Category Archives: Small modular reactors

Nuclear Matinee: Taylor Wilson’s radical plan for small nuclear fission reactors

Posted on May 17, 2013 by pbowersox| 1 Comment

A video was uploaded recently at TED Talks that has caused a bit of a stir around the internet. Nuclear scientist Taylor Wilson, 19 years of age, enthusiastically sets out to solve the problem that underlies all others: Energy.

In this video, Wilson announces his variation of a Molten Salt Small Modular Reactor, and explains some of the anticipated advantages of this version of “factory-produced” nuclear power—such as an ability to burn up stockpiles of nuclear weapons materials, less leftover waste, and a sealed system requiring no refueling. The system would feature inherent, passive safety due to operation at atmospheric pressure—and such a reactor could provide a compact source of enormous power that would revolutionize space exploration.

The general ideas presented are not entirely new. In fact, the first molten salt reactor was built at Oak Ridge National Laboratory decades ago, and several entities around the world are currently researching and developing molten salt reactors (for example, Transatomic Power, Flibe Energy, Terrestrial Energy). We shall see what the future holds—in the meantime, enjoy this inspiring and engaging presentation:

Elizabeth Palermo with the story at TechNewsDaily Teenager Designs Safer Nuclear Power Plants.

Thanks to TED Talks

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Posted in Nuclear Matinee, reactor designs, Small modular reactors

Tagged taylor wilson

The Hook-Ons

Posted on April 18, 2013 by Will Davis| 13 Comments

by Will Davis

This week’s announcement by Babcock & Wilcox that it had signed the long-awaited funding agreement with the Department of Energy has been taken by advocates of small modular reactors (SMRs) as just the latest good news on the inevitable path to construction of at least one prototype nuclear plant using SMR reactor technology in the United States. It is widely hoped that this is the harbinger of the rapid spread of the market for SMR plants.

The chief advantage of SMRs other than cost reduction over large 1000–1600 MWe nuclear plants is that they can be located practically anywhere (assuming proper geologic characteristics and supply of cooling), since a primary design feature is that the major components of the reactor plant itself are to be easy to ship (i.e., by large truck over existing highways). This design asset potentially opens up locations previously considered unworkable (for large plants, with their enormous reactor vessels and other equipment that needs to be shipped intact to site) and may, in some cases, allow siting of SMR-driven power plants nearer to populated areas in order to take advantage of benefits to the grid (by siting source nearer to use) and even, if some have their way, to supply steam for process use to facilities already in existence or built new.

These concepts—siting closer to communities than with large commercial plants, and supply of steam for existing facilities—are, in fact, not new. In the early days of nuclear energy, a number of nuclear plants were built in order to supply steam to facilities already in use. In the cases of these early reactors, the facilities were all commercial electric power stations; the group of reactors came very loosely to be known as “hook-on” reactors. The concept of expanding the use of nuclear energy in such a way was actively pushed by the Atomic Energy Commission; three of the four plants we’re about to explore were (at least partly) funded under the AEC Power Demonstration Reactor Program.

Elk River (Minnesota)

The Elk River Reactor, widely heralded as “Rural America’s First Atomic Power Plant,” was originally contracted to ACF Industries in 1959 for construction behind the Rural Co-Operative Power Association’s Elk River coal-fired plant (seen at far left in the above post card photo.) The reactor plant was a novel natural circulation, indirect cycle boiling water reactor that, while not fitting the modern definition of “small, modular” of today’s SMRs, did have a reactor vessel small enough to be shipped to the site on the smallest standard railroad flat car of the time (said cars measured 40 feet in length overall.) The 58-MWt reactor produced saturated steam at 922 psig and 536 °F, but the existing turbines in the plant required superheated steam. Construction of a coal-fired superheater interposed between the reactor plant and the power plant adjusted the steam conditions to 612 psig but 825 °F; of the total 22 MWe of generating capacity credited this installation, 7 MW was provided by the superheater.

The plant suffered teething pains that, today, seem not too surprising given the facts that the original reactor vendor was small, and that it was actually bought out by Allis-Chalmers while construction of the Elk River Reactor was in progress. Fuel element defects and reactor pressure vessel cladding cracks contributed (among other things) to delays in the start up of the plant, which did not achieve commercial operation until mid-1965, but after which operated with a very fair degree of reliability.

Eventually, further leakage from welds in the primary coolant system caused investigation into the overall condition of all welds in that system in 1968, and the determination was made that major rework would be required to fix the problems—a problem that looked all the worse given that Allis-Chalmers had decided to exit the nuclear power business in 1966. After considerable debate about what to do with the reactor plant (which was still technically AEC owned), the decision was made in March 1971 to decommission the reactor plant and completely remove it from the site. Below, a March 1971 UPI telephoto showing the plant as it looked at the time that the decommissioning decision was made.

Piqua (Ohio)

The Piqua Nuclear Power Facility (PNPF) was built in the early 1960s in the town of Piqua, Ohio, as a part of the second round of the AEC Power Demonstration Reactor Program. The reactor was unique among the world’s commercial power reactors in being an organic-cooled and -moderated design. A commercial terphenyl preparation (marketed widely as Santowax-OMP by Monsanto) was used for this plant that, because of the low pressure of the primary, originally was designed without any containment whatsoever. The Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, however, ordered that a containment be built. The reactor plant was built just across and down the river from the original Piqua municipal generating station, and supplied steam to it at 450 psia and 550 ºF through underground piping and a new bridge structure over the river. The reactor was rated 46 MWt, and the electric generating capacity credited to it was 11.4 MWe.

The Piqua Nuclear Power Facility is seen on the right, which is the east side of the Miami River; the municipal power plant is on the West side, just upstream.

PNPF began operation in 1963 and operated with occasional problems largely due to coolant breakdown until 1968 when a serious blockage occurred. The decision was made by the city of Piqua not to take over ownership of the plant, and it entered procedures to shut down and decommission immediately. The disposal method (after defueling) was selected by the AEC was SAFSTOR, in which the plant is left in place to allow decay of radioactivity at the same time guaranteeing no impact to the surroundings. The containment and support buildings are still clearly visible in Piqua to this day.

CVTR (South Carolina)

The Carolinas-Virginia Tube Reactor was built adjacent to an existing coal-fired plant (and hydroelectric dam facility) at Parr, South Carolina, under the third round of the AEC Power Demonstration Reactor Program in order to test out the pressure tube reactor concept. This plant was widely reported and heralded in the early 1960s as “The Southeast’s First Atomic Power Plant.” Westinghouse provided the 65-MWt pressurized (tube type) heavy water cooled and moderated reactor; Stone and Webster acted as architect-engineer. The plant (like Elk River, but unlike Piqua) required external superheating; of the rated electrical 17 MWe, 1.7 MWe was contributed by the superheater. The reactor and superheater provided steam at 415 psia and 725 ºF to the old powerhouse near by.

Carolinas-Virginia Nuclear Power Associates owned this plant; this organization was comprised of Duke Power Company, Carolina Power & Light Company, South Carolina Electric & Gas Company, and Virginia Electric and Power Company (the latter often referred to as VEPCO).

Below, a spectacular original pencil rendering of the CVTR plant facility, including the powerhouse and environs, from my collection. The drawing’s labeling is clear when blown up; it is signed “E.E. Grant 1960.” (Click to enlarge.)

The CVTR started up in 1962, and like the other plants we’ve shown so far, had a very short operating life (five years,) shutting down for good in 1967. The reactor was in SAFSTOR condition for many years, but in much more recent times has completely been decommissioned and removed, and today there is very little sign that the plant was ever there. Of course, the site of the former Parr generating station and the adjacent CVTR installation is quite near the Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station, which today is seeing construction of two Westinghouse AP1000 plants—so that the area of “The Southeast’s First Atomic Power Plant” is again at the cutting edge of nuclear energy’s advance.

Saxton (Pennsylvania)

A fourth early reactor actually is one that contributed the least to commercial power generation of those we’re visiting here, and is also that which is most commonly found in the literature to have the appellation “hook on”.

The Saxton Generating Station was selected to host construction of a nuclear reactor whose primary purpose was developmental testing of fuels, and which was to be officially known as the Saxton Experimental Nuclear Reactor. Owner of the reactor was Saxton Nuclear Experimental Corporation, a non-profit entity formed by Pennsylvania Electric Company, Metropolitan Edison Company, New Jersey Power and Light Company, and Jersey Central Power and Light Company—all of which were subsidiary companies of GPU or the General Public Utilities System. The diminutive pressurized water reactor, rated originally 20 MWt, had only a single loop (and thus one coolant pump and one steam generator) and provided steam to the center of Saxton Generating Station’s three turbine generators. While the containment was clearly visible beside the coal-fired plant, for safety reasons (considering the surrounding community) the reactor vessel was actually located some 15 feet below grade.

According to the February 1959 Atomic Industrial Forum “Forum Memo” magazine, in which the contract for the reactor was revealed, GPU had actually announced that it was considering a “hook on” at Saxton back in 1957 after terminating an investigation into building a pressurized water reactor in the Philippines (another GPU subsidiary was Manila Electric Company.) At that time, the rating of the Saxton plant was given as a very modest 5000 ekw (which we would now write as 5 MWe), although in point of fact later testing was planned at far above the original rated figures; the turbine to which the reactor piped steam was actually rated nominally at 13 MWe, allowing considerable room for uprating for temporary testing.

In the March 1959 issue of the Forum Memo, Elmer L. Lindseth, president of Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company and chairman of the Edison Electric Institute’s Committee on Atomic Power, was quoted as saying that Westinghouse would build the Saxton reactor plant at a fixed price of $6.25 million. GPU would under the same agreement provide the site, use of the No. 2 turbine, and bear operating and maintenance costs—all of which figured to roughly $2 million. Westinghouse also had exclusive fuel production rights for five years.

With Gilbert Associates serving as architect-engineer, construction of this unique “hook on” began in February 1960 (with AEC Construction Permit CPPR-6.) A provisional operating license was issued in November 1961, and the reactor fueled in early April 1962, with criticality achieved at 1:40 AM on April 13, 1962. (Below, a view of the Saxton Experimental Nuclear Reactor next to the Saxton Generating Station.)

As has been mentioned, this plant was not entirely intended as a commercial power reactor; rather, its focus was the development of technology for further, future reactors. Quoting GPU in a Saxton advertising brochure of the day, “Investor owned utilities, dedicated to serving consumers in all walks of life, have invested $8,500,000 of private funds in the nation’s newest operational nuclear reactor so that ‘unknowns’ can be converted into ‘knowns’ and personnel can acquire valuable operating experience for use in designing and manning larger reactors in the future.”

Among other concepts, Saxton experimented with chemical control of reactivity (“chemical shim,” or use of boron in the primary coolant to control reactivity instead of just control rods) and also conducted extended operations with plutonium fuel (MOX or “Mixed OXide” fuel, containing both natural uranium dioxide and plutonium dioxide) beginning in the mid-late 1960s.

As a result of the nature of the program, it appears in retrospect that the plant spent as much of its life operating as not. From the 1964 AEC Report to Congress: “The Saxton Nuclear Experimental Corp.’s pressurized light water reactor near Altoona, Pa., was returned to power operation on January 30, after having been shut down since the previous November for modifications. The reactor, while producing small amounts of electric power, is primarily used for experiments to determine ways in which more heat energy can be obtained from specified amounts of fuel.” It would thus in hindsight be appropriate to consider that the waste heat from the Saxton reactor was not entirely wasted, if we simply view it as a byproduct of advanced fuels testing, by way of connecting the plant to the Saxton Generating Station.

Saxton was finally shut down in May 1972, and after a prolonged period of decommissioning, there is nothing visible at the site to hint that a power station of any sort once existed there. The entire power plant and reactor facility has been removed down to several feet below grade, and the area has been backfilled.

In closing, it’s interesting to consider the notion that today’s concept of placing lower output, transportable nuclear reactors at a now-expanded range of possible locations actually had a roughly correlative precedent early in the construction of nuclear power stations in this country. In the siting of plants nearer to populated areas, and in the use of small plants on grids that could not handle extremely large single generating sources, the early experience was perhaps a herald of things to come, even if it did take another roughly half century and the development of truly integrated, truck transportable, and inherently safe SMRs in order to realize the dream held up for these early small plants. The wide design disparity and newness of the technology associated with these early plants seemed to hint at troubles, which surely were encountered, but today nuclear technology is a half century further down the road so that the question of operability is quite far removed from consideration. As it turns out, everything old is new again—but today, with far better promise of success.

(All illustrations – Will Davis collection. Please do not reproduce without permission.)

(“Atomic Industrial Forum” was a trade group formed in 1953; it is a lineal predecessor of today’s Nuclear Energy Institute.)

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Will Davis is a consultant to, and writer for, the American Nuclear Society. In addition to this, he is a contributing author for Fuel Cycle Week, and also writes his own blog Atomic Power Review. Davis is a former US Navy Reactor Operator, qualified on S8G and S5W plants.

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Posted in News, Nuclear Energy Narrative, Nuclear History, Nuclear pioneers, Small modular reactors

Tagged nuclear history, Will Davis

Update and Perspective on Small Modular Reactor Development

Posted on March 21, 2013 by pbowersox| 14 Comments

By Jim Hopf

The US Department of Energy has a $452 million program to share development and licensing costs for selected small modular reactor (SMR) designs. The DOE’s goal is to have an operating SMR by ~2022. Last November, the DOE awarded the first grant to the B&W mPower^TM reactor. In more recent news, the DOE has decided to issue a follow-on solicitation to enter a similar cost-sharing agreement with one or more other SMR vendors (and their SMR designs). The status of development and licensing for several SMR designs are summarized below.

mPower (B&W)

B&W mPower SMR

The mPower reactor is a 180-MW pressurized water reactor. B&W was awarded the first cost-sharing agreement under the DOE’s SMR development program in November 2012. B&W has teamed up with Bechtel and the Tennessee Valley Authority to design, license, and build a set of 2-6 mPower modules at TVA’s Clinch River site. B&W plans to submit its design certification application (DCA) to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of this year.

NuScale

The NuScale reactor is an even smaller, 45-MW PWR reactor module. NuScale Power will apply for the follow-on (second round) DOE program cost-sharing award that was just announced. It has partnered with Fluor to develop and build the SMR, and is considering building its first SMR modules at the DOE Savannah River Site (SRS). It expects to submit its DCA to the NRC some time in 2015.

Holtec

Holtec International, which is developing a 160-MW (light water) SMR, may also apply for the second DOE grant, and is also interested in constructing its SMR at the SRS site.

Westinghouse

Westinghouse is developing a 225-MW PWR that shares many design features of its larger AP1000 plant. It is partnering with Burns & McDonnell, Electric Boat, and the Ameren utility to design, license, and build its first SMR plant at Ameren’s existing Callaway plant site in Missouri. It is expected to also apply for the second round of cost-sharing grants under the DOE’s SMR program. Westinghouse is expected to submit its DCA to the NRC in 2014.

Non-LWR SMRs

The most advanced non-light water SMR project is the Gen4 Energy’s lead-bismuth-cooled 25-MW reactor module (formerly Hyperion). Given the DOE’s focus on near-term SMR deployment, however, and the NRC’s indication that licensing a non-LWR will take a much longer amount of time, it is unclear whether non-light water SMRs have much prospect for winning a cost-sharing award under the DOE’s current SMR development program. Gen4 Energy withdrew its application for the initial round of DOE grants and it is not clear if it will apply for the second round.

Key desirable SMR features

My personal view is that SMRs should (ideally) have the following three features, entirely or to the extent possible:

The entire nuclear steam supply system (NSSS) can be factory built and rail-shipped to site.

The reactor can go indefinitely without offsite power or forced (pumped) cooling.

No on-site construction subject to NQA-1 requirements.

In a recent ANS post, I discussed issues such as the basemat rebar (and other) problems at Vogtle, as an example of the problems that are likely to occur when there are a large number of construction activities that are subject to NQA-1 and NRC oversight being performed on site, often by local suppliers or craft labor that do not have extensive experience with nuclear-related construction. Processes are much more controlled in a factory setting, where one is simply making a large number of copies of the exact same product (reactor design). Also, the factory would have dedicated staff that is highly experienced in making copies of that one product, and is very experienced with the applicable nuclear-grade fabrication and quality assurance requirements (e.g., NQA-1). The result is much higher levels of quality and consistency, with much less in the way of cost overruns or schedule delays.

For these reasons, it is imperative to have as much of the safety/nuclear-related construction as possible be done at the factory, and to minimize assembly and construction activities at the plant site. Thus, it is very preferable to have the entire NSSS (reactor and steam supply system, e.g., steam generators) sealed inside a container that can be shipped by rail to the plant site, without any at-site assembly required. Ideally, all components necessary for safety would be inside the “box” that arrives on the rail car, resulting in only non-nuclear grade construction activities at the site.

In that recent ANS post, I suggested that due to spiraling nuclear plant construction costs, a bottoms-up review is in order, in which all regulations and requirements are put on the table and objectively evaluated (using detailed probabilistic risk analyses, etc.) in terms of how much “bang for the buck” we’re getting in terms of overall safety. I made the suggestion (provocative to many, I’m sure) that NQA-1, i.e., a unique and extremely strict set of fabrication/QA requirements that only applies to the nuclear industry, most likely does not produce much safety benefit relative to its associated cost. I suggested that more typical QA standards and procedures that are used in most other large construction projects (bridges, dams, etc.) be used instead.

Well, with SMRs a “compromise” may be possible. Based on recent experience with Areva’s EPR (at Olkiluoko) and now at Vogtle, I had come to doubt that it was possible or practical to comply with those NRC and NQA-1 requirements, with on-site plant construction anyway. It seemed to be too difficult to comply with such strict requirements under field conditions, especially given the use of local labor and suppliers that do not have extensive experience with those requirements. The factory assembly line setting, however, is one setting where I can imagine it being practical to comply with strict NRC/NQA-1 requirements (with highly experienced staff, a controlled process, and NRC inspectors permanently present at the factory site).

Thus, with SMRs, almost all important-to-safety fabrication is performed at the factory site, and it could still be held to NQA-1 standards. Onsite activities at the nuclear plant that are subject to NQA-1 requirements can be greatly reduced or perhaps (as part of a “compromise”) eliminated. In my view, not having onsite construction activities be subject to (nuclear-unique) NQA-1 requirements, and instead letting the local construction entities use more typical QA requirements that they are familiar with, would greatly reduce costs and the risks of schedule delays, rework, and cost overruns. On the other hand, having NQA-1 standards apply at the reactor module factory would deliver virtually all of NQA-1’s safety benefit, without significantly increasing costs.

Finally, it would be highly desirable for the plant to have the attribute of always remaining sufficiently cool to avoid meltdown for an indefinite period without any outside power or active cooling (pumps, etc.). Post-Fukushima, such a feature may greatly increase political and public support for the reactor design. Also, such a feature would greatly reduce the plausible conditions under which meltdown and release could possibly occur. This, in turn, could greatly reduce the number of components or systems that must be classified as “safety related”, which would result in significant cost reductions (as well as reductions in actual accident/release probability).

Features of SMR candidates

The main SMR candidates that meet the goals listed above are as follows, based on their publicly presented information:

The mPower and NuScale vendors state that their entire NSSS will be fabricated at the factory and shipped (whole) to the plant site. Westinghouse is less clear, referring to “rail shippable scale” (which could refer to the entire NSSS, or a small number of NSSS component modules, which would require a limited amount of on-site assembly).

Hauling the NuScale reactor

NuScale very clearly states that its SMR is entirely passively cooled, and can go indefinitely without outside power and active (pumped) cooling. B&W (mPower) is less clear on this point, stating that no AC power is required for design basis safety functions, that they have three-day batteries to support DC-powered accident mitigation, and that the station can go up to 14 days (under loss of power conditions) without outside intervention. Gen4 Energy also states that its (lead-bismuth) reactor can go 14 days without power. I could not find a statement from Westinghouse concerning how long its SMR can go without any external power. Westinghouse does make reference to the operator having to add water (to a large tank) after seven days.

As expected, none of the SMR vendors discuss fabrication QA requirements for at-plant-site construction and components, or how many such components would be classified as safety related. Some have, however, performed some PRA analyses and do discuss the very low probability of core damage and significant release for their reactors. B&W (mPower) and NuScale state that their core damage frequencies (CDFs) are 10^-8 and 10^-7 per reactor year, respectively. By comparison, currently operating plants generally have CDFs of ~10^-4 per reactor year and more recent large plants (e.g., AP1000) have CDFs under 10^-6.

Cost and safety tradeoffs

Due to their smaller size and lower power densities, SMRs offer inherent safety advantages, largely because smaller reactors are easier to keep cool. As shown above, their chances of core damage are far lower than those of large reactors. In addition to a lower probability of core damage, their much smaller fuel inventory greatly reduces the maximum possible release. In fact, since these reactors probably can’t get nearly as hot, even in a core damage scenario, I’m guessing that their maximum core inventory release fractions (e.g., for cesium) under even worst-case meltdown conditions are also significantly smaller than those that apply for larger reactors. Thus, the maximum possible release is probably even less than the ratio of reactor powers (MW) would imply.

In order to get these advantages (along with the advantages of assembly line construction), they have to give up on economy of scale and power density, which will tend to increase costs. Some SMR vendors claim that groups of their modules will produce less expensive power than large reactors (e.g., the AP1000), but this remains to be seen. It is also unclear whether these modular reactors will be less expensive than fossil fuels (particularly gas). As I’ve often stated, these reactors cannot provide any health, environmental, or global warming benefits if they are not deployed. Thus, some actions may need to be taken to reduce costs.

This leads me to ask what SMRs will “get in return” for what they are giving up in terms of scale, power density, and increased fundamental safety. We may have to ask if there are any measures that could be taken that would reduce costs but result in a release probability that is closer to that of, say, the AP1000, as opposed to being orders of magnitude lower. In these evaluations, the much lower potential release from these reactors should also be fully considered. I believe that thorough evaluations of all potential cost-saving measures, supported by detailed PRA evaluations, should be performed.

One idea I discussed earlier is to use ordinary construction QA requirements for all on-site construction activities (i.e., for everything outside the NSSS that arrives by rail car). Given the much lower likelihood of core damage/release, the much smaller potential releases, and the fact that components outside the NSSS have a relatively small impact on overall safety (especially for these reactors), such an approach would be justified. In evaluating such an approach, we need to make reasonable determinations of both the probability and possible nature of failures of non-nuclear-qualified components. For example, the NuScale reactors lay in a large pool of water inside a concrete-walled underground pit. We have to ask ourselves: Is there any way the concrete could fail that would result in the water disappearing (especially given that the pool is underground)?

Other issues are operator and security staffing levels. The simplicity and inherently better safety of these designs should reduce the number of required operators and staff (and some SMR vendors are claiming just that). Security costs could be greatly reduced (in my view) if SMRs are placed on existing sites where large reactors already exist. Little extra security should be required, since the site is already protected.

Also, as discussed in my earlier post, licensing review should be fairly limited if one is placing a certified SMR design on a site that already has reactors. Almost like spent fuel dry storage casks, a simple review of the existing site evaluations, to verify that external parameters such as maximum ground accelerations and other environmental factors are bounded by the SMR’s generic safety evaluations, should be sufficient. An evaluation of some bounding number of reactor modules would then be done to address any impacts of the reactors on the site (e.g., a site boundary dose evaluation). After that is done, modules could be added without further licensing activity.

The NRC’s general philosophies, however, as well as some of its recent actions, leads me to believe that any kind of compromise may be too much to expect. In response to Fukushima, the NRC is increasing nuclear regulations even further. While we all agree that some specific improvements can and should be made as a result of lessons learned from Fukushima, there has been absolutely no discussion at all about whether any requirements should be pared back. This, despite the fact that Fukushima showed that the consequences of a severe (almost worst-case) meltdown are FAR smaller than what we had thought (and far smaller than the assumed accident consequences that many if not most of those requirements were based upon). For this reason, I’m inclined to believe that the NRC will take all the benefits of SMRs (i.e., the great reduction in release probability due to fundamental features) and give absolutely nothing back. That, despite the fact that some economic sacrifices (on economy of scale) had to be made in order to get those fundamental increases in safety.

If SMRs are to be viable, and provide safety, health, environmental, and global warming benefits, the NRC is going to have to make some compromises. If they do, SMRs may be able to provide an option that is not only economically competitive (allowing it to displace harmful fossil fuels), but is also far safer than current US nuclear plants, and as safe or safer than new large plants such as the AP1000.

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Hopf

Jim Hopf is a senior nuclear engineer with more than 20 years of experience in shielding and criticality analysis and design for spent fuel dry storage and transportation systems. He has been involved in nuclear advocacy for 10+ years, and is a member of the ANS Public Information Committee. He is a regular contributor to the ANS Nuclear Cafe.

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Posted in DC Perspective, Department of Energy, nuclear technology, reactor designs, Small modular reactors

Tagged Gen4 Energy, Hyperion, Jim Hopf, mPower, NuScale, smr, Westinghouse

Talking about nuclear energy at Hunt’s barbershop

Posted on March 5, 2013 by radams| 2 Comments

By Rod Adams

There are many benefits to living in Lynchburg, Virginia. Not only is it a scenically beautiful place with a diverse and growing economy that has continued its steady progress, even during the Great Recession, but it is also a place full of people who appreciate the value of nuclear energy technology.

Last week, I had the opportunity to evangelize about the importance of nuclear energy in a situation that might seem a little unusual for most places that are not Lynchburg. When I arrived at Hunt’s Barbershop, Glenda was busy with another customer, but she was also engaged in a conversation with that customer’s wife.

The waiting wife was a pleasant lady with an pronounced regional accent. She and Glenda were talking about grandchildren; there was an opening in the conversation for me to join in to mention my own granddaughter and the fact that we were looking forward to traveling with her across the country.

The lady waiting for her husband started talking about how much she and her husband enjoyed traveling, and asked me about my own journeys. We had a quick chat about how my wife and I had moved around the country during my naval career, and how I ended up in Lynchburg working for B&W mPower, Inc. She mentioned that she had once visited “The Plant,” and had been fascinated to learn about the fuel manufactured at the facility and how concentrated it was.

It turned out that this grandmotherly type had been an accountant, and active in local civic organizations before she and her husband retired. After retirement, she and her husband continued their habit of taking numerous cross country trips. We started talking about a number of energy-related topics; she was particularly interested in “backyard windmills.” She had heard people talking about how they could install a windmill and sell power back to the power company.

She said that she wasn’t sure how that would work because she and her husband had seen large wind installations on their travels. They had stopped a couple of times and had stood underneath the towers to see just how tall they were and how massive the blades were. She described how she and her husband had often wondered if those systems were doing much good; they had noticed that many of the blades were not even turning as they drove by.

That gave me a terrific opening to talk about how nuclear plants work reliably nearly all of the time, no matter what the sun and wind are doing. We talked a little bit about the nuclear Navy, and how I had been able to live for months at a time underwater. She was fascinated to learn how the ship had been able to run for 14 years on a tiny amount of fuel that would have fit in the space between us in the barbershop.

The timing of the conversation was fortuitous; earlier that day I had just been provided the link to a short video designed to illustrate, in a three dimensional, active way, the difference in the environmental footprint of a nuclear plant when compared to a wind farm. I had my phone with me, so I showed the below video to the woman as we talked more about what those wind turbines were doing and what they were contributing to the reliability of the electricity grid that supplies the country that she loved to visit.

The conversation lasted the length of a haircut, but it was a great opportunity to share my enthusiasm for nuclear energy with a curious member of a demographic group that is not always supportive of our technology. Engaging in such one-on-one conversations can be a great way to spread the word about the value of nuclear technology; I would not be surprised if that encounter encourages additional research and discussions.

Later in the same week, I enjoyed sharing a video produced by the Weather Channel titled A Mini Nuclear Power Plant around the office. As you might imagine, there were some happy, proud faces as my colleagues received visible evidence that their hard work was getting noticed. At least two of the people in my group make cameo appearances in the short clip.

There are times when it is tough to be an active nuclear professional. The days are long, the work can be frustratingly burdened by regulations and self-imposed work rules that seem almost purposely designed to impede progress, and people who are opposed to the technology are often loud enough to dominate the conversation. It is enough to make one feel completely unappreciated.

However, the reality is that plenty of people are interested in what we are doing. They are cheering for us to succeed and to make the world a cleaner, safer, more prosperous place. They want us to figure out how to stop the proliferation of wind turbines in pristine landscapes, how to slow the continuous build up of CO2 in the atmosphere—with its uncertain effects on the climate—and they want us to develop world leading technology that will help create good jobs here in the United States.

In Lynchburg, at least, we are making some progress on all of those fronts, but that does not mean it is time to rest. As was described here just last week, there are still plenty of people that are targeting our technology and telling the world that investing any resources into its development is a waste of money. It is up to us to prove them wrong.

Disclosure: Rod Adams is employed by B&W mPower, Inc., but his thoughts are his own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of his employer.

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Adams

Rod Adams is a nuclear advocate with extensive small nuclear plant operating experience. Adams is a former engineer officer, USS Von Steuben. He is the host and producer of The Atomic Show Podcast. Adams has been an ANS member since 2005. He writes about nuclear technology at his own blog, Atomic Insights.

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Posted in Economic benefits of nuclear, Environmental Benefits of Nuclear, Renewable Energy, Small modular reactors

On federal investment in Small Modular Reactor technology

Posted on March 1, 2013 by pbowersox| 15 Comments

Taxpayers for Common Sense on February 27 issued a press release targeting the Department of Energy for “wasting more than half a billion dollars” on its small modular reactor (SMR) development cost-sharing program. Leaving aside the historically essential role of government investment in developing, advancing, and bringing to market innovative energy technologies—and the fact that early government investments in nuclear energy technology now pay back enormous dividends to all Americans in billions of dollars’ worth of affordable and emission-free electricity generation every year—many of the advantages of advanced SMR energy technologies were overlooked or misconstrued in the group’s press release and policy brief.

The press has virtually ignored the announcement, possibly because an advanced technology development cost-sharing program of $452 million, spread over five years, may not make for a big target in a multi-trillion-dollar annual federal budget. But it does present an opportunity to quickly point out a few important facts about SMR technology.

As a general statement, at this juncture in world history, it is almost impossible to overstate the critical importance of developing clean, versatile, energy-dense, and low-carbon-emission energy technologies for our future. SMRs show great promise to help achieve this vitally important goal.

B&W mPower SMR

In contrast to large nuclear reactors, which have enormous components that are shipped to and assembled at the site where they will operate, SMRs will be assembled in a factory, somewhat like a modular home. SMRs will use manufacturing capability currently entirely available in the United States. Construction time for SMRs will be greatly reduced compared to current larger-scale reactors. Upfront capital costs and debt loads sometimes prevent deployment of larger nuclear reactors, and the reduced cost and speedier construction time of individual SMR units will help lower this barrier to emission-free energy. SMRs will also offer great versatility for industrial applications. For example, SMRs are ideal for producing fresh water by desalination in many growing regions of the world. SMR designs offer advanced safety and proliferation-resistance features as well.

These factors will allow low-carbon energy technology in new locations and markets, and locations where alternative forms of energy are not available or attractive (e.g., natural gas price and availability vary widely in the United States and especially abroad). SMR technology also promises to build on U.S. global leadership in nuclear technology to allow new U.S. manufacturing exports to markets abroad.

SMR technologies will require significant review and approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission before they can be built. The American Nuclear Society has taken a leadership role in addressing licensing issues for SMRs, and will continue to do so.

ANS recommends the U.S. government continue to expedite research on issues that must be addressed prior to commercial deployment of SMRs; identify and resolve SMR licensing issues; encourage the development and deployment of multiple SMR designs; and participate in programs that demonstrate the feasibility of multiple SMR designs and approaches to reduce the time to market. Note that much of the funding in the DOE’s SMR program is actually for helping to establish reliable licensing and inspection of the technology.

Finally, a quick historical observation is in order (thanks to Rod Adams’ excellent coverage of the Taxpayers for Common Sense SMR press conference). In historical context, government investments in natural gas and oil hydraulic fracturing research, as early as the 1970s and continuing in subsequent decades, share similarities to federal investment in SMR technology today. The oil and gas industry was already “mature” in the 1970s, yet federal research investment in new technology in the field now brings a very good return for taxpayers in terms of more abundant, cleaner, and less expensive natural gas energy (although certainly not clean by nuclear standards, it must be noted).

For more complete information, see American Nuclear Society Position Statement Small Modular Reactors and press release ANS supports the development of advanced energy technologies.

Babcock & Wilcox Refutes Mischaracterization of SMR Program

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Posted in Department of Energy, nuclear technology, Small modular reactors

Responding to System Demand

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Will Davis| 9 Comments

by Will Davis

Significant discussions have occurred recently on various internet venues about “load following”—that is, the capability of a generating source to adjust its power output to match variable demands. There is a myth spreading that nuclear power plants cannot load follow, and today’s ever-changing discussion about low-GHG generating sources demands that this myth be dispelled.

One might immediately ask this question: “Haven’t we been saying that nuclear plants are best for base load power generation?” That’s a valid question. Baseload generation can be thought of as that degree of electric demand below which you never go. When compared to other generating sources, nuclear power plants have a relatively high construction cost—but a relatively low operating cost—and thus are often referred to as baseload generating assets. Nuclear power plants make steady power and steady income for the utility at a low and controlled fuel cost that isn’t subject to rapid market fluctuations or interruptions in supply—and they do this all day and night.

However, today’s energy world is evolving. We now have under consideration small modular reactor (SMR) nuclear plants that may be ’off the grid’ and required to supply variable loads at all times instead of baseload power as part of a larger distribution network. Further, as high-GHG generating assets are retired, nuclear will become a larger percentage of the generating mix (all else held constant) and load following becomes part of the energy mix discussion.

From a utility perspective, operating today’s large commercial nuclear power plants at reduced load isn’t economically sensible, since the same staff is paid the same money whether the plant is at 30-percent power or at 100 percent. Of course, the overall impact is much larger than just what you’re paying the staff, considering all the other operating expenses—that’s just a simple example. Since renewable energy sources—which have a highly intermittent output—are now being seriously discussed, the capability of nuclear energy facilities to integrate with renewable sources, which would require load following, is important to address.

The Shippingport Atomic Power Station (seen in the lower part of this photo as a longish, red, left-to-right building in front of the much larger Beaver Valley nuclear station built years later) was the first large-scale commercial nuclear plant in the United States. Shippingport was designed not only for load following but for remote load dispatching while operating in its normal power range (the plant was originally rated 265 MWt/60 Mwe, and ‘normal’ power was considered anything over 20 MWt). The plant was designed to accommodate the following thermal power changes while in automatic control mode: 1. +15 MW or -12 MW at a step change rate. 2. ±15 Mw at a rate of 3 Mw/sec. 3. ±20 Mw at a rate of 0.417 MW/sec.

While today we don’t allow remote dispatching to control the power level of reactors, it’s important to know that they can accommodate power changes as well. Let’s take a look at some other nuclear plant design data for plants presently in service in terms of allowed power change rates, and then we’ll compare that to published data about today’s new-build AP1000 nuclear plant.

Westinghouse Pressurized Water Reactor: This design of nuclear plant was advertised in the 1980s as being “able to follow repetitive load changes automatically throughout the range of 15 percent to 100 percent of rated power consistent with the cyclic nature of the utility system load demand.” The Westinghouse PWR was designed at that time to accommodate step changes of 10 percent rated power and ramp changes at 5 percent per minute. Further, the plant was designed to operate, if required, on the 12-3-6-3 daily load cycle; 12 hours at 100 percent power, then three hours to reduce power followed by six hours at 50 percent power, then another three hours to ramp back up to full power. Finally, the plants were designed to accept up to a 50 percent rated power load rejection without reactor trip and full load rejection with reactor trip but optionally could be equipped with extra steam dump capacity in order to accept full load rejection with no reactor trip. The plants adjust both primary coolant boron concentration and control rod position as required to follow load.

Combustion Engineering PWR: Data are at hand for early generation C-E plants like that at Palisades; design criteria for this plant included the ability to accept step changes of 10 percent rated power, or ramp changes at 5 percent per minute.

Babcock & Wilcox PWR: B&W large commercial plants were advertised as able to accommodate transients of 10 percent step changes, or ramp changes of 10 percent per minute between 20 percent and 90 percent rated power; above 90 percent rated power, the ramp change permissible was 5 percent per minute. Load reduction rates were the same without steam dump; with steam dump, load reductions of 40 percent in a step could be handled. According to B&W literature, “The turbine bypass system and safety valves permit a 100% load drop without turbine trip or reactor trip.”

GE Boiling Water Reactor: Data on hand for the late-generation BWR/6 shows that the design originally accommodated up to a 25 percent change in rated power automatically by recirculation flow control change, with no control rod motion, “thus providing automatic load following capability for the BWR.”

As we can see, these plants are responsive in varied degrees to changing system loads—and system loads don’t generally swing wildly unless there are storms in the area. What about new build nuclear plants?

Westinghouse advertises their AP1000 as having the following characteristics pertaining to variable system load: “The plant is designed to accept a step-load increase or decrease of 10 percent between 25 and 100 percent power without reactor trip or steam-dump system actuation, provided that the rated power level is not exceeded. Further, the AP1000 is designed to accept a 100 percent load rejection from full power to house loads without a reactor trip or operation of the pressurizer or steam generator safety valves.”

The Westinghouse SMR site offers a thorough description of that reactor design’s load following scheme which is also applied, according to the site, to the much larger AP1000 just described. Click here for details.

The competitive Generation mPower SMR is also designed for load following. In an interview on Atomic Power Review about the mPower SMR, Generation mPower LLC’s Matt Miles said of the mPower: “Traditionally, nuclear power plants have been used for base load generation. Our plants are designed for more segmented or off grid applications and are capable of load following to accommodate this type of deployment.”

As we can see, light water cooled and moderated nuclear power plants, whether of PWR or BWR type, and whether large commercial plants or SMR designs, are capable of adjusting power output to match variable system demand. Many years’ worth of operation on many various demand schedules have proven out the technology. While today, for many considerations, large commercial plants aren’t used as load followers, there is nothing inherent in the technology that precludes them from doing so; further, it is expected that SMR plants will normally behave as load followers. I hope this article clears up the spreading misconception about light water cooled and moderated reactor plants, in order to help level the discussion about applicability of technologies to a new age in which renewables will play a larger role on the grid.

(Sources consulted for this article include “Shippingport Pressurized Water Reactor, US AEC / Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1958; advertising material from Combustion Engineering, Inc. and Consumers Power for Palisades Nuclear Power Station; “The Westinghouse Pressurized Water Reactor Plant,” Westinghouse Electric Corporation, 1984; “Steam / Its Generation and Use,” 38th ed. Babcock & Wilcox 1975; “General Description of a Boiling Water Reactor (BWR/6)” General Electric 1978; Westinghouse AP1000 advertising materials, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power advertising materials.)

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Will Davis is a consultant to, and writer for, the American Nuclear Society. In addition to this, Davis is on the Board of Directors of PopAtomic Studios, is a contributing author for Fuel Cycle Week, and also writes his own blog Atomic Power Review. Davis is a former US Navy Reactor Operator, qualified on S8G and S5W plants.

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Posted in Electricity generating capacity, reactor designs, Small modular reactors

Tagged base load, load following

2012 ~ The year that was in nuclear energy

Posted on December 6, 2012 by dyurman| 5 Comments

Plus a few pointers to what’s in store for 2013

By Dan Yurman

Former NRC Chairman Gregory Jackzo

On a global scale the nuclear industry had its share of pluses and minuses in 2012. Japan’s Fukushima crisis continues to dominate any list of the top ten nuclear energy issues for the year. (See more below on Japan’s mighty mission at Fukushima.)

In the United States, while the first new nuclear reactor licenses in three decades were issued to four reactors, the regulatory agency that approved them had a management meltdown that resulted in the noisy departure of Gregory Jazcko, its presidentially appointed chairman. His erratic tenure at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission cast doubt on its effectiveness and tarnished its reputation as one of the best places to work in the federal government.

Iran continues its uranium enrichment efforts

The year also started with another bang, and not the good kind, as new attacks on nuclear scientists in Iran brought death by car bombs. In July, western powers enacted new sanctions on Iran over its uranium enrichment program. Since 2011, economic sanctions have reduced Iran’s oil exports by 40 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

In late November, the U.S. Senate approved a measure expanding the economic sanctions that have reduced Iran’s export earnings from oil production. Despite the renewed effort to convince Iran to stop its uranium enrichment effort, the country is pressing ahead with it. Talks between Iran and the United States and western European nations have not made any progress.

Nukes on Mars

NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover is a scientific and engineering triumph.

Peaceful uses of the atom were highlighted by NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover, which executed a flawless landing on the red planet in August with a nuclear heartbeat to power its science mission. Data sent to Earth from its travels across the red planet will help determine whether or not Mars ever had conditions that would support life.

SMRs are us

The U.S. government dangled an opportunity for funding of innovative small modular reactors, e.g., with electrical power ratings of less than 300 MW. Despite vigorous competition, only one vendor, B&W, was successful in grabbing a brass ring worth up to $452 million over five years.

The firm immediately demonstrated the economic value of the government cost-sharing partnership by placing an order for long lead time components. Lehigh Heavy Forge and B&W plan to jointly participate in the fabrication and qualification of large forgings for nuclear reactor components that are intended to be used in the manufacture of B&W mPower SMRs.

Lehigh Forge at work

The Department of Energy said that it might offer a second round funding challenge, but given the federal government’s overall dire financial condition, the agency may have problems even meeting its commitments in the first round.

As of December 1, negotiations between the White House and Congress over the so-called “fiscal cliff” were deadlocked. Congress created this mess, so one would expect that they could fix it.

The Congressional Budget Office has warned that if Congress doesn’t avert the fiscal cliff, the economy might slip into recession next year and boost the unemployment rate to 9.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013, compared with 7.9 percent now. Even record low natural gas prices and a boom in oil production won’t make much of a difference if there is no agreement by January 1, 2013.

Japan’s mighty mission at Fukushima

Japan’s major challenges are unprecedented for a democratically elected government. It must decontaminate and decommission the Fukushima site, home to six nuclear reactors, four of which suffered catastrophic internal and external damage from a giant tsunami and record shattering earthquake. The technical challenges of cleanup are daunting and the price tag, already in the range of tens of billions of dollars, keeps rising with a completion date now at least several decades in the future.

Map of radiation releases from Fukushima reported in April 2011

Japan is mobilizing a new nuclear regulatory agency that has the responsibility to say whether the rest of Japan’s nuclear fleet can be restarted safely. While the government appointed highly regarded technical specialists to lead the effort, about 400 staff came over from the old Nuclear Industry Safety Agency that was found to be deficient as a deeply compromised oversight body. The new agency will struggle to prove itself an independent and effective regulator of nuclear safety.
Japan has restarted two reactors and approved continued construction work at several more that are partially complete. Local politics will weigh heavily on the outlook for each power station with the “pro” forces emphasizing jobs and tax base and the anti-nuclear factions encouraged by widespread public distrust of the government and of the nation’s nuclear utilities.
Despite calls for a phase out of all nuclear reactors in Japan, the country will continue to generate electric power from them for at least the next 30–40 years.
Like the United States, Japan has no deep geologic site for spent fuel. Unlike the United States, Japan has been attempting to build and operate a spent fuel reprocessing facility. Plagued by technical missteps and rising costs, Japan may consider offers from the United Kingdom and France to reprocess its spent fuel and with such a program relieve itself of the plutonium in it.

U.S. nuclear renaissance stops at six

The pretty picture of a favorable future for the nuclear fuel cycle in 2007 turned to hard reality in 2012.

In 2007, the combined value of more than two dozen license applications for new nuclear reactors weighed in with an estimated value of over $120 billion. By 2012, just six reactors were under construction. Few will follow soon in their footsteps due to record low prices of natural gas and the hard effects of one of the nation’s deepest and longest economic recessions.

The NRC approved licenses for two new reactors at Southern’s Vogtle site in Georgia and two more at Scana’s V.C. Summer Station in South Carolina. Both utilities chose the Westinghouse AP1000 design and will benefit from lessons learned by the vendor that is building four of them in China. In late November, Southern’s contractors, which are building the plants, said that both of the reactors would enter revenue service a year late. For its part, Southern said that it hasn’t agreed to a new schedule.

The Tennessee Valley Authority recalibrated its efforts to complete Watts Bar II, adding a three-year delay and over $2 billion in cost escalation. TVA’s board told the utility’s executives that construction work to complete Unit 1 at the Bellefonte site cannot begin until fuel is loaded in Watts Bar.

The huge increase in the supply of natural gas, resulting in record low prices for it in the United States, led Exelon Chairman John Rowe to state that it would be “inconceivable” for a nuclear utility in a deregulated state to build new reactors.

Four reactors in dire straights

In January, Southern California Edison (SCE) safety shut down two 1100-MW reactors at its San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) due to excessive wear found in the nearly new steam generators at both reactors.

SCE submitted a restart plan to the NRC for Unit 2 in November. The review, according to the agency, could take months. SCE removed the fuel from Unit 3 last August, a signal that the restart of that reactor will be farther in the future owing to the greater extent of the damage to the tubes its steam generator.

The NRC said that a key cause of the damage to the tubes was a faulty computer program used by Mitsubishi, the steam generator vendor, in its design of the units. The rate of steam, pressure, and water content were key factors along with the design and placement of brackets to hold the tubes in place.

Flood waters surround Ft. Calhoun NPP June 2011

Elsewhere, in Nebraska the flood stricken Ft. Calhoun reactor owned and operated by the Omaha Public Power District (OPPD), postponed its restart to sometime in 2013.

It shut down in April 2011 for a scheduled fuel outage. Rising flood waters along the Missouri River in June damaged in the plant site though the reactor and switch yard remained dry.

The Ft. Calhoun plant must fulfill a long list of safety requirements before the NRC will let it power back up. To speed things along, OPPD hired Exelon to operate the plant. In February 2012, OPPD cancelled plans for a power uprate, also citing the multiple safety issues facing the plant.

In Florida, the newly merged Duke and Progress Energy firm wrestled with a big decision about what to do with the shutdown Crystal River reactor. Repairing the damaged containment structure could cost half again as much as an entirely new reactor. With license renewal coming up in 2016, Florida’s Public Counsel thinks that Duke will decommission the unit and replace it with a combined cycle natural gas plant. Separately, Duke Chairman Jim Rogers said that he will resign at the end of 2013.

China restarts nuclear construction

After a long reconsideration (following the Fukushima crisis) of its aggressive plans to build new nuclear reactors, China’s top level government officials agreed to allow new construction starts, but only with Gen III+ designs.

China has about two dozen Gen II reactors under construction. It will be 40–60 years before the older technology is off the grid. China also reduced its outlook for completed reactors from an estimate of 80 GWe by 2020 to about 55–60 GWe. Plans for a massive $26-billion nuclear energy IPO (initial public offering) still have not made it to the Shanghai Stock Exchange. No reason has been made public about the delay.

India advances at Kudanlulam

India loaded fuel at Kudankulam where two Russian built 1000-MW VVER reactors are ready for revenue service. The Indian government overcame widespread political protests in its southern state of Tamil Nadu. India’s Prime Minister Singh blamed the protests on international NGOs (non-governmental organizations).

One of the key factors that helped the government overcome the political opposition is that Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited told the provincial government that it could allocate half of all the electricity generated by the plants to local rate payers. Officials in Tamil Nadu will decide who gets power. India suffered two massive electrical blackouts in 2012, the second of which stranded over 600 million people without electricity for up to a week.

Also, India said that it would proceed with construction of two 1600-MW Areva EPRs at Jaitapur on its west coast south of Mumbai and launched efforts for construction of up to 20 GWe of domestic reactors.

India’s draconian supplier liability law continues to be an effective firewall in keeping American firms out of its nuclear market.

UK has new builder at Horizon

The United Kingdom suffered a setback in its nuclear new build as two German utilities backed out of the construction of up to 6 Gwe of new reactors at two sites. Japan’s Hitachi successfully bid to take over the project. A plan for a Chinese state-owned firm to bid on the Horizon project in collaboration with Areva never materialized.

Also in the UK, General Electric pursued an encouraging dialog with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to build two of its 300-MW PRISM fast reactors to burn off surplus plutonium stocks at Sellafield. The PRISM design benefits from the technical legacy of the Integral Fast Reactor developed at Argonne West in Idaho.

You can’t make this stuff up

In July, three anti-war activitists breached multiple high-tech security barriers at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Y-12 highly enriched uranium facility in Tennessee. The elderly trio, two men on the dark side of 55 and a woman in her 80s, were equipped with ordinary wire cutters and flashlights.

Y-12 Signs state the obvious

The intruders roamed the site undetected for several hours in the darkness of the early morning and spray painted political slogans on the side of one of the buildings. They were looking for new artistic venues when a lone security guard finally stopped their travels through the plant.

The government said that the unprecedented security breach was no laughing matter, firing the guards on duty at the time and the contractor they worked for. Several civil servants “retired.” The activists, if convicted, face serious jail time.

None of the HEU stored at the site was compromised, but subsequent investigations by the Department of Energy found a lack of security awareness, broken equipment, and an unsettling version of the “it can’t happen here” attitude by the guards that initially mistook the intruders for construction workers.

The protest effort brought publicity to the activists’ cause far beyond their wildest dreams and produced the predictable uproar in Congress. The DOE’s civilian fig leaf covering the nation’s nuclear weapons program was once again in tatters.

So long Chu

Given the incident at Y-12, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who came to government from the quiet life of scientific inquiry, must have asked himself once again why he ever accepted the job in Washington in the first place.

DOE Energy Secretary Steven Chu

Chu is expected to leave Washington. That he’s lasted this long is something of a miracle since the Obama White House tried to give him the heave ho this time last year after the Solyndra loan guarantee debacle, in which charges of political influence peddling by White House aides colored a half a billion dollar default on a DOE loan by a California solar energy company.

The predictable upswing in rumors of who might be appointed to replace him oozed into energy trade press and political saloons of the nation’s capital.

Leading candidates are former members of Congress, former governors, or just about anyone with the experience and political know how to take on the job of running one of the federal government’s biggest cabinet agencies. It’s a short list of people who really can do the job and a long list of wannabes. With shale gas and oil production on the rise, having a background in fossil fuels will likely help prospective candidates.

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Dan Yurman published the nuclear energy blog Idaho Samizdat from 2007–2012.

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Posted in China, Department of Energy, Fukushima, India, Iran uranium enrichment, licensing, News, nuclear opponents, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Radiation, Russia, San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, Small modular reactors, Tennessee Valley Authority, U.S. Congress

Tagged China, Dan Yurman, Fukushima, Iran, Mars space rover, new nuclear construction, nuclear energy, nuclear opponents, nuclear power

Clinch River Site will once again lead nuclear development

Posted on November 29, 2012 by Will Davis| 1 Comment

By Will Davis

(Above, Westinghouse artwork depicting the Clinch River Breeder Reactor plant as envisaged in November 1973.)

The Department of Energy announced recently that it would award the first of (potentially) two blocks of grant money for small modular reactor (SMR) development to Babcock & Wilcox, Bechtel Corporation, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. The funds would be used for construction of a new SMR–powered reactor plant at the former Clinch River Breeder Reactor (CRBR) site in Oak Ridge, Tennessee—a site that once shined as the future of nuclear energy in the United States.

Decades ago, the Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor (LMFBR) program, originally begun by the Atomic Energy Commission, turned into a real-world project in 1972 when the AEC signed the first Memorandum of Understanding with TVA, Project Management Corporation, Commonwealth Edison, and Breeder Reactor Corporation – to build what would become known as the CRBR plant. Work quickly advanced to include a number of reactor vendors (Westinghouse as lead reactor manufacturer, along with General Electric and Atomics International) and a giant consortium of 753 utility companies nationwide, as well as many other vendors and consultants. Project costs escalated, and in 1977 the Carter administration decided to terminate the licensing activity and attempted to kill the project. The CRBR project went on in semi-limbo for years, with much hardware being constructed. Finally, after a brief attempt in 1983 to find ways to increase outside funding for the project, it was cancelled—with over 70 percent of the equipment either delivered or ordered, site preparation work underway, licensing activity nearly completed, and environmental hearings completed (DOE-NE-0050, March 1983.)

When the breeder project was launched, the liquid metal–cooled breeder reactor seemed very much the path to the future for nuclear energy, in order to close the fuel cycle. Now, the SMR seems the path to the future, to provide industrial power and process steam, even for off-grid use. It’s supremely fitting that the Clinch River site—just green field now, but where the “old future” of nuclear energy died—will see the launch of the “new future.” In order to help close the historical circle, let’s take a look at some of the hardware actually constructed for the CRBR project—but never used. We’ve already seen the first exterior concept for the plant above; we’ll see the final one later on.

Above, the reactor vessel for the CRBR, pictured at Babcock & Wilcox’s facility in Mount Vernon, Indiana, as seen in a Westinghouse CRBR status report from 1981. The special J-shaped rig or mount was designed to both transport and help erect the vessel at the time of installation. Cost of this piece of equipment with core support structure was about $27.7 million. The core support was fabricated by Allis-Chalmers.

Above, flow diagram for the CRBR–sodium in the primary and intermediate loops (3 double loops total) with steam/water in the conventional manner in the final cycle. The odd-looking shape of the steam generators and superheaters in the diagram is no mistake, as we’re about to see.

Above, CRBR “evaporator” or steam generator delivered from Atomics International for testing. Both the primary loops and intermediate loops were to use very large electric pumps to move the liquid sodium, which we’ll see below.

Above, a primary loop sodium pump under test at the Byron Jackson Division of Borg-Warner Corporation, as seen in a Westinghouse update on the CRBR project from 1981 (the same photo is duplicated in the 1982 report).

The CRBR project had its own internal newsletter; above, the cover of the December 1978 “Clinch River Currents.” Below is the text from the cover:

“The CRBRP’s in and ex-containment primary sodium storage tanks are complete and will be shipped by barge to Oak Ridge when needed. The three tanks have been purged, sandblasted and painted and are now in storage at ITO Corporation of Ameriport, Camden, New Jersey.

These tanks for the CRBRP were built at the Joseph Oat Company, Camden, New Jersey, under a subcontract from Atomics International. The materials used were ASME SA-515 and SA-516 carbon steel plate, and SA-105 for the nozzle forgings. Single piece spun heads were used in fabricating the tanks.

The contract was awarded in October 1976, and fabrication started in February 1977. The 23-foot-long in-containment tank was completed in August 1978 and the two 32-foot-long ex-containment tanks shown here were completed in September 1978. Each of the three tanks is 18 feet in diameter.”

In that same December 1978 issue we find a number of illustrations and details about completion of the in-vessel fuel transfer machine, illustrated below with original caption material included.

“Four years of design work and over a year of fabrication and assembly by Atomics International Division, Rockwell International, Canoga Park, California, have culminated in completion of the two subassemblies of the in-vessel transfer machine. The next step will be final assembly, followed by an integrated checkout of the unit in air in February. Following completion of this phase, the unit will be turned over to the Energy Technology Engineering Center nearby in Santa Susana, California, for testing in sodium. Turnover is scheduled for May 1979.

The $2.3 million apparatus will be used to transfer fuel inside the reactor vessel during refueling. Mounted on the smallest of three eccentric rotating plugs of the reactor vessel head, it will be capable of locating itself over any removable element of the core, picking it up with a straight pull and transferring it to a temporary storage location inside the reactor vessel. It will also pick up replacement elements from the storage location and place them in the proper position in the core. The triple rotating plug locating concept, also used by West Germany in the SNR 300, is the first such head design used in a US designed LMFBR. Prior rotating head concepts in the US were employed on EBR II [Experimental Breeder Reactor II] and FFTF [Fast Flux Test Facility] but consisted of only two heads and a cantilevered in-vessel fuel handling device…”

Below, the reactor vessel head assembled for testing; the eccentric plugs and gears can clearly be made out.

The design layout for the plant changed a number of times as improvements were made. Below, the final layout as found in 1981–1982 Westinghouse status reports, and which was fairly widely released. This was the final plant configuration.

As we have seen, the CRBR was never built. The equipment ordered was laid up or disposed of, and the work force scattered; the site returned to disuse. The promise of a new and different future for nuclear energy never did die, though—it has taken on new faces from time to time since then, none of which has really reached the hardware stage. Now, at last, the Clinch River site will finally see construction and operation of a nuclear power plant, fulfilling its promise. While the design and appearance of the Generation mPower SMR plant will be vastly different from that envisaged for the CRBR, it’s fitting that it is because the look of the future of nuclear energy has also changed that much in the intervening quarter century.

One last illustration; below we see the cover of the January 1979 Clinch River Currents, whose headline announces “First Major CRBRP Hardware Delivered to Oak Ridge”—this was a protected water storage tank manufactured by Process Equipment Company, Brockton, Massachusetts, and three primary sodium system cold leg check valves (inset) from Foster Wheeler in Mountaintop, Pennsylvania.

(Illustrations from Westinghouse, CRBR management reports; Clinch River Currents illustrations and text, and both CRBR plant external illustrations from Will Davis collection.)

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Will Davis is a former US Navy Reactor Operator, qualified on S8G and S5W reactor plants. Davis performs Social Media services for ANS under contract, writes for ANS Nuclear Cafe as well as for Fuel Cycle Week, and also writes his own Atomic Power Review blog.

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Posted in News, reactor designs, Small modular reactors, Tennessee Valley Authority

Tagged babcock & wilcox, bechtel, clinch river breeder reactor, smr, TVA, Will Davis

SMR designs once again a focus at ANS Winter Meeting 2012

Posted on November 14, 2012 by Will Davis| 2 Comments

By Will Davis

Small Modular Reactors, or SMRs, have been under consideration in many quarters of late as a new focus for nuclear power generation. While the recent deadline for Department of Energy grant money came and went without so much as a whisper from the DOE, the concept continues to be developed. Quite a few presentations have been made, as a result, on reactors of this class here at the ANS 2012 Winter Meeting.

The true definition of what a SMR really is combines the International Atomic Energy Agency definition of “small reactor” (a reactor plant whose net electrical output is less than 300 MWe) and advanced, modularized construction intended to either reduce cost, or enhance some parameter(s) of safety or performance, or both. Most SMR designs feature component parts that are shop fabricated and shipped to the final operating site by truck or barge, and which don’t require huge heavy lift cranes as do large commercial nuclear plants. For a lot more documentation on SMR plants, see this DOE page from the SMR Subcommittee.

I attended today’s afternoon sessions on SMR plants, sponsored by the American Nuclear Society’s Operations & Power Division. We were presented two interesting dissertations on Mitsubishi’s MHR-50is/MHR-100is (the “is” stands for “inherent safety”) gas-cooled, graphite-moderated small reactor designs: First, a presentation on general features of the MHR-50is, which is a 120-MWt/50-MWe helium-cooled reactor, and second an interesting analysis of the core stresses applied to this type of reactor during an earthquake.

These paired presentations were followed by another pair concerning General Atomics and its EM2 design. We learned about a complicated but highly clever method to simulate plant response for the EM2 reactor, and then were given a thorough dissertation by Timothy Bertch of General Atomics on how the EM2 can overcome the economic factors that tend normally to work against smaller output reactors.

Two unrelated sessions wrapped up—a group effort paper attempting to discern if in-core parameters can be inferred easily and reliably by such things as main coolant pump load current, and then a very detailed presentation by Sung Yeop Joung of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology on the design attempt to add an IPSS (integrated passive safety system) to the SMART SMR plant design. The SMART was actually type approved by the Korean government earlier this year, and the SMART is being advertised as the first SMR that has been licensed and can be built.

The day was very interesting, and the continued effort toward SMR plants made apparent at this Winter Meeting seems to provide assurance that SMRs will be a part of the future of nuclear energy.

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Posted in American Nuclear Society, Meetings, Small modular reactors

Tagged small modular reactors, SMRs

Competition heats up for DOE SMR funding

Posted on April 20, 2012 by dyurman| 4 Comments

Westinghouse gets support from Missouri for 225-MW reactor

By Dan Yurman

The race to win $452 million in cost-shared funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for licensing and technical support to bring a small modular reactor (SMR) to market by 2022 got a new entry on April 19. Westinghouse has partnered with Ameren (NYSE:AEE) to submit a proposal based on the reactor vendor’s design of a 225-MW SMR.

The proposal won enthusiastic support from elected officials, including Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, with the promise of high-paying manufacturing jobs to build the components for the reactors in Missouri. Nixon called it a “transformational economic development opportunity.”

A consortium composed of Westinghouse, Ameren, and regional electrical utilities will prepare the proposal to submit to the DOE. The cost-share agreement covers a five-year period and would involve equal spending by the winning team and the government up to $904 million. The government may make two awards splitting the funds among developers.

The Westinghouse SMR is a 225-MW light water reactor design based on the firm’s 1100-MW AP1000, which achieved design certification from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) last December. Westinghouse is building four units in China, and in 2012 began construction of four units in the United States—two in Georgia and two more in South Carolina.

Westinghouse SMR conceptual design diagram

If Westinghouse wins the DOE funding, it could submit combined license applications to build and operate, over time, up to five of its SMRs with Ameren in Missouri—eventually providing the equivalent of a single AP1000 reactor.

Kate Jackson, chief technology officer for Westinghouse, said in a statement that the first unit would be built and ready to enter revenue service within 24 months of receiving an NRC license.

Westinghouse SMR summary table of specifications

Change in strategy for Ameren

Until recently, Ameren had been pursuing a legislative strategy of seeking to change a 1976 Missouri law that banned CWIP. The acronym means “construction work in progress” and it defines a rate mechanism that would, if authorized, allow a utility to charge customers for the costs of an early site permit, licensing, and construction of a new reactor as they come in.

Ameren has twice tried and failed to win legislative approval to overturn the 1976 law. In 2012, on the third iteration, Ameren sought cost recovery just for the early site permit (ESP) in hopes that the legislature might be more amenable. That tactic appeared to be working. On March 8, the Missouri House committee on utilities passed a bill supporting the more limited concept. The bill, introduced by Rep. Jeanie Riddle (R-Mokane), provides for up to $45 million to be recovered for an application for an ESP.

Ameren President Warner Baxter told the Kansas City Star on April 20, however, that the firm is suspending its drive for CWIP and instead is focusing on its new partnership with Westinghouse.

Greenhouse gases by the way

Even so, opponents of the effort to bring SMRs to Missouri lined up to sound off. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) told the Kansas City Star that the new KCP&L 850-MW coal-fired power plant cost $2 billion, or $2,350/Kw—about half the estimated price of the Westinghouse SMR at $5,000/Kw.

Ironically, Ellen Vancko, the UCS spokesperson, said that natural gas plants might be cheaper and faster to build. The issue of greenhouse gas emissions wasn’t mentioned in the report of her remarks.

Crowded field for DOE dollars

Competition to the bid by Westinghouse to win the DOE money will most likely come from other developers of SMRs using light water reactor technology.

Babcock & Wilcox is developing a 180-MW unit and has an agreement for cost-shared licensing and development with the Tennessee Valley Authority for two units at the utility’s Clinch River site in Tennessee. B&W already has its own manufacturing supply chain in Ohio and Indiana.

NuScale recently announced it would develop a unit for testing and licensing purposes at the DOE’s Savannah River Site. The DOE is not providing any money for the project, which will operate as a paying tenant at the lab. NuScale is partnering with NuHub, a South Carolina economic development organization to pursue the new build.

Further afield there are several efforts to develop fast reactors as SMRs, including Hyperion, which recently went through a management reorganization and re-branded itself as Gen4 Energy. It is working with a venture capital firm in Denver to commercialize a 25-MW design first developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The DOE says that it will make a decision by September 2012 on how it will award the funds. While the agency has the first of five years of funding in hand, future funding will depend on the decisions in appropriation bills of a deficit-minded Congress. The outcome of the presidential election and possible changes in the House and Senate will all play in the mix to determine whether the DOE will be able to deliver on a five-year funding commitment.

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Dan Yurman publishes Idaho Samizdat, a blog about nuclear energy, and is a frequent contributor to ANS Nuclear Cafe.

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Posted in Department of Energy, News, Small modular reactors

Good and bad news stories for nuclear 2011/2012

Posted on March 22, 2012 by pbowersox| 8 Comments

By Jim Hopf

After giving a brief update on recent Fukushima-related events in the United States, I’d like to talk about some good (but relatively unpublicized) things that have happened during what has otherwise been a very challenging year for the nuclear industry. Then I’ll discuss what, to me, was the most disconcerting story in the past year.

NRC response to Fukushima

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission published a series of new requirements for U.S. nuclear plants, as a result of its evaluation of the Fukushima event. Requirements include seismic evaluations and upgrades (if necessary), the addition of portable pumps and generators (sited at multiple, protected locations), and enhanced monitoring capability for spent fuel pools. For many older boiling water reactors, hardened vents may be required (if not already in place). Another requirement being discussed is the ability to maintain operations (and cooling) without off-site power indefinitely (as opposed to the current requirement of 4–8 hours).

During Senate testimony, NRC Chairman Jaczko and other commissioners appeared to disagree over the amount of time that will be required for plants to make the proposed changes. Jaczko stated that some of the changes are likely to take until 2017–2019 (something that he said he was “concerned” about), whereas other commissioners thought that the changes will be in place by 2016.

Good news in 2011/2012

We’re all aware of the fact that the final NRC licenses were finally granted for construction of the new Vogtle reactors. It is also true that the project is within budget and schedule so far. Some lesser-known bits of good news are discussed below.

NRC Accident Consequence Statement

This is one potentially very positive thing that happened for the industry recently, without much publicity or fanfare. In part as a result of its evaluation of Fukushima, the NRC released a position statement concerning the potential consequences of (even worst case) nuclear plant accidents. The NRC (finally) acknowledged what many of us have known for a long time. It stated that the risk to public health, even from a severe accident, is “very small”. It also stated that the risk of short-term fatalities from acute exposure was “essentially zero,” and that the scenario of a large amount of radiation being released very quickly
(thus requiring a rapid evacuation) was unrealistic.

This is probably as close as we’re going to get to a formal retraction of the earlier analyses/assumptions that formed the basis of emergency response planning over previous decades. These grossly unrealistic analyses predicted thousands of immediate deaths from acute exposure, followed by tens of thousands of long-term cancers. Chernobyl had already shown those analyses to be completely unrealistic, and (I suppose) Fukushima, with its complete lack of health impacts, was the final nail in the coffin.

But, alas, I suppose I’m being unrealistic in hoping that this could lead to some relief with respect to emergency planning requirements. Indeed, many seem to be drawing precisely the reverse conclusion, asking whether evacuation zones should be increased (never mind that many other facilities that are actually more dangerous, such as chemical plants, oil refineries, etc., do not have similar evacuation zones).

This is a shame, given that these evacuation zones/plans have always been an albatross around the industry’s neck that has been used relentlessly by nuclear opponents (e.g., the Shoreham plant). They always argue about how rapid evacuation may not be practical. Well, we’ve just (finally) realized that it’s not necessary!

Fukushima also showed that, even with respect to longer-term impacts, significant effects of even a worst-case meltdown do not extend beyond ~20–25 miles of the plant (in any direction). And yet we still hear people talking about populations as far as 50 miles from plants (e.g., New York City from the Indian Point plant).

Clean Energy Standard Legislation

The Senate Energy Committee finally released a detailed legislative proposal for a Clean Energy Standard. The final proposal is the result of many years of analysis and negotiation. While it is unlikely to pass (or be considered) this year, it is considered more likely to pass than other options such as comprehensive global warming legislation. It has the potential support of several moderate Republicans.

The good news is that the final details of the legislation appear to be rational and even-handed, and fairly good for the nuclear industry. The Standard requires that 85 percent of U.S. electricity generation be from “clean” sources by 2035. While the final version does allow partial credit for fossil sources like gas, the amount of partial credit scales (inversely) with the level of CO₂emissions (relative to a coal plant). Thus, non-emitting sources like nuclear would retain a significant advantage over gas, particularly in the later phases of the program (when an all-gas generation profile would no longer be able to meet the requirements).

SMRs Move Forward

The U.S. Department of Energy recently decided to provide $452 million in funding for licensing of small modular reactors (SMRs), over the next five years. The DOE is also making plans to host three SMR demonstration projects on the Savannah River Site. The three selected reactors are the 45-megawatt (MW) NuScale Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR), the 25-MW Gen4 Energy fast reactor, and a 140-MW PWR reactor from Holtec.

Hopefully, construction of the prototypes will speed the technological development of these reactors, although NRC licensing should occur in parallel. Use of the Savannah River complex may make siting these prototype reactors easier, which could speed licensing and deployment.

A New Low Level Waste Site (at last)

The Waste Control Specialists’ low level waste (LLW) site in Texas (near the New Mexico border) will soon begin operation. The site will take waste from 38 states. It will handle all types of LLW, including Class A, B, and C. Given the closure of the Barnwell site to out-of-compact waste, the Texas site is now the only site that accepts all classes of LLW from most states.

This represents a significant victory, given the level of difficulty the nation has had in siting new LLW disposal facilities, anywhere, for many decades. This is the first site to open in 30 years. For some time, the political task of opening new LLW sites was thought to be intractable.

It should also be noted that within the same general area (in southeast New Mexico), the local communities around the DOE’s WIPP repository are actively seeking to host the nation’s spent fuel and high-level waste as well. There is some indication that the state government is willing to consider the option.

Sanity Prevails in France

The French government recently released a new long-term energy options evaluation that concludes that the most economical and practical option is to extend the operating life of its existing reactor fleet from 40 years to 60 years.

In the past, French policy had always appeared to be to replace its reactors with new ones after ~40 years of life. Given the long-standing position in the United States that light water reactors (LWRs) could be run safely for 60 or more years, I’ve always found the (old) French position to be puzzling. I wondered if it was, in part, just a means of creating extra work to keep its domestic industry employed and on top of its game, similar to U.S. Depression-era make-work programs.

In any event, it seems like they’ve finally come to their senses. Any new nukes should be used to increase, not maintain, capacity (i.e., be used to replace fossil fuels). The cost savings will be enormous. Perhaps this new position is partly a result of Fukushima. With political support for new reactor construction much lower, perhaps the French government concluded that the only way their nuclear capacity would be maintained would be through extended operation.

The biggest bad news story of 2011/2012

Despite the positive news stories discussed above, my level of optimism for nuclear’s future was deeply shaken last year, not by the Fukushima event itself, but by the public/media/political reaction to it, particularly in Japan.

Here in the United States, Fukushima is somewhat less significant. Polls show only small reductions in public support. New nukes remain highly popular in most regions/locations where new reactors are being considered. Also, in the United States, several other factors, including the lack of any global warming policies on the horizon, the fact that the economic downturn suppressed future power demand growth, and low natural gas costs due to the shale gas “miracle,” loom larger over nuclear’s future.

In the rest of the world, however, Fukushima has had a surprisingly large impact on public opinion in many, if not most nations. In addition to Japan and Germany, anti-nuclear opinion has surged in other nations with strong nuclear programs, such as France and South Korea. The reaction in Germany does not surprise or upset me much. They are merely returning to their usual long-standing anti-nuclear position (with the 2022 nuclear phase-out date actually being two years later than a long-standing 2020 phase-out date). I was (and am) utterly dismayed, however, by the public/political reaction in Japan.

Japanese Reaction

If one asks the question of how big a natural disaster (e.g., earthquake) a nuclear plant should be able to take, the rational answer is clearly not “infinite.” One quite reasonable answer given by many people is that the disaster should be sufficiently large that if it did occur, a meltdown would be the least of their problems. One would think that Fukushima would be a textbook case of this, with ~20,000 deaths from the earthquake and tsunami, no immediate deaths from the meltdown, and few if any projected future deaths. It is also true that the number of evacuees and lost homes due to the earthquake and tsunami is larger than that from the radiation release.

But then, we watched in horror as the world’s attention (media, etc.) focused mostly on the plant meltdown, as opposed to the earthquake and tsunami. Not only were the enormous impacts of the earthquake and tsunami (deaths, etc.) deemed less newsworthy than the plant meltdowns, but so were the vastly larger ongoing health and environmental impacts of fossil fuel generation. Apparently, such logical thinking on our part does not adequately consider various psychological and political factors.

According to the World Health Organization, fossil-fueled power generation causes hundreds of thousands of deaths, worldwide, every single year (i.e., on the order of 1000 deaths every single day). Even conservative estimates, based on the pessimistic linear-no-threshold assumption, predict less than ~1000 eventual deaths from Fukushima. Thus, in terms of health impacts, worldwide fossil fuel power generation is having an impact equal to (or worse than) having a Fukushima event occur every single day. And that’s before considering global warming.

Despite these facts, the people of Japan, and their political leaders, are apparently ready to shut down their nuclear plants and replace them with vastly more dangerous and harmful fossil fuel generation. They are willing to do this even through it will mean greatly increased air pollution and CO₂ emissions, and will have a devastating effect on their economy. Japan has always had an export-driven industrial economy with large trade surpluses. For the first time in memory, however, Japan will be running a trade deficit, primarily due to the increased fossil fuel imports that are necessary to replace their nuclear generation. In addition to horrendous health and environmental impacts, the fossil generation will result in markedly higher power costs. Many of Japan’s heavy industries have threatened to move off-shore.

Double standard forever?

These reactions, in Japan and elsewhere, are leading me to believe that there is a deeply-ingrained prejudice against nuclear power as a means of power production; one that may never disappear. Whether it is the legacy of the bomb, or is due to enormous media/political influence of the world fossil fuel industry (who knows?), the fact is that minor impacts from nuclear are given far more attention, and are far less tolerated, than far larger impacts from fossil fuels and other technologies.

The double standard is also alive and well in the United States. Not only has the U.S. nuclear industry accepted the NRC’s new requirements without significant resistance, but they’ve even proactively pursued improvements on their own, without being legally required to do so. And yet, in congressional hearings
and elsewhere, many are not satisfied with the rate or amount of improvement,
saying that having to wait over five years is an unacceptable risk. Meanwhile, old “grandfathered” coal plants in the United States are still not meeting the requirements of the 1970 Clean Air Act, the result being tens of thousands of annual deaths. Despite the fact that the public health risks in question are orders of magnitude larger in the coal plants’ case, apparently taking over 40 years is okay for them, whereas five years is too long for nuclear’s Fukushima upgrades.

Nuclear has always been held to standards thousands of times as strict (in terms of dollars spent per life saved, etc.) than fossil fuels. Before Fuksushima, with all the attention being paid to global warming, I had thought that the playing field might start to become somewhat more balanced. Now, after Fukushima, nuclear requirements are becoming even more strict (with any notions of regulatory relief being put to bed), whereas attempts are now being made (in the United States, anyway) to reduce regulations/requirements on fossil fuels even further. Humble requests to reduce air pollution and/or CO₂ emissions are met with calls to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency.

Thus, the spectacularly unlevel playing field will likely get even more unlevel. The Clean Energy Standard is the only hope left out there.

Our industry seems all too eager to accept unprecedentedly stringent requirements, for love of the engineering challenge, apparently. The most pertinent example is the acceptance of radiation dose rate limits (e.g., 100 mrem/yr) that are orders of magnitude lower than the levels for which any significant health impacts are seen. The fact is, in my view, that NO technology can survive (over the long term) while being on the receiving end of an enormous double standard (i.e., under a tremendously non-level playing field). Better technology (e.g., SMRs, etc.) is not the answer. We must ask ourselves what we can do to get policies enacted that will level the regulatory playing field, and how we can reduce the tremendous prejudice that society has against our technology. I have several thoughts on those issues, but I’ve run out of space for this column…

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: Hopf

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Posted in DC Perspective, Department of Energy, Fukushima, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Small modular reactors, South Korea, U.S. Congress

TVA uses supercomputers to look inside reactors

Posted on February 23, 2012 by dyurman| 1 Comment

A partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratory will yield results for years to come

By Dan Yurman

Living next door to the most powerful computers in the world offers the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) a unique opportunity to get answers to important questions about its operating nuclear reactors. The utility has multiple reactors at three sites–Browns Ferry (three boiling water reactors), Sequoyah (two pressurized water reactors), and Watts Bar (one PWR). And TVA is having its own mini nuclear renaissance: It completed a reactor at Browns Ferry in 2007, it will complete a reactor at Watts Bar next year, and by the end of this decade, it is likely to be nearing completion of a reactor at Bellefonte.

So where does TVA go when it wants to look deep inside its reactors to help optimize their performance? After all, with billions of dollars invested in these facilities, the utility’s managers want to insure that they get every ounce of performance out of them while securing safe operation in all respects.

The answer is that TVA turns to the Department of Energy-funded Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL) operating at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).

Rose Montgomery, a project manager and a TVA employee on loan to CASL, says that the primary value in the near term is validation of fuel cycle design and reactor operations computer codes.

This work is consistent, she notes, with the DOE’s objective for CASL, which is to boost reactor reliability and uptime.

“We provide computer simulations that will help TVA achieve reactor power uprates, life extensions, and higher fuel burn-up,” she said.

The CASL project is a mix of scientific research and applied research and development, but that brief summary doesn’t do justice to the objectives the organization has set for itself.

“We are looking for giant strides in computer simulation of phenomena inside a reactor in the areas of thermal hydraulics, fuel rod mechanics, and numerous safety boundary conditions,” she said.

Reactor core simulation Image source: CASL

CASL’s vision is to achieve results. Three broad areas of expected outcomes are defined in its vision statements:

Reduced capital and operating costs per unit of energy by enabling power uprates and lifetime extension for existing nuclear power plants and the lifetimes of new Generation III+ nuclear power plants.
Reduce nuclear waste volume generated by enabling high fuel burn-up.
Assure nuclear safety by enabling high fidelity predictive capability for component performance through failure.

TVA’s work with CASL is based on the assumption that there is industry wide applicability to the modeling and simulation work. CASL is moving beyond a focus on simulating normal steady state reactor conditions.

Its scientists and engineers want to provide insights and enhancements to fuel system design, reactor life extension, accident simulations, and used fuel storage. These are all key issues for a multi-reactor operator such as TVA.

CASL gets data about what’s going on inside TVA’s reactors by collecting operational information and using it in advanced modeling and simulation software that runs on some of the world’s most powerful supercomputers located at ORNL.

Montgomery lists work that has applicability to the U.S. nuclear industry including optimizing fuel efficiency and improving the understanding of fuel performance issues. The six technical focus areas of CASL are:

Advanced modeling application
Virtual reactor integration
Radiation transport methods
Thermo hydraulic methods
Materials performance and optimization
Validation and uncertainty quantification

TVA believes that the CASL program has wide industry applicability in terms of modeling and simulation. CASL is currently focused on the reactor system and nuclear fuel in PWRs. If given more time, however, CASL proposes to move on to simulations of BWRs, small modular reactors, and balance-of-plant systems.

CASL does not expect to license the codes they provide; this will be left up to the utilities and fuel vendors to complete. However, CASL is working to ensure that the codes will be available to industry and will be in a position to be licensed in the future. The project is currently interfacing with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research, with regular updates on the development progress.

In the short term, TVA expects to see benefits in some aspects of management of core cycle designs and a reduction in some costs related to operating issues such as CRUD deposition. (CRUD refers to tiny, solid, corrosion products that travel into the reactor core, become highly radioactive, and then flow out of the reactor into other systems in the plant.) In the longer term, CASL’s work is expected to result in findings that will be applied to TVA reactors so that they can produce more power.

For more information on CASL, contact them at http://www.casl.gov

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Yurman

Dan Yurman publishes Idaho Samizdat, a blog about nuclear energy, and is a frequent contributor to ANS Nuclear Cafe.

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Posted in BWRs, engineering, News, PWRs, reactor designs, Small modular reactors, Tennessee Valley Authority

Small Modular Reactors on Military Installations?

Posted on January 23, 2012 by rmichal| 1 Comment

By William J. Barattino

(This article summarizes a paper presented by the author at the ASME 2011 Small Modular Reactors Symposium)

Federal agencies have been directed by public laws and executive orders to reduce energy consumption, increase usage of clean energy sources, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) is working with the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a long-term strategy to embrace and implement these directives for military installations that includes small modular reactors (SMRs) in the mix of clean energy technologies. This blog post provides an initial assessment of the market size of SMRs on U.S. Army installations located in the United States that includes background factors driving the shift to clean energy sources; characterization of energy consumption and costs for Army installations; maximum overnight costs for breakeven based on offsets of current base electricity costs; and reductions in GHGs with use of SMRs.

The DOD is moving toward “NetZero” energy installations serviced by utility sources that are secure, reliable, and cost effective. NetZero energy implies power systems located within the boundaries of a military installation (or possibly on federal land to service a number of agencies within a region) for providing secure and uninterruptable power supplies for mission-critical base facility energy requirements.

Contractual processes for implementing new energy reduction, monitoring, and production for servicing base energy requirements are already used extensively by the DOD. Details of contract types differ, but are similar from the context that benefits (or savings) of an alternative must exceed costs over the system lifecycle. The good news here is that implementing contracts for cost-effective, alternatives requiring public-private relationships for servicing energy consumption on military installations is routine today.

Eighty installations were considered with peak power ranging from 0.6 to 132 MW_e(the majority in the 1 to 75 MW_e range). Installation energy consumption and cost data are recorded in the U.S. Army Energy and Water Reporting System, an on-line data reporting system with monthly inputs provided by base engineers.

Total energy consumption cost was $855.8M during fiscal year 2010. Of this total, $573M representing two-thirds of total cost was for electricity; and $282.8M representing one-third of total cost was for industrial processes. Hawaii has the highest yearly electricity cost of nearly $49 million per year due to its extremely high cost of 20.8 cents per kilowatt-hour, whereas the average cost of electricity for the entire set of 80 installations is 7.3 cents per kilowatt-hour. While SMRs can operate in a co-generation mode, the higher relative cost of electricity led to the conclusion that the primary focus should be for electricity production from a cost efficiency perspective.

After characterizing energy usage and costs, an economic assessment was conducted of projected cost savings that an SMR must remain below for its lifecycle costs to be competitive with displaced fossil fuel. The revenue stream to offset expenses was represented by the monthly cost of electricity of $2.7 million. Costs for site preparation, manufacturing, and construction were expensed as monthly construction loan payments over years 6 through 10 with a 4 percent cost of capital. For this scenario, the manufacturing and construction (i.e., overnight) cost of $1420 per KW_e was required to meet our target goal of return-on-investment>10 percent. With a yearly cost escalation of 3-5 percent for electricity, the allowable overnight costs for breakeven increased to $3000-4000 per KW_e. These preliminary analyses led to the conclusion that the DOD requires an energy business model that reconciles operational importance with cost. In other words, the principle of a “secure energy premium” will be required to balance energy-assurance-with-affordability.

Dramatic reductions in current base GHGs are realized with use of clean energy technologies. Nuclear energy for electricity results in a significant reduction of nearly 76 percent in GHGs averaged for all Army installations in the United States. When the SMRs are also used in a co-generation mode, GHGs are reduced by more than 96 percent.

Clearly, much work remains to accurately quantify the upfront and recurring expenses for SMR systems on military bases. This analysis provided an initial assessment as to whether SMR system lifecycle costs can compete with existing installation electricity costs. There is a high potential for moving forward with alternatives that demonstrate lower system cost, enhance security, and reduce GHGs. The more challenging cases, however, will be for installations where the SMR lifecycle cost is somewhat higher than continued use of fossil fuels, but enables secure NetZero energy with significantly lower GHG emissions.

In summary, this first look at SMRs on military installations is encouraging from a number of perspectives and should lead to further evaluation of this sector. The Army Corps of Engineers has successfully operated small nuclear reactors for remote sites on a very small scale from 1954 through 1979. So, location of SMRs on bases is not a new, untried concept. It will require, however, renewed commitment and revitalization of an industrial base that the United States once had, but must re-establish.

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Barattino

William J. Barattino is the chief executive officer at Global Broadband Solutions, LLC. He has more than 30 years experience in program management and systems engineering and integration for telecommunications, space systems, lasers, imaging, facilities engineering, and applied mechanics. He is an ANS member and a guest contributor to the ANS Nuclear Cafe.

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Posted in American Nuclear Society, Department of Energy, Economic benefits of nuclear, Electricity generating capacity, engineering, National Laboratories, News, physics, reactor designs, Small modular reactors

Nuclear News and the new year

Posted on January 17, 2012 by rmichal| Comments Off

The January issue of Nuclear News magazine is available in hard copy and electronically for American Nuclear Society members (must enter ANS user name and password in Member Center). The issue contains the following stories:

The year ahead: This time for sure? by E. Michael Blake
2012 Preview: Impact of Fukushima Daiichi on global prospects for nuclear, by Dick Kovan
10-year D&D program under way at Zion plant, by Rick Michal
The index to 2011 Nuclear News content

There is also an in-depth report on the 2011 ANS Winter Meeting, along with side coverage of two topicals at the meeting: the first ANS Small Modular Reactor conference, and the Young Professionals Congress 2011 meeting.

Other news in the January issue: NRC commissioner Jaczko votes to publish AP1000 certification final rule; revised emergency plan rule published in final form; study sees potential for small modular reactors to compete with gas-fired generation; is yellow inspection finding at Oconee an old design issue? Davis-Besse restart allowed while concrete studies continue; special inspection at Brunswick; NRC takes no significant action on four petitions; a status report on license renewal and power uprates; Fukushima-related motions in licensing proceedings continue to be denied; Levy site tour, limited statements scheduled; power reactor stress tests in the European Union said to be on track; European Union proposes additional €500 million to close Soviet-era reactors; fuel loading begins at Canada’s long-idled Bruce-1; Vietnam’s pact with Japan upheld, and new pact made with South Korea; three sites on short list for Poland’s first nuclear plant; United Kingdom chooses reuse as MOX to manage plutonium stock; nuclear research center opens in West Cumbria; and much more.

Past issues of Nuclear News are available here.

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Posted in accident, American Nuclear Society, Department of Energy, Earthquake, Education, engineering, Environmental Benefits of Nuclear, Fukushima, IAEA, knowledge transfer, lessons learned, Meetings, Natural disasters, News, Nuclear Fuel Cycle, Nuclear Literacy Project, Nuclear News, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, PWRs, reactor designs, Small modular reactors, spent fuel, Vietnam

Nuclear energy R&D budgets spared major cuts

Posted on January 5, 2012 by dyurman| 3 Comments

Congress trims funding while adding new priorities

By Dan Yurman

A Congress that has public approval ratings in the single digits because of deficit-related gridlock managed to get some of the federal budget out the door for 2012. The Energy & Water Appropriation Bill, which covers funding for the U.S. Department of Energy, contains $768 million for nuclear energy programs.

Nuclear energy at the DOE fared better than some other high profile DOE programs. The Obama administration’s poster child for a green economy—Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy—suffered a cut of $1.9 billion, reducing the funding request by the White House by more than half. The DOE’s Science programs also saw a significant reduction of $616 million from the President’s budget. And, nationwide environmental cleanup of DOE sites suffered a reduction of $469 million.

Emphasis on small modular reactors

Of the $768 million in the bill for the nuclear energy program at the DOE, $439 million is allocated to nuclear energy research and development. A key element of the appropriation is a $67 million line item for licensing technical support for light water reactors. It provides funds for first-of-a-kind engineering support for two reactor designs and sites.

Supporters of fast reactor SMR designs had hoped for appropriation language that would have advanced their cause, but it didn’t appear in the committee report related to licensing activities.

Within a line item of $136 million for reactor concepts, $29 million is provided for advanced R&D on SMR concepts that presumably would include some fast reactor work scope.

A big ticket item is $64 million for the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) program, which is $14 million above the DOE’s request. The committee called for strong engagement with industry in development of the NGNP demonstration phase.

Congress also told the DOE to stick to the knitting and finish the job on the NGNP. The committee report complained that the DOE engages in a “constant shifting of priorities that starts many initiatives and finishes none.”

DOE Nuclear Energy Assistant Secretary Pete Lyons declined, through a spokesperson, to be interviewed or to comment on the funding numbers or the SMR projects.

Fuel Cycle Research received $132 million, with significant cuts from the 2011 funding level and the 2012 request.

Facilities management at the Idaho National Laboratory received $155 million, $5 million above the request. Separately, $14.6 million is allocated to the National Science User Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory, the same amount as the request.

Positive reactions to reactor funding

U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, R., Idaho

U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson (R., Idaho) , whose district includes the Idaho lab, is a senior member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, serving there for the past nine years. Simpson said in a statement that he was pleased with the funding for the lab’s programs.

“I am very pleased that the Appropriations Committee and Congress have once again demonstrated strong support for the development of nuclear energy and provided the resources necessary to continue our nation’s progress on new and promising nuclear technologies,” said Simpson.

Simpson noted that total funding for DOE’s nuclear energy program was $31 million more than funding provide by Congress for FY2011.

The Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade group, also took notice. In a statement on its website, the organization said that it was relieved that the events in Fukushima, Japan, last March have not deterred Congress from continued support for nuclear energy.

“We particularly appreciate the inclusion of $67 million to initiate the Department of Energy’s small reactor licensing program. That technology will become a significant contributor to the nation’s energy portfolio and has tremendous potential for job creation to support deployment in the United States and internationally,” the NEI statement said.

Worries across the pond in the U.K.

While nuclear energy R&D fared well in the budget storm in Washington, D.C., across the Atlantic things are not going as well. The Science & Technology Committee of the House of Lords, the upper chamber of Parliament, issued a report on November 22 that said the government was “complacent” about nuclear energy R&D.

In a stinging comment, the committee wrote that the UK government’s plans for nuclear to play a part in meeting the country’s energy needs “simply lack credibility.”

The report went on to say that the absence of leadership and strategic thinking in government has created a perception that the UK is no longer a serious player in the field. The skills gap, which will be made worse by near-term retirements, will make the nation a “niche player,” the report said.

According to government budget numbers reviewed by the committee, the UK is spending less on nuclear energy R&D than Australia and Italy—and neither of these nations has a commercial nuclear power program.

The committee called for an increase in spending of £20-50 million (about U.S.$31-78 million) a year. The committee’s recommendations include the development of a long-term strategy for nuclear energy looking beyond 2025, outlining support for R&D through an R&D roadmap, and for the commercial exploitation of the UK’s current strengths in nuclear research.

It also called for the establishment of a nuclear R&D board, made up of industry, academic and government partners, to develop and implement the R&D roadmap and help to improve the coordination of R&D activities to protect vulnerable areas of research and close gaps in capabilities.

# # #

Dan Yurman, nuclear blogger

Dan Yurman publishes Idaho Samizdat, a blog about nuclear energy, and is a frequent contributor to ANS Nuclear Cafe.

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Posted in Department of Energy, financing, National Laboratories, News, reactor designs, Small modular reactors, U.S. Congress

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