SONE Newsletter 301 – October 2024

Posted by Wade Allison on 1 October 2024 in Newsletters

Tagged with: Capenhurst, Czechia, Finland, Fukushima, Great British Nuclear, Russia, SMR, Shipping, Sweden, Three Mile Island.

This month

September was an exciting month although there was no September Newsletter as such. Nonetheless, the recent remarkable news is chronicled below. Members are reminded that the AGM will be held online at 2pm on 21st October. The simple one-click link to attend and join the discussion will be circulated to all members by email with the agenda, report and accounts. Applications for the visit to Capenhurst on 24th October have now closed, but late applicants should contact John Assheton communications@sone.org.uk right away to find out if there is a vacancy.

The Banking sector gets the message

Remember this day, Monday 23/9/24. That was when the world’s biggest banks and financial institutions came to support financing the tripling of nuclear energy, signing an agreement in the Rockefeller Centre in NY, the very centre of the fossil fuel industry.

Mark Nelson of Radiant Energy wrote on LinkedIn:

Fourteen banks and funds, among them some of the world’s largest, just announced this morning that they’ve pledged to support the goal of tripling nuclear energy as part of their sustainable infrastructure investing.

While the list includes giants like Bank of America, Citi, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs, even more giants were working up until the last minute internally to join the pledge.

We suspect they’ll be able to join us later, perhaps even later today as we unveil the pledge this morning in a truly appropriate location, the Rainbow Room at the top of the Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan. One of the world’s most famous office complexes, the Rockefeller Center stands as a testament to the Age of Oil. We hope today’s event helps ignite the Age of Uranium.
Cumulatively the 14 entities have committed to over $6 trillion in sustainable financing by 2030.

If perhaps 10% goes to nuclear, as per nuclear’s share of the mix in the IEA’s NZE scenario, and if we can achieve an Nth-of-a-kind Western construction cost of $6 billion per GW of new capacity, this would equate to the potential to finance the construction of roughly 100 new GW-scale reactors.

Very proud to have been a part of this effort.

Nuclear shipping, a comment that Neville published

In the July 2024 edition of the magazine Physics World a surprisingly ill-informed article on green energy for ocean-going shipping appeared that did not even mention the development of nuclear power. https://physicsworld.com/a/green-challenge-can-the-shipping-industry-clean-up-its-act/
In the subsequent discussion Neville noted:

There is considerable work in progress developing Small Modular Reactors for just this application, especially for larger ships. Moreover, these reactors can be fuelled and sealed for life, removing many of the emotionally inspired objections often paraded against marine reactor concepts. The nuclear option is not only “considered” but rapidly gaining favour.

His comment was published in the September edition.

UK Government policy from the Labour Party Conference

The Nuclear Industries Association quotes Energy Secretary, Ed Milliband, “I will use every lever we have to win jobs and build new industries for Britain… This future means jobs constructing the next generation of nuclear power stations.” He made clear his commitment to ramping up nuclear capacity alongside other clean energy technologies as part of a plan to re-industrialise Britain. “From Sizewell C to the SMR programme and the future of world-class sites like Wylfa, we are calling on the government to deliver on its promise of new nuclear projects to drive down emissions, create good, skilled jobs and strengthen energy security.”

Great British Nuclear narrows UK SMR Competition to four

GE-Hitachi, Holtec, Westinghouse and Rolls Royce are the final four in the line-up for the provision of SMR in UK, after the elimination of NuScale. GBN says that the goal is to place contracts by the end of the year with two or three technology providers - this would be for co-funding the technology all the way through to completion of the design, regulatory, environmental and site-specific permissions process, and the potential to place a contract for the supply of equipment. Each selected technology would have an allocated site with the potential to host multiple SMRs. The aim is then for a final investment decision to be taken in 2029. Here is a video discussion by Thies Beckers that is informative:

Meanwhile Rolls Royce SMR has been chosen as the preferred supplier in the Czech Republic https://www.rolls-royce-smr.com/press/rolls-royce-smr-named-as-preferred-supplier-to-build-in-czechia

Three Mile Island and Microsoft

Meanwhile the voracious appetite for energy of data centres and AI is raising the expected future size of the electricity market. The Three Mile Island reactor that was closed in 2019 could be re-opened in 2028, if approved.
https://news.northeastern.edu/2024/09/26/reopen-three-mile-island-nuclear-energy/
And then there are rumours that Amazon has started hiring nuclear engineers to evaluate small nuclear reactors as a part of their decarbonization strategy for data centres. This is a company that had once sworn to the 100% renewable-powered claim. Finally, Apple now recognizes nuclear electricity as part of their 2030 ESG goals!

It’s just a matter of time before other giants like Google, Meta and Tesla embrace the cleanest and safest form of energy, too.

Negative solar energy prices in Europe

European electricity prices regularly fall below minus €20 per megawatt hour when solar and wind power outpace the continent’s ability to deal with excess supply. https://on.ft.com/47q3QKd Because suppliers of renewable energy receive a guaranteed minimum positive price, the consumer must pay both for the electricity that he does not want and also for it to be consumed. In addition, either the taxpayer or the consumer may be paying a subsidy. Such are the effects of combining guaranteed prices and subsidies with a market operating on supply and demand.

Swedish Deputy PM emphasises physics/engineering over politics

Powerful statement from Swedish Deputy PM Ebba Busch at OECD Nuclear Energy Agency RoadmapsToNewNuclear Conference in Paris.

Ms Busch was making the point that it’s irrelevant what politicians think about what kinds of low-carbon power are better than others. What matters is the engineering and physics. If you truly want a successful energy transition, listen to the experts. Talk to the utilities, research laboratories, and engineers. Look at the data and dive into the complex models. That’s where we’ll find the answers to how to solve this massive problem.

Putting fusion in perspective

Enthusiasm is essential in the pursuit of hard long-term scientific objectives. In 1963 when I arrived in Oxford as a graduate student, the hope was that the early results from the Zeta experiment would lead to the harnessing of terrestrial fusion in a few decades. But genuine progress, as made with JET at Culham, has been much slower, though hopes get reported enthusiastically in the media. Current hype obscures the fact that a viable power station with a life expectancy of many decades remains on the far horizon. There is no likelihood that fusion will displace fission in this century. https://physicsworld.com/a/fusions-public-relations-drive-is-obscuring-the-challenges-that-lie-ahead/

Plans for future nuclear plants in Russia

A draft plan including as many as 34 new nuclear power units in Russia by 2042 has been published for public consultation - they are a mix of large and small reactors, and include replacement of existing units as well as new locations. https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Russia-s-plans-for-11-new-nuclear-reactor-plants

Heat in Finland

Where there is local infrastructure to deliver heat, nuclear energy is a highly competitive option. This is already provided in China and is proposed in Finland. When nuclear plants are built near consumers, as is sensible anyway, this becomes attractive. The infrastructure cost would be attractive when building a new town. https://world-nuclear-news.org/articles/finnish-energy-firm-helen-launches-nuclear-programme

Lead cooled SMRs

Swedish lead-cooled SMR technology developer Blykalla has announced the expansion of its Series A round, now amounting to a total of SEK160 million (USD15.4 million). The extension is led by Danish entrepreneur Joachim Ante’s investment firm 92 Ventures and Swiss Daniel Aegerter’s investment group Armada. WNN 10/9

The Newcleo reactor is another Gen-4 lead-cooled reactor, in this case already active in the UK market. https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Justification-sought-for-use-of-Newcleo-reactor-in

Fuel production at Springfields

Westinghouse Electric Company has completed the first pressing of its Low Enriched Uranium (LEU+, that is up to 8%) nuclear fuel pellets for commercial application at its Springfields Fuel Manufacturing Facility in the UK. This milestone was achieved in partnership with Southern Nuclear and the support of the U.S. Department of Energy.
https://info.westinghousenuclear.com/news/westinghouses-marks-first-production-of-leu-adopt-fuel-pellets

Fukushima, recall of an early visit to combat fear

Nuclear radiation is not contagious like fire or a virus. But fear is very contagious and can lead to panic. That is the story of Fukushima, as we found when we went there in October 2011. At least Japan is now recovering and even the banking community is showing some confidence at last. However, Germany has not recovered even now. Surely psychologists must have come up with a name for the collective PTSD?

Here is an account published in USA on our return https://www.ans.org/news/article-838/radiation-and-reason-a-private-trip-to-tokyo-and-fukushima/ and videos of our presentations to the American Chamber of Commerce.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6BFCBCF9550B4E66

Wade Allison, Hon. Sec.
Oxford, 27 September 2024