SONE Newsletter 300 – August 2024

Posted by Wade Allison on 26 August 2024 in Newsletters

Tagged with: China, Denmark, Finland, Germany, India, SMR, UK, USA, Urenco.

This month

News of the UK SMR contestants

The GE Hitachi BWRX300 entered the UK assessment process in January https://namrc.co.uk/industry/ge-hitachi-smr-gda/

The Holtech SMR-300 has completed the first stage of assessment https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/UK-assessment-of-Holtec-SMR-progresses-to-next-ste

The market share price of NuScale fluctuates wildly like that of many aspiring nuclear power station designers. As a result, it is the target of attack by short sellers from time to time. Recently it posted its reply https://www.nuscalepower.com/en/news/press-releases/2024/nuscale-power-comments-on-short-seller-report

There is no let-up in the news from Rolls Royce SMR. It completed the second step of regulatory assessment on 30th July https://www.gov.uk/government/news/rolls-royce-small-modular-reactor-design-completes-second-step-of-regulatory-assessment

Meanwhile the Westinghouse AP300 has been approved for the first step of assessment this month https://info.westinghousenuclear.com/news/westinghouse-ap300-small-modular-reactor-approved-for-united-kingdoms-generic-design-assessment

UK and Denmark working on the regulation of nuclear shipping

A joint development project agreement has been signed between Lloyd’s Register, Core Power and AP Moller-Maersk to conduct a regulatory assessment study to determine the safety and regulatory considerations for a potential nuclear-propelled container ship to undertake cargo operations at a port in Europe. https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Regulatory-assessment-of-nuclear-powered-cargo-shi

What if Germany had invested in nuclear power?

A comparison between the German energy policy the last 20 years and an alternative policy of investing in nuclear power. A widely praised article by Norwegian Professor Jan Emblemsvåg (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jan-emblemsv%C3%A5g-23731a/) describes how, instead of spending EUR 696 bn on its energy transition toward renewables, Germany could have invested in nuclear power and achieved its GHG emissions target by a huge margin at half the cost. The full text is here:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14786451.2024.2355642
Meanwhile, Germany continues destroying NPP cooling towers:
https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Grafenrheinfeld-cooling-towers-taken-down

IAEA welcomes thirty nuclear newcomers and SMR interests

That is the number of countries either considering nuclear power or moving forward with plans to construct their first nuclear power plant. SMRs are under construction in Argentina as well as China and Russia where they have already been deployed. Several newcomer countries, including Estonia, Jordan and Poland, have identified SMRs as part of their future clean energy systems. An IAEA Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review (INIR) mission focused on SMRs was conducted in Estonia last October. Jordan is examining how SMRs could be used to address its seawater desalination needs. WNN 13/8.

China approves 11 new reactors

https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/China-approves-11-new-reactors WNN 19/8

The Daily Telegraph quoted the report as follows:
“China is set to build more than 90 nuclear reactors by 2035, over which period the UK will complete just one. That chasm is despite Britain boasting a high-quality construction industry, the WNA said, which blamed the drop-off on poor decision-making by successive governments. WNA’s latest report on the global nuclear industry shows that China currently has 56 reactors in operation, 30 under construction, with plans for another 60 by 2035.”

In the USA nuclear is omitted from Democratic electoral case

Although it receives bi-partisan support in Congress, Robert Bryce deplores that nuclear energy is still treated as too controversial to include in electoral campaign literature https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/where-are-the-pro-nuclear-democrats

But in fact, if all political parties agree on the need for nuclear power in both USA and UK and if public opinion begins to favour it, that leaves the more ignorant voices in the media, including the BBC, counselling caution and the need to give air time to the fringe ideological objectors. These are well funded by historical donations made when opinion was largely anti-nuclear. Greenpeace and others of their ilk are unlikely to change their policy as long as their resources last. The fossil fuel industries have no reason to object to this.

Disposable Power Plants

Nuclear proponents in USA suggest that Wind and Solar are the “single-use plastic” of the power plant word. While nuclear power plants provide 60-80 years of steady power, wind and solar offer 20 years of occasional power. thorconpower.com https://lnkd.in/eHqRqFQg

Texas electrical power on 20th August

ERCOT (the Texas utility) after hitting an electric load peak of 86 GW at 6 pm, saw its power reserves drop to 4% at 8 pm as the sun was setting. Yet again, natural gas, coal and nuclear generation met over 84% of the load and stored marginal generation of natural gas & coal. The latter enabled batteries to shoulder 5% of the load at 8pm. Solar was near zero and wind was 10% of the generation mix – it was operating at only 20% of winds nameplate capacity. For perspective, intermittent wind and solar have 65 GW of nameplate capacity in ERCOT, but only delivered 8 GW at 8:00 pm when the system was extremely tight.

And looking at the full day, natural gas, coal and nuclear served over 60% of the load during all hours as wind was very low during the daylight hours when solar was stronger.

All this reminds us that, although solar production in the U.S. may increase, this cannot come at the expense of reducing natural gas and nuclear generation capacity and cannot lead to the elimination of coal over the next 20 years. As data centres and AI demand vast amounts additional power, their needs for reliable power will require more natural gas and nuclear – otherwise the load will not get served. That’s a far cry from the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to eliminate coal and reduce natural gas generation in order to minimise CO2 emissions.


The Finnish SMR designed to produce heat, not electricity

Steady Energy was spun out of Finland’s state-owned VTT Technical Research Centre in 2023 and is developing the LDR-50 small modular reactor with a thermal output of 50 MW, designed to operate at around 150°C. Unlike nearly all the other small modular reactors being developed around the world, it is not designed to generate electricity - or electricity and heat. Instead, it is designed to only produce heat.

Nyman is by background a mechanical engineer who worked at CERN, including on the Higgs Boson project, and then 15 years at Finnish utility TVO including time on the project management team for Olkiluoto 3 and more recently at VTT, Finland’s national labs. He joined the World Nuclear News podcast to explain the thinking behind the LDR-50. Here are edited quotes from his interview:
“The ambition at VTT was to bring innovations to life and not just to create science papers … Our researchers found out that almost 10% of all CO2 emissions originated from heating up water or steam to 150°C. We at VTT were interested to find markets where nuclear energy could be most economically exploited. The innovation of the LDR-50 was born from the concept of ‘why not build something simple that would only cover low temperature heat markets’. In the context of the climate crisis, nuclear is a very good option but the problem has been getting projects economically sound so that nuclear can be utilised without large subsidies. We know that the most economical way to use nuclear is just to generate thermal energy without using the heat to create electricity. So this is what the origin of the innovation was - why not build a reactor only for heating purposes.”

More here https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Podcast-Finland-s-Steady-Energy-s-SMR-aims-to-deca WNN 23/8

India ramps up construction of nuclear plants

The Nuclear Power Corporation of India to standardise small reactors as India aims for 54 GW nuclear capacity by 2047. Earlier, it took around 15-20 years to develop a nuclear power plant, but now, India is aiming to add at least one to two units every year. Last year, NPCIL added two units of 700 MW each. This year, one unit of 1,000 MW will be added, and it plans to add another 1,000 MW and a 700 MW unit next year. This plan will help double the country’s nuclear power capacity by 2030, Prasad said. [Some confusion here? These are not small reactors!]

Read more at: https://www.ndtvprofit.com/business/nuclear-power-corp-to-standardise-small-reactors-as-india-eyes-54-gw-nuclear-capacity-by-2047

News on enrichment in UK and a podcast with Urenco

The Government has announced plans to enrich uranium in the UK https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-first-in-europe-to-invest-in-next-generation-of-nuclear-fuel This was also announced from Urenco and posted by WNN
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/UK-aims-for-Urenco-built-HALEU-facility-by-2031

(Thanks to Rod Adams of Nucleation Capital, for hosting this podcast on the role of Urenco https://atomicinsights.com/atomic-show-320-magnus-mori-urenco/ )

Urenco is one of the few companies in the world that enriches uranium. It’s one of an even smaller group of enrichers that aren’t owned by the Russian, Chinese or Iranian governments. It plays a key role in the western world’s nuclear fuel cycle. That role became even more important after February, 2022. With the increasingly firm prospects of a long term increase in demand for its foundational product of low enriched uranium (LEU) and a looming demand for new enrichment products like LEU+ (low enriched uranium that has greater than 5% and less than 10% U-235 content) and HALEU (high assay, low enriched uranium with U-236 concentration of 10-20%). Urenco has embarked on a program to expand its capacity.

Energy sources top trumps

SONE members Ben and Marie Zabell have created a series of info cards to simplify the realities of each currently known energy source. They are published on the SONE website at: https://sone.org.uk/energy-sources-top-trumps/.

A poster published by ResearchFeatures

This is posted as an article on the SONE website at: https://sone.org.uk/the-future-of-energy-why-should-it-be-nuclear-based/.

For active links to the cited references visit https://researchfeatures.com/future-energy-why-should-nuclear-based/

Wade Allison, Hon. Sec.
Oxford 23rd August 2024