By Neil Alexander, Bucephalus Consulting
Neil Alexander
The climate change challenge has thrown our energy industries into turmoil – and the first target that everyone has seized on has been electricity production. Grids around the world have been supplemented with alternative technologies such as wind and solar. Hydro, tides and even the heat of the earth’s core have been tapped wherever they are available. But despite huge investments few jurisdictions of any significance have managed to get anywhere near a zero emissions grid. The fact is that intermittent power has to be supplemented and in the absence of any other reliable sources that is typically done with gas. And while gas is a lesser emitter than coal, it is an emitter all the same.
The reality is that most plans only clean up a portion of the grid and the challenge gets greater as more intermittents are included. Saskatchewan, for example, a province with ample land, a small population and its fair share of wind and sunshine, thinks it might get to 50% renewable energy, and even then a large part of that is hydro.
To add to the challenge, our existing electric power demand is only a part of the problem. Transport, building heat and process heat all presently rely heavily on largely fossil fuel. To put the magnitude in context, if this extra energy is to be delivered by electrification, and there is a good chance that it will, then power production has to triple. And it makes no sense to electrify if that electricity is to be produced with gas. For building heat that would actually increase emissions. For transport, it would be a zero-sum game.
So the reality is that there is a massive gap and few realistic opportunities to fill it.
Limited number of viable options
Nuclear is one technology that produces reliable carbon-free power on scale that is relevant. In fact Canada, far from being the “fossil” of which it is accused, actually exports more useful energy as uranium than it does as either oil or gas and so avoids emissions all around the world. Ontario’s emissions free energy already largely comes from this uranium.
Presently though, new nuclear is not getting the consideration it deserves, largely because the capital costs of a new full scale nuclear reactor are so high and there are not many grids that can accommodate such massive sources of power. Most of the world’s electricity does come from large plants, but most electricity generating plants are small – 93% are under 500 MWe, and 56% are below 50 MWe. And the trend is towards distributed systems where smaller generators are needed.
There are reasons for this challenge. Historically the nuclear industry has seen its market as being bulk baseload electricity supply to large grids. The trend has therefore been towards larger and larger plants in an attempt to gain economies of scale. These units have been “stick built” and typically almost everyone has been a first-of-a-kind built by a project team that has no previous experience of a similar project. The challenges to construction are compounded by the fact that keeping fuel cool in a water cooled plant is a challenge and often leads to the highly regulated and carefully inspected safety systems extending throughout the plant. This has created difficulties with scheduling and Quality Assurance that have often led to cost overruns and delays. Unfortunately we see this today with the all too public challenges that both Westinghouse and AREVA are experiencing.
The advanced designs and fabrication principles of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) completely repaint this picture. In fact it is a completely different picture. The core design will maintain safe conditions with few if any interventions – and so it is hoped the safety systems will be limited in their extent. They will be built repetitively in factories by experienced people where quality problems can be progressively eradicated and where they can be built in advance and stored so that on time delivery can be guaranteed. Most importantly though, the build timetables are such that experienced project managers and possibly construction teams can roll from one project to the next.
Prospects for a new industry
It is evident that the nuclear industry is changing. Recognising this size/cost challenge and learning from the past, many national programs and even more entrepreneurs have turned their eyes to these small reactors using advanced nuclear technologies. North America has about 40 organisations working on these concepts. There are 7 that have engaged with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) in their licensing process.
Some of these designs operate at basically atmospheric pressure and others use fuel encased in silicon carbide. There are metal cooled fast reactors and reactors that can utilise used nuclear fuel as a feedstock. There are conventional water cooled reactors that have been redesigned to be small and to be walk away safe. There are even new small fusion reactors. It’s a whole new world!
These designs are scalable with electrical outputs typically in the range 3-300 MWe and there are even ideas for even smaller “nuclear batteries”. We do not have any proven cost details at the moment because there are no production units available. But we might reasonably expect them to produce electricity at a price that would be substantially less than their bigger cousins
Typically incorporating systems that are intrinsically safe, they offer the possibility that they could be safely licensed to operate in a community. And because many are not limited in temperature by using water as coolant they can run at temperatures where process and building heat could be produced directly and supplied to that community.
They could be located in remote communities, not just to replace diesel, but to turn regions of energy poverty into regions of transformational energy wealth, attracting energy intensive industries, producing clean water and providing fresh vegetables from well heated and lit greenhouses 365 days of the year.
Small Modular Reactors could be truly transformational energy technologies. And if Canada were to be an early mover in this field we would not only become a true leader in solving a world problem but would benefit financially from the international roll-out of our development. It’s an opportunity worth thinking about!
Dr. Neil Alexander restarted his consultancy business, Bucephalus Consulting, in October 2016 following two and a half years as Executive Director of the Fedoruk Centre at the University of Saskatchewan. Prior to that, he served in a number of senior executive roles in the Canadian nuclear industry, including: President and General Manager of Rolls-Royce Civil Nuclear Canada, President of the Organization of CANDU Industries, and Vice-President of Business Development with SNC-Lavalin Nuclear. With a Ph.D. in metallurgy from the University of Birmingham (UK), and a lifetime in the nuclear industry, Dr. Alexander has been a long-term and active promoter of its benefits as a sustainable approach to managing some of the world’s most significant environmental challenges.