comes from reactors that are scheduled to be replaced or halted by 2025. https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1507881/brexit-britain-rolls-royce-nuclear-power-boris-johnson-cop26-climate-change

October 19, 2021 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, UK | Leave a comment