Nuclear Fission and Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) News and Discussions

[wjfox]

Predicted on our timeline for 2025-2035.

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Rolls-Royce gets funding to develop mini nuclear reactors

3 hours ago

Rolls-Royce has been backed by a consortium of private investors and the UK government to develop small nuclear reactors to generate cleaner energy.

The creation of the Rolls-Royce Small Modular Reactor (SMR) business was announced following a £195m cash injection from private firms and a £210m grant from the government.

It is hoped the new company could create up to 40,000 jobs by 2050.

However, critics say the focus should be on renewable power, not new nuclear.

Currently, about 21% of UK electricity generation comes from nuclear power.

Small modular reactors are nuclear fission reactors but are smaller than conventional ones.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59212983

[wjfox]

N.B. Not to be confused with nuclear fusion.


As some of you know, I have a deep dislike of nuclear fission – due to the increasingly high costs and very slow construction times (see e.g. the UK's Hinkley Point C). I strongly believe that renewables + batteries/storage are a better option, as they're improving exponentially.

However, I'm slightly more welcoming of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), which could emerge in the next 5-10 years and have the potential to be cheaper as well as quicker to build, and safer too. I think larger-scale nuclear plants will be obsolete in the next decade or two, but I'm willing to hear counter arguments against that.

Let's start this thread with some news from the US...

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US regulators will certify first small nuclear reactor design

John Timmer - 7/29/2022, 11:20 PM

On Friday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced that it would be issuing a certification to a new nuclear reactor design, making it just the seventh that has been approved for use in the US. But in some ways, it's a first: the design, from a company called NuScale, is a small modular reactor that can be constructed at a central facility and then moved to the site where it will be operated.

The move was expected after the design received an okay during its final safety evaluation in 2020.

Small modular reactors have been promoted as avoiding many of the problems that have made large nuclear plants exceedingly expensive to build. They're small enough that they can be assembled on a factory floor and then shipped to the site where they will operate, eliminating many of the challenges of custom, on-site construction. In addition, they're structured in a way to allow passive safety, where no operator actions are necessary to shut the reactor down if problems occur.

Many of the small modular designs involve different technology from traditional reactors, such as the use of molten uranium salts as the reactor fuel. NuScale has a much more traditional design, with fuel and control rods and energy transported through boiling water. Its operator-free safety features include setting the entire reactor in a large pool of water, control rods that are inserted into the reactor by gravity in the case of a power cut, and convection-driven cooling from an external water source.

NuScale started the certification process in 2016. According to the NRC, that process required the company to submit technical information that allows the Commission to evaluate it as follows:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/07 ... or-design/



Credit: NuScale

[wjfox]

Germany rules out delay to nuclear phaseout

Date 21.08.2022

Germany won't extend the lifespan of three remaining nuclear power stations due to the energy crisis, Economy Minister Robert Habeck said. He also warned against public panic over a potential winter gas shortage.

German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said Sunday that allowing the country's three last nuclear power stations to remain operational would be of little help in solving the country's energy crisis.

Speaking during a discussion with citizens at the government's open-door day in Berlin, Habeck said extending the lifespan of the plants — which are due to close at the end of the year — would only save about 2% of gas use.

It is the "wrong decision given how little we would save," Habeck, who is also Vice Chancellor, added.

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-rules-out ... a-62880769

[caltrek]

The Hollow Promise of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors
by M.V. Ramana
August 2, 2022

Extract:

(Counterpunch) The hardest challenge is economics. Nuclear energy is an expensive way to generate electricity. In the 2021 edition of its annual cost report, Lazard, the Wall Street firm, estimated that the levelized cost of electricity from new nuclear plants will be between $131 and $204 per megawatt hour; in contrast, newly constructed utility-scale solar and wind plants produce electricity at somewhere between $26 and $50 per megawatt hour according to Lazard. The gap between nuclear power and renewables is large, and is growing larger. While nuclear costs have increased with time, the levelized cost of electricity for solar and wind have declined rapidly, and this is expected to continue over the coming decades.
…
SMRs (Small Modular Reactors), as the name suggests, produce relatively small amounts of electricity in comparison. Economically, this is a disadvantage. When the power output of the reactor decreases, it generates less revenue for the owning utility, but the cost of constructing the reactor is not proportionately smaller. SMRs will, therefore, cost more than large reactors for each unit (megawatt) of generation capacity. This makes electricity from small reactors more expensive. This is why most of the early small reactors built in the United States shut down early: they just couldn’t compete economically.
…
SMR proponents argue that the lost economies of scale will be compensated by savings through mass manufacture in factories and as these plants are built in large numbers costs will go down. But this claim is not very tenable. Historically, in the United States and France, the countries with the highest number of nuclear plants, costs went up, not down, with experience. Further, to achieve such savings, these reactors have to be manufactured by the hundreds, if not the thousands, even under very optimistic assumptions about rates of learning. Finally, even if SMRs were to become comparable in cost per unit capacity of large nuclear reactors, that would not be sufficient to make them economically competitive, because their electricity production cost would still be far higher than solar and wind energy.

Read more here: https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/0 ... reactors/

[wjfox]

Nuclear power could be the future of expedition cruises

Jacopo Prisco, CNN • Published 3rd June 2022

A new ship design concept from Norwegian shipbuilder Ulstein could be the first step toward a zero-emission future for expedition cruises and a range of other maritime operations.

The proposed 500-foot-long vessel is called Thor -- a reference to both the Norse god of thunder and the element thorium, which would power its on-board nuclear reactor.

Such a ship would never need to refuel and could create its own supply of electricity, which in turn would be used to power a companion vessel, Sif, named after a golden-haired Norse goddess who was also Thor's wife. This expedition cruise ship, with a passenger capacity of 60, would be able to explore environmentally fragile areas with minimal impact.

[...]

A lot needs to happen before the concept becomes reality, however: "We could launch a fully operational ship in maybe 10 to 15 years," says Gjerde Kamsvåg.

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/ ... index.html

[funkervogt]

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today released a report showing that hundreds of U.S. coal power plant sites could convert to nuclear power plant sites, adding new jobs, increasing economic benefit, and significantly improving environmental conditions. This coal-to-nuclear transition could add a substantial amount of clean electricity to the grid, helping the U.S. reach its net-zero emissions goals by 2050.

...The reuse of coal infrastructure for advanced nuclear reactors could also reduce costs for developing new nuclear technology, saving from 15% to 35% in construction costs. Coal-to-nuclear transitions could save millions of dollars by reusing the coal plant’s electrical equipment (e.g., transmission lines, switchyards), cooling ponds or towers, and civil infrastructure such as roads and office buildings.

https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/doe- ... rt-nuclear

[wjfox]

[caltrek]

^^^Here is a direct link to that Bulletin of Atomic Scientists article: https://thebulletin.org/2022/10/new-rep ... t-heading

[wjfox]

Nuclear fission will become increasingly irrelevant.

[wjfox]

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[wjfox]

[lechwall]

The time to invest in nuclear fission reactors was the 2000's when it would have been a perfect bridge technology to take us through to the middle of the century when renewables fully take over. The cost vs renewables is now too high for it to be considered a worthwhile investment along with long construction times to actually bring nuclear power onto the grid. Much better to invest in renewable storage capacities

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

Nuclear is flatlining

Dr Jim Green
| 1st March 2023

There is no clear future for nuclear.

Nuclear power remains stagnant and only an acceleration of China’s nuclear program will save the industry from a global death spiral.

The nuclear industry experience last year was the same as almost every other for the past 30 years: a small number of reactor start-ups and a small number of closures.

Meanwhile, the growth of renewables is being turbocharged as countries seek to strengthen energy security.

https://theecologist.org/2023/mar/01/nuclear-flatlining

[wjfox]

Germany shuts down its last nuclear power stations

20 hours ago

Germany is about to shut down its last three nuclear reactors. For the country's Green Party, it's a long-held dream come true. Meanwhile in Asia, nuclear power is experiencing a renaissance, despite Fukushima.

At the end of March, Germany's Environment Minister Steffi Lemke of the Green Party used just a few words to put an end to the dispute that has kept the country in suspense for years: "The risks of nuclear power are ultimately uncontrollable; that's why the nuclear phase-out makes our country safer, and avoids more nuclear waste."

Last year, the government found itself once again caught up in a dispute over nuclear power. In their coalition agreement, the governing SPD, Greens, and the FDP had agreed to stick to Germany's nuclear phase-out, which was decided under Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2011. Accordingly, the last nuclear power plants were to close at the end of 2022.

But Russia's invasion of Ukraine changed everything, because Russian gas supplies to Germany stopped and the government feared an energy shortage. Chancellor Olaf Scholz finally decided to extend the operating period of the power stations until April 15, 2023.

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-shuts-dow ... a-65249019

[weatheriscool]

Europe's most powerful nuclear reactor kicks off in Finland
Source: AP

By JARI TANNER today

HELSINKI (AP) — Finland’s much-delayed and costly new nuclear reactor, Europe’s most powerful by production capacity, has completed a test phase lasting more than a year and started regular output, boosting the Nordic country’s electricity self-sufficiency significantly.

The Olkiluoto 3 reactor, which has 1,600-megawatt capacity, was connected into the Finnish national power grid in March 2022 and kicked off regular production on Sunday. Operator Teollisuuden Voima, or TVO, tweeted that “Olkiluoto 3 is now ready” after a delay of 14 years from the original plan.

It will help Finland to achieve its carbon neutrality targets and increase energy security at a time when European countries have cut oil, gas and other power supplies from Russia, Finland’s neighbor.

“The production of Olkiluoto 3 stabilizes the price of electricity and plays an important role in the Finnish green transition,” TVO President and CEO Jarmo Tanhua said in a statement. The company added that “the electricity production volume of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant unit is a significant addition to clean, domestic production.”

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/finland-ener ... e1b1130917

[wjfox]

Pension funds shun Sizewell C in major blow to Britain’s nuclear ambitions

22 April 2023 • 7:00pm

The Government’s push to find investors for the £20bn Sizewell C nuclear power station has suffered a significant blow as Britain’s biggest fund managers have snubbed the scheme.

Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, sought to make the project more attractive to green-focused asset managers in his Spring Budget by proposing to give it “sustainable” status under UK financing rules.

Ministers have also reformed the funding model for nuclear plants to hand investors more up-front rewards.

But senior sources in the asset management industry and two of the country’s biggest fund managers have dismissed the changes as irrelevant and insisted it would not persuade them to back Sizewell C.

Nuclear power is seen as vital to Britain’s energy security in the wake of the Ukraine war, with ministers calling for it to generate 25pc of the country’s electricity needs by 2050.

But despite introducing new funding models and classifying it as “green” to attract investors, the Government has struggled to persuade sceptical pension funds and asset managers to get behind Sizewell C.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... izewell-c/