Small modular nuclear reactors: a history of failure

Jim Green 28 November 2023  https://reneweconomy.com.au/small-modular-nuclear-reactors-a-history-of-failure/

Small modular reactors (SMRs) are defined as reactors with a capacity of 300 megawatts (MW) or less. The term ‘modular’ refers to serial factory production of reactor components, which could drive down costs.

By that definition, no SMRs have ever been built and none are being built now. In all likelihood none will ever be built because of the prohibitive cost of setting up factories for mass production of reactor components.

No SMRs have been built, but dozens of small (<300 MW) power reactors have been built in numerous countries, without factory production of reactor components. The history of small reactors is a history of failure.

The US Army built and operated eight small reactors beginning in the 1950s, but they proved unreliable and expensive and the program was shut down in 1977. In addition, 17 small civilian reactors were built in the US in the 1950s and 1960s, but all have since shut down.

Twenty-six small Magnox reactors were built in the UK but all have shut down and no more will be built. The only operating Magnox is a mini-Magnox in North Korea: the design was made public at an Atoms for Peace conference and North Korea uses its 5 MW Magnox to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons.

India’s operates 14 small pressurised heavy water reactors, each with a capacity of about 200 MW. Prof. M.V. Ramana noted in his 2012 book, ‘The Power of Promise: Examining Nuclear Energy in India’, that despite a standardised approach to designing, constructing, and operating these reactors, many suffered cost overruns and lengthy delays. There are no plans to build more of these small reactors in India.

Elsewhere, the history of small reactors is just as underwhelming. This includes three small reactors in Canada (all shut down), six in France (all shut down), and four in Japan (all shut down).

Prof. Ramana concludes his history of small reactors with this downbeat assessment: “Without exception, small reactors cost too much for the little electricity they produced, the result of both their low output and their poor performance.”

Recent history

Just two SMRs are said to be operating — neither meeting the ‘modular’ definition of serial factory production of reactor components. The two SMRs — one each in Russia and China — exhibit familiar problems of massive cost blowouts and multi-year delays.

The construction cost of Russia’s floating nuclear power plant increased six-fold and the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency estimates that the electricity it produces costs US$200 (A$306) / megawatt-hour (MWh). The reactor is used to power fossil fuel mining operations in the Arctic.

The other operating SMR (loosely defined) is China’s demonstration 210 MW high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR). The World Nuclear Association states that the cost of the demonstration HTGR was US$6,000 (A$9,200 billion) per kilowatt, three times higher than early cost estimates and 2-3 times higher than the cost of China’s larger Hualong reactors per kilowatt.

NucNet reported in 2020 that China dropped plans to manufacture 20 HTGRs after levelised cost estimates rose to levels higher than conventional large reactors. Likewise, the World Nuclear Association states that plans for 18 additional HTGRs at the same site as the demonstration HTGR have been “dropped”. China’s demonstration HTGR demonstrates yet again that the economics of small reactors doesn’t stack up.
Three SMRs are under construction – again with the qualification that there’s nothing ‘modular’ about these projects.

Argentina’s CAREM reactor has been a disaster. Construction began in 2014 and the National Atomic Energy Commission now hopes to complete the reactor in 2027 — nearly 50 years after the project was conceived. The cost estimate in 2021 was US$750 million (A$1.1 billion) for a reactor with a capacity of just 32 MW. That’s over one billion Australian dollars for a plant with the capacity of a handful of large wind turbines.

In 2021, China began construction of a 125 MW pressurised water reactor. According to China National Nuclear Corporation, construction costs per kilowatt will be twice the cost of large reactors, and levelised costs will be 50 percent higher than large reactors.

Also in 2021, construction of the 300 MW demonstration lead-cooled BREST fast neutron reactor began in Russia. The cost estimate has more than doubled to 100 billion rubles (A$1.7 billion) and no doubt it will continue to climb.

NuScale and mPower

In 2012, the US Department of Energy (DOE) offered up to US$452 million to cover “the engineering, design, certification and licensing costs for up to two US SMR designs.” The two SMR designs that were selected by the DOE for funding were NuScale Power and Generation mPower.

Taking its cues from the US government, in 2015 the South Australian Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission commissioned research by WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff (now WSP) on the economic potential of the same two designs.

However NuScale recently abandoned its flagship project in Idaho as RenewEconomy recently reported. NuScale secured subsidies amounting to around US$4 billion (A$6.1 billion) from the US government comprising a US$1.4 billion subsidy from the DOE and an estimated US$30 per megawatt-hour (MWh) subsidy in the Inflation Reduction Act. Despite that government largesse, NuScale didn’t come close to securing sufficient funding to get the project off the ground.

NuScale’s most recent cost estimates were through the roof: US$9.3 billion (A$14.2 billion) for a 462 MW plant comprising six 77 MW reactors. That equates to US$20,100 (A$30,700) per kilowatt and a levelised cost of US$89 (A$135) / MWh. Without the Inflation Reduction Act subsidy of US$30/MWh, the figure would be US$129 (A$196) / MWh. That’s close to WSP’s estimate of A$225 / MWh.

To put those estimates in perspective, the Minerals Council of Australia states that SMRs won’t find a market in Australia unless they can produce power at a cost of A$60-80 / MWh, 2-3 times lower than the WSP and NuScale estimates.

NuScale still hopes to build SMRs but the company is burning cash and, some analysts suggest, heading towards bankruptcy.

Generation mPower — a collaboration between Babcock & Wilcox and Bechtel — was the other SMR design prioritised by the US DOE and the South Australian Royal Commission. mPower was to be a 195 MW pressurised light water reactor.

In 2012, the DOE announced that it would subsidise mPower in a five-year cost-share agreement. The DOE’s contribution would be capped at US$226 million, of which US$111 million was subsequently paid. The following year, Babcock & Wilcox said it intended to sell a majority stake in the joint venture, but was unable to find a buyer.

In 2014, Babcock & Wilcox announced it was sharply reducing investment in mPower to US$15 million annually, citing the inability “to secure significant additional investors or customer engineering, procurement and construction contracts to provide the financial support necessary to develop and deploy mPower reactors”.

The mPower project was abandoned in 2017. The joint venture companies spent more than US$375 million on the project, in addition to the DOE’s US$111 million contribution.

Iceberg Research analysts predicted the collapse of NuScale’s Idaho project, drawing a furious response from NuScale, and later drew the connections between NuScale and mPower:

“[NuScale’s] trajectory bears striking similarities to the B&W mPower project, a joint venture formed in 2010 between Babcock & Wilcox and Bechtel. Like NuScale, mPower was developing a small modular reactor and enjoyed DOE backing. Babcock & Wilcox, mPower’s 90%-shareholder, attempted but failed to sell a majority stake in the project. In a similar vein, NuScale’s largest shareholder Fluor is actively trying to sell around 30% of its equity interest in NuScale. 

“There was eventually a significant reduction in funding for mPower. In March 2017, Bechtel withdrew from the joint venture, pointing to the challenges of securing a site and an investor for the first reactor. This led to the termination of the mPower project and Babcock & Wilcox paid Bechtel $30m as settlement.”

“There was eventually a significant reduction in funding for mPower. In March 2017, Bechtel withdrew from the joint venture, pointing to the challenges of securing a site and an investor for the first reactor. This led to the termination of the mPower project and Babcock & Wilcox paid Bechtel $30m as settlement.”

NuScale and mPower had everything going for them: large, experienced companies; conventional light-water reactor designs; and generous government subsidies. But they struggled to secure funding other than government subsidies. Needless to say, non-government funding is even more difficult to secure for projects without the backing of large companies, and for projects that envisage construction of unconventional reactors (molten salt reactors, fast neutron reactors, etc.).

NuScale’s failure is particularly striking given the extent of the government subsidies and given that NuScale had progressed further through the licensing process than other SMR designs (which isn’t saying much). Australia’s energy minister Chris Bowen said: “The opposition’s only energy policy is small modular reactors. Today, the most advanced prototype in the US has been cancelled. The LNP’s plan for energy security is just more hot air from Peter Dutton.”

NuScale’s failure is particularly striking given the extent of the government subsidies and given that NuScale had progressed further through the licensing process than other SMR designs (which isn’t saying much). Australia’s energy minister Chris Bowen said: “The opposition’s only energy policy is small modular reactors. Today, the most advanced prototype in the US has been cancelled. The LNP’s plan for energy security is just more hot air from Peter Dutton.”

Other failures

Many other plans to build small reactors have been abandoned. In 2013, US company Transatomic Power was promising that its ‘Waste-Annihilating Molten-Salt Reactor‘ would deliver safer nuclear power at half the price of power from conventional, large reactors. By the end of 2018, the company had given up on its ‘waste-annihilating’ claims, run out of money, and gone bust.

MidAmerican Energy gave up on its plans for SMRs in Iowa in 2013 after failing to secure legislation that would require ratepayers to partially fund construction costs.

In 2018, TerraPower abandoned its plan for a prototype fast neutron reactor in China due to restrictions placed on nuclear trade with China by the Trump administration.

The French government abandoned the planned 100-200 MW ASTRID demonstration fast reactor in 2019.

The US government abandoned consideration of ‘integral fast reactors‘ for plutonium disposition in 2015 and the UK government did the same in in 2019. (Plutonium disposition means destroying weapons-useable plutonium through irradiation, or treating plutonium in such a way as to render it useless in nuclear weapons.)

During the South Australian Royal Commission, nuclear lobbyists united behind a push for integral fast reactors and they would have expected some support from the stridently pro-nuclear Royal Commission.

However the Royal Commission rejected the proposal, noting in its May 2016 report that advanced fast reactors and other innovative reactor designs are unlikely to be feasible or viable in the foreseeable future; that the development of such a first-of-a-kind project would have high commercial and technical risk; that there is no licensed, commercially proven design and development to that point would require substantial capital investment; and that electricity generated from such reactors has not been demonstrated to be cost competitive with current light water reactor designs.

Dozens of SMR designs are being promoted — mostly by start-ups with a Powerpoint presentation. Precious few will reach the construction stage and the likelihood of SMRs being built in large numbers is negligible.

Dr. Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia and author of a detailed SMR briefing paper released in June.

Simon Daigle lists the public concerns that must be addressed in planned development of BWRX-300 small nuclear reactors – Submission to Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission

Submission Concerning the Proposed Development of BWRX-300 – multiple reactors at the Darlington Site (Ontario)

Submitted November 19,2023 by Simon J Daigle, Simon J Daigle, B.Sc., M.Sc., M.Sc(A) Montreal, Quebec Canada

 Response to the proposed development of OPGs BWRX-300 reactors at the Darlington CANDU reactors site and the items below are all real public concerns and must all be addressed independently and individually, as per the following categories:

CNSC licensing of the BWRX-300 reactors & Multiple Reactors nearby a NPP is inadequate [References: 1, 2, 4, 5]

• BWRX-300 stands for Boiling Water Reactor eXperimental 300 and developed by GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) and will not aim to address any key challenges faced by traditional nuclear power plants. In fact, they will be costly, and generate extremely toxic nuclear wastes more than what would be expected by traditional NPP plants. [Ref. 4].
• This experimental compact design will not reduce construction costs, will not simplify operation nearby one NPP, or will ever enhanced safety measures. In fact, it will do the exact opposite as per IAEA [Ref. 1 and 5].
• It is questionable to say the least that by utilizing natural circulation and passive safety systems you will eliminate the need for external pumps and active cooling mechanisms because during a meltdown, fire or catastrophic event (lightening, flooding, extreme air temperatures over decades because of climate change), who will shut it off? A worker? I’m more reassured when a Pilot on commercial flight is present when he or she is using the auto-pilot function [Ref. 1].

• CNSC license to built an experimental reactor based on the CNSC’s decision that OPG has met the recommendations of the 2011 Environmental Assessment Report by the JRP is not objectively verifiable or can be validated based on the 2023 Update report [Ref. 2].
• No objective evidence is available to validate what specific recommendations of the JRP have been adopted, analysed and/or implemented by OPG or CNSC. [Ref. 2].
• No BWRX-300 reactors are operating anywhere in the world and is a real public concern for the citizens living nearby as well as the potential impacts of a catastrophic environmental event that could be transboundary across many municipalities.

Engineering Design Risks: Experimental, Natural water cooling & neutron leakage [4,5].

• Water cannot be used to cool a reactor as it is experimental design reactor that will use use low pressure water to remove heat from the core. A distinct feature of this reactor design is that water is circulated within the core by natural circulation and yet no data is measured or validated by any laboratory confirmed analysis or modelling study.
• Neutron leakage will be problematic for any SMR design as well as for  the BRMX-300 reactor as no proof of any safe SMR reactor system can be validated or compared too to this very day.

• This is no experimental data to elude or conclude that this experimental reactor will work in terms of an internal cooling system of the core.
• BWRX-300 is by all means not small as it covers a full football field.
• No BWRX-300 reactors are operating anywhere in the world.
• The proposed design and operation of a BWRX-300 is entirely different from the CANDU design and involves a structure and a method of operating which is, in large part, below ground level.
• No data on any potential meltdown of the core of any modular nuclear including BWRX-300 including catastrophic events cascading located nearby a Nuclear Power Plant.
• Neutron leakage is a huge problem with SMRs and will be as well with the BWRX-300.

• SMR Neutronics and Design: [Ref. 4].
  • “A nuclear reactor is designed to sustain criticality, a chain reaction of fission events that generates energy (∼200 MeV per fission event) and extra neutrons that can cause fission in nearby fissile nuclides.
  • The neutron “economy” of a reactor depends on the efficiency of the chain reaction process; the fate of neutrons absorbed by abundant nuclides, such as 238U or 232Th; the fission of newly generated fissile nuclides, such as 239Pu and 233U; and the loss of neutrons across the fuel boundary.
  • These “lost” neutrons can activate structural materials that surround the fuel assemblies. Each of these physical processes generates radioactive waste.
  • Thus, the final composition of the SNF and associated wastes depend on the initial composition of the fuel, the physical design of the fuel, burnup, and the types of structural materials of the reactor.
  • The probability of neutron leakage is a function of the reactor dimensions and the neutron diffusion length, the latter of which is determined by the neutron scattering properties of the fuel, coolant, moderator, and structural materials in the reactor core.
  • The neutron diffusion length will be the same in reactors that use similar fuel cycles and fuel–coolant–moderator combinations; thus, the neutron leakage probability will be larger for an SMR than for a larger reactor of a similar type.”
• Public Consultation, indigenous peoples and social acceptability: [Ref. 2].
• No objective evidence has been elucidated or clearly documented with transparency.
• EIA Impact statement: page 84 of [Ref. 2].
• EIA impact statement, nor final PPE parameters, did not follow IAEA Multi-Unit Probabilistic Safety Assessment required for 1 or 4 experimental reactors nearby a Nuclear Power Plant despite the fact that EIA significance analysis had assessed all the residual adverse effects [Ref. 1, 5]. Please refer to the list of EIA and PPE selected quotes below as the reference to compare with the IAEA Multi-Unit Probabilistic Safety Assessment that is lacking [Ref. 1, 5].

• 
  EIA and PPE selected quotes:

“EIS significance analysis had assessed all the residual adverse effects to be “Not Significant”. Of the likely residual adverse effects that were forwarded for assessment of significance in the EIS:

• Seven (7) were also determined to result in minor residual adverse effects from the BWRX-300 but less than that described in the EIS,

• Four (4) were not applicable to the BWRX-300 reactor,

• Five (5) were determined to have residual adverse effects not significant after completion of additional studies to assess the likely effects to retained terrestrial features not considered in the EIS.

• The PPE Of the 198 PPE parameters, 60 PPE parameters were not applicable to the BWRX-300. Of the 138 applicable PPE parameters evaluated, eight (8) BWRX-300 parameters are currently not within their respective PPE parameters. These are largely due to characteristics inherent to the design of the GEH reactor technology. These eight parameters are related to the following topics:
  • The rate of fire protection water withdrawal and the quantity of water in storage,
  • Deeper foundations (38 m below grade) than the reactors previously assessed in the EIS (13.5 m),
  • Airborne releases of radioactive contaminants and normal operation minimum release height above finished grade,
  • The different proportions of radionuclides in solid wastes generated by the operation of the BWRX-300,
  • The weight of the cask used to transport the BWRX-300 spent fuel on site, and
  • The multiplication factors applied to basic wind speed to develop the plant design.
• A full environmental impact assessment is required to fulfill provincial and federal jurisdiction best practices for air, water and soil & biosphere impacts during a catastrophic event or meltdown of this experimental reactor as well as maritime and lake biosphere impacts.

Nuclear accidents, incidents, multiple explosion risks or 1 or 4 BMRX-300 reactors nearby a NPP, Soil Stability, hydrogeology, lithospheric & seismic Risks: [Ref. 1,2, 5].

• No objective risk assessment has been completed by OPG or CNSC as per the required IAEA Multi-Unit Probabilistic Safety Assessment required for 1 or 4 experimental reactors nearby a Nuclear Power Plant. [Ref. 1,5].
• The appropriateness of building 1 or 4 untested reactors next to the 4 existing CANDUs at Darlington as well as the current and potential stored nuclear waste is questionable given the fact that the probabilistic safety assessment was not completed according to the IAEA methodology [Ref. 1]. 
• JRP recommendations concerning the physical conditions of the Darlington site need to be applied with transparency by OPG and the CNSC. [Ref. 2].

Other public and safety concerns: these issues need to be addressed

• Climate change impacts have not been included in the EIS report.
• Unknown:  reliability data to reduce the risk of potential accidents.
• Unknown:  demonstrating that the BMRX-300 is a clean and reliable source of electricity, capable of generating vast amounts of energy without producing greenhouse gas emissions as it is only an experimental design.
• Concerns surrounding safety, waste disposal, and cost have hindered its widespread adoption globally. A handful of countries have adopted this design but no data on the true financial costs to governments or to that taxpayer. [Ref. 4].

Unknown: BWRX-300 did not address safety concerns, efficiency, efficacy as a cost-effective alternative compared to renewables such as hydro, solar or wind energy generation.

• 
  Unknown: sustainability and reliability compared to wind and solar energies to meet the growing demand for electricity.
• BWRX-300 represents a significant step backwards in power technology. It is not compact, it does not meet nuclear wastes (as per the IAEA ALARA principle) that will last for thousands of years, and most certainly, it is not cost effective over time to store and monitor SMR or BWRX-300 nuclear wastes based on the probability of any heat instability of the nuclear core over time and the generation of highly toxic nuclear waste. You cannot turn off radioactivity like an electrical light bulb as there are no fuse switch off for ionizing radiation.

Wishful thinking about nuclear energy won’t get us to net zero

The climate problem is too serious to engage in unrealistic modelling exercises. Wishful thinking about nuclear energy will only thwart our ability to act meaningfully to lower emissions rapidly.

 BY M.V. RAMANA AND SUSAN O’DONNELL | July 3, 2023  https://www.hilltimes.com/story/2023/07/03/wishful-thinking-about-nuclear-energy-wont-get-us-to-net-zero/391721/

On June 20, the Canada Energy Regulator (CER) released its 2023 Canada’s Energy Future report, developing scenarios for a path to net zero by 2050. These scenarios project roughly a tripling of nuclear energy generation capacity in Canada by 2050, seemingly reinforcing then-natural resources minister Seamus O’Regan’s statement in 2020 that there is “no path to net zero without nuclear.”

However, underlying both the scenarios and O’Regan’s contention is wishful thinking about the economics of nuclear energy, and how fast nuclear power can be scaled up.

The new nuclear capacity the report envisions consists of so-called small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), which have so far not been built in Canada. Aside from refurbishing existing CANDU reactors, the CER does not think any more standard sized nuclear reactors will be built in Canada. Most of this buildup is to happen between 2035-2050, meaning that nuclear power will not help meet the government’s stated goal of decarbonizing the electricity grid by 2035.

But can SMRs be built rapidly after 2035? Only two Crown companies in the business of generating electricity for the grid have proposed to build SMRs: NB Power in New Brunswick, and Ontario Power Generation (OPG).

The reactor designs proposed for New Brunswick are cooled by molten salts and liquid sodium metal. Despite decades of development work and billions of dollars invested, major technical challenges have prevented molten salt reactors and sodium-cooled reactors from commercial viability, making it highly unlikely that the New Brunswick designs can be rapidly deployed in the time frame envisioned by the CER.

Assuming that OPG’s chosen design—the 300-megawatt BWRX-300—is the one to be deployed widely, then around 70 SMR units would need to be built and operating effectively on the grid between 2030-2050. The BWRX-300 design is yet to be approved by any safety regulator anywhere in the world.

But the report has an even more serious problem: economics. Nuclear power cannot compete economically, which is why its share of global electricity generation has declined from 17.5 per cent in 1996 to 9.2 per cent in 2022. Because SMRs lose out on economies of scale, they will produce even more expensive electricity.

The CER’s scenarios for nuclear power are based on the Electricity Supply Model, meant to calculate “the most efficient and cost-effective way to meet electricity demand in each region.” Such models are widely used in energy analysis and policymaking, but their utility depends on the validity of the assumptions used; garbage in, garbage out.

Two key parameters underlie the report’s scenarios: the capital cost of an SMR, and how that cost evolves with time. The CER’s assumptions in the two net-zero scenarios are that a SMR costs $9,262 per kilowatt in 2020, falling to $8,348 per kW by 2030, and to $6,519 per kW by 2050. Both these assumptions are ridiculously out of touch with the real world. 

Consider the CAREM-25 SMR designed to feed 25 megawatts of electricity into the grid, being built in Argentina since 2014. Its original cost estimate in 2014 of US$446-million has escalated significantly since then, but even using these original costs, the project costs nearly $30,000 per kilowatt in 2022 Canadian dollars.

The NuScale design, arguably the closest to deployment in the United States, has been in development since 2007 with the build not yet begun. The January 2023 cost estimate for six NuScale SMRs with a total capacity of 462 megawatts is $9.3-billion, or over $26,000 per kilowatt in Canadian dollars.

Finally, the cost of the five-megawatt Micro Modular Reactor Project at Chalk River, Ont., was estimated by the proponent in May 2020 to be between $100- and $200-million. In 2022’s Canadian dollars, that works out to $22,000 to $44,000 per kilowatt.

In other words, the CER’s cost assumptions are wild underestimates, two-and-a-half to four times lower than the current evidence.

The second incorrect assumption is that costs will decrease with time. Both in the United States and France, the countries with the highest number of nuclear plants, the trend was the opposite: costs went up—not down—as more reactors were built. In both countries, the estimated construction cost of the most recent reactors being built—Vogtle in the United States and Flamanville-3 in France—have broken new records.

We need government organizations to do better. The climate problem is too serious for such unrealistic modelling exercises. Wishful thinking will only thwart our ability to act meaningfully to lower emissions rapidly.

M.V. Ramana is the Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security and professor at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia. Susan O’Donnell is adjunct research professor and primary investigator of the CEDAR project at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, N.B.

Stanford-led research finds small modular reactors will exacerbate challenges of highly radioactive nuclear waste

Small modular reactors, long touted as the future of nuclear energy, will actually generate more radioactive waste than conventional nuclear power plants, according to research from Stanford and the University of British Columbia.

BY MARK SHWARTZ, 30 May, News Stanford

Nuclear reactors generate reliable supplies of electricity with limited greenhouse gas emissions. But a nuclear power plant that generates 1,000 megawatts of electric power also produces radioactive waste that must be isolated from the environment for hundreds of thousands of years. Furthermore, the cost of building a large nuclear power plant can be tens of billions of dollars.

To address these challenges, the nuclear industry is developing small modular reactors that generate less than 300 megawatts of electric power and can be assembled in factories. Industry analysts say these advanced modular designs will be cheaper and produce fewer radioactive byproducts than conventional large-scale reactors.

But a study published May 31 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has reached the opposite conclusion.

“Our results show that most small modular reactor designs will actually increase the volume of nuclear waste in need of management and disposal, by factors of 2 to 30 for the reactors in our case study,” said study lead author Lindsay Krall, a former MacArthur Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). “These findings stand in sharp contrast to the cost and waste reduction benefits that advocates have claimed for advanced nuclear technologies.”

…………………………………. In the U.S. alone, commercial nuclear power plants have produced more than 88,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel, as well as substantial volumes of intermediate and low-level radioactive waste. The most highly radioactive waste, mainly spent fuel, will have to be isolated in deep-mined geologic repositories for hundreds of thousands of years. At present, the U.S. has no program to develop a geologic repository  after spending decades and billions of dollars on the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada. As a result, spent nuclear fuel is currently stored in pools or in dry casks at reactor sites, accumulating at a rate of about 2,000 metric tonnes per year.

Simple metrics

Some analysts maintain that small modular reactors will significantly reduce the mass of spent nuclear fuel generated compared to much larger, conventional nuclear reactors. But that conclusion is overly optimistic, according to Krall and her colleagues.

“Simple metrics, such as estimates of the mass of spent fuel, offer little insight into the resources that will be required to store, package, and dispose of the spent fuel and other radioactive waste,” said Krall, who is now a scientist at the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company. “In fact, remarkably few studies have analyzed the management and disposal of nuclear waste streams from small modular reactors.”

Dozens of small modular reactor designs have been proposed. For this study, Krall analyzed the nuclear waste streams from three types of small modular reactors being developed by Toshiba, NuScale, and Terrestrial Energy. Each company uses a different design. Results from case studies were corroborated by theoretical calculations and a broader design survey. This three-pronged approach enabled the authors to draw powerful conclusions.

“The analysis was difficult, because none of these reactors are in operation yet,” said study co-author Rodney Ewing, the Frank Stanton Professor in Nuclear Security at Stanford and co-director of CISAC. “Also, the designs of some of the reactors are proprietary, adding additional hurdles to the research.”

Neutron leakage

Energy is produced in a nuclear reactor when a neutron splits a uranium atom in the reactor core, generating additional neutrons that go on to split other uranium atoms, creating a chain reaction. But some neutrons escape from the core – a problem called neutron leakage – and strike surrounding structural materials, such as steel and concrete. These materials become radioactive when “activated” by neutrons lost from the core.

The new study found that, because of their smaller size, small modular reactors will experience more neutron leakage than conventional reactors. This increased leakage affects the amount and composition of their waste streams.

“The more neutrons that are leaked, the greater the amount of radioactivity created by the activation process of neutrons,” Ewing said. “We found that small modular reactors will generate at least nine times more neutron-activated steel than conventional power plants. These radioactive materials have to be carefully managed prior to disposal, which will be expensive.”

The study also found that the spent nuclear fuel from small modular reactors will be discharged in greater volumes per unit energy extracted and can be far more complex than the spent fuel discharged from existing power plants.

“Some small modular reactor designs call for chemically exotic fuels and coolants that can produce difficult-to-manage wastes for disposal,” said co-author Allison Macfarlane, professor and director of the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia. “Those exotic fuels and coolants may require costly chemical treatment prior to disposal.”

“The takeaway message for the industry and investors is that the back end of the fuel cycle may include hidden costs that must be addressed,” Macfarlane said. “It’s in the best interest of the reactor designer and the regulator to understand the waste implications of these reactors.”

Radiotoxicity

The study concludes that, overall, small modular designs are inferior to conventional reactors with respect to radioactive waste generation, management requirements, and disposal options.

One problem is long-term radiation from spent nuclear fuel. The research team estimated that after 10,000 years, the radiotoxicity of plutonium in spent fuels discharged from the three study modules would be at least 50 percent higher than the plutonium in conventional spent fuel per unit energy extracted. ……..more https://news.stanford.edu/2022/05/30/small-modular-reactors-produce-high-levels-nuclear-waste/?fbclid=IwAR3hUe5R3zYb25eJ-8dJzM_vXATq4Du7Hk_XEhdeED_BTvwCqm0XLo3mE8o

Small modular reactors will not save the day. The US can get to 100% clean power without new nuclear

We can create a renewable electricity system that is much more resilient to weather extremes and more reliable than what we have today.

 https://www.utilitydive.com/news/small-modular-reactor-smr-wind-solar-battery-100-percent-clean-power-electricity/637372/ Nov. 28, 2022, By Arjun Makhijani

There is a widespread view that nuclear energy is necessary for decarbonizing the electricity sector in the United States. It is expressed not only by the nuclear industry, but also by scholars and policy-makers like former Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who recently said that the choices we have “…when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine” are “fossil fuel or nuclear.” I disagree.

Wind and solar are much cheaper than new nuclear plants even when storage is added. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimated the cost of unsubsidized utility-scale solar plus battery storage in 2021 was $77 per megawatt-hour — about half the cost of new nuclear as estimated by the Wall Street firm Lazard. (An average New York State household uses a megawatt-hour in about seven weeks.)

Time is the scarcest resource of all for addressing the climate crisis. Nuclear has failed spectacularly on this count as well. Of the 34 new reactor projects announced for the “nuclear renaissance,” only two reactors being built in Georgia are set to come online — years late at more than double the initial cost estimate, a success rate of 6%. Even including the old Watts Bar 2 reactor (start of construction: 1973), which was completed in 2016 (well over budget), raises the success rate to just 9% — still much worse than the mediocre 50-50 record of the first round of nuclear construction in the U.S., when about half of the proposed reactors were ultimately built. The nuclear industry is marching fast — in the wrong direction.

The much-ballyhooed Small Modular Reactors are not going to save the day. NuScale, the most advanced in terms of certification, had announced in 2008 that its first reactor would be on line in 2015-2016; now the date is 2028 and costs have risen. In the same period, wind and solar generation have cumulatively generated electricity equal to more than the amount 300 NuScale SMRs would produce in 15 years. Nuclear is dismally slow, unequal to the climate challenge.

Simply saying that nuclear is “baseload power” is to recite an obsolete mantra. As David Olsen, a member of the Board of Governors of the California Independent System Operator, which runs that state’s electricity grid, has said: “‘Baseload’ refers to an old paradigm that has to go away.”

It is generally agreed that solar, wind and battery storage cannot address the entire decarbonization problem. They can do the job economically and reliably about 95% of the time. Much of the gap would be on winter nights with low wind when most buildings have electrified their heating and electric cars are plugged in. That’s where working with the rhythms of nature comes in.

Spring and autumn will be times of plentiful surplus wind and solar; that essentially free electricity could be used to make hydrogen to power light-duty fuel cells (such as those used in cars) to generate electricity on those cold winter nights. Surplus electricity can also be stored in the ground as cold or heat — artificial geothermal energy — for use during peak summer and winter hours.

Then there is V2G: vehicle-to-grid technology. When Hurricane Ian caused a blackout for millions in Florida, a Ford F-150 Lightning in “vehicle-to-home” mode saved the day for some. Plugged-in cars could have a dual purpose — as a load on the grid, or, for owners who sign up to profit, a supply resource for the grid, even as the charge for the commute next day is safeguarded.

We are also entering an era of smart appliances that can “talk” to the grid; it’s called “demand response.” The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission recognizes it as a resource equivalent to generation when many devices like cars or air conditioners are aggregated. People would get paid to sign up, and on those rare occasions when their heaters are lowered a degree or their clothes washing is postponed by a few hours, they would be paid again. No one would have to sign up; but signing up would make electricity cheaper. We know from experience there will be plenty of takers if the price is right.

All that is more than enough to take care of the 5% gap. No uranium mining, no nuclear waste, no plutonium produced just to keep the lights on.

We can create a renewable electricity system that is much more resilient to weather extremes and more reliable than what we have today. The thinking needs to change, as the Drake Landing Solar Community in Alberta, Canada, where it gets to negative 40 degrees Celsius in the winter, has shown. It provides over 90% of its heating by storing solar energy in the ground before the winter comes. Better than waiting for the nuclear Godot.

A pretentious and dishonest story-telling conference of Small Nuclear Reactor salesmen in Atlanta 2022

Markku Lehtonen in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists covered this conference  – “SMR & Advanced Reactor 2022” event in Atlanta – in a lengthy article.

The big players were there, among  over 400 vendors, utility representatives, government officials, investors, and policy advocates, in “an atmosphere full of hope for yet another nuclear renaissance.

The writer details the claims and intentions of the SMR salesmen – in this “occasion for “team-building” and raising of spirits within the nuclear community.’, in relation to climate change and future energy needs, and briefly mentioning “security”, which is code for the nuclear weapons aspect.

It struck me that “team building” might be difficult, seeing that the industry representatives were from a whole heap of competing firms, with a whole heap of different small reactor designs, (and not all designs are even small, really)

This Bulletin article presents a measured discussion of the possibilities and the needs of the small nuclear reactors. The writer recognises that this gathering was really predominantly a showcase for the small nuclear wares, – the SMR salesmen  “must promise, if not a radiant future, at least significant benefits to society. “

“Otherwise, investors, decision-makers, potential partners, and the public at large will not accept the inevitable costs and risks. Above all, promising is needed to convince governments to provide the support that has always been vital for the survival of the nuclear industry.”

He goes on to describe the discussions and concerns about regulation, needs for a skilled workforce, government support, economic viability. There were some contradictory claims about fast-breeder reactors.

Most interesting was the brief discussion on the political atmosphere, the role of governments, the question of over-regulation .

” A senior industry representative …. lamenting that the nuclear community has “allowed too much democracy to get in“

“The economic viability of the SMR promise will crucially depend on how much further down the road towards deglobalization, authoritarianism in its various guises, and further tweaking of the energy markets the Western societies are willing to go”

The Bulletin article concludes:

“Promises and counter-promises. For the SMR community that gathered in Atlanta, the conference was a moment of great hope and opportunity, not least thanks to the aggravating climate and energy security crises. But the road toward the fulfilment of the boldest SMR promises will be long, as is the list of the essential preconditions. To turn SMR promises into reality, the nuclear community will need no less than to achieve sufficient internal cohesion, attract investors, navigate through licensing processes, build up supply chains and factories for module manufacturing, win community acceptance on greenfield sites, demonstrate a workable solution to waste management, and reach a rate of deployment sufficient to trigger learning and generate economies of replication. Most fundamentally, governments would need to be persuaded to provide the many types of support SMRs require to deliver on their promises.

Promising of the kind seen at the conference is essential for the achievement of these objectives. The presentations and discussions in the corridors indeed ran the full gamut of promise-building, from the conviction of a dawning nuclear renaissance along the lines “this time, it will be different!” through the hope of SMRs as a solution to the net-zero and energy-security challenges, and all the way to specific affirmations hailing the virtues of individual SMR designs. The legitimacy and credibility of these claims were grounded in the convictions largely shared among the participants that renewables alone “just don’t cut it,” that the SMR supply chain is there, and that the nuclear industry has in the past shown its ability to rise to similar challenges.

Two questions appear as critical for the future of SMRs. First, despite the boost from the Ukraine crisis, it is uncertain whether SMR advocates can muster the political will and societal acceptance needed to turn SMRs into a commercial success. The economic viability of the SMR promise will crucially depend on how much further down the road towards deglobalization, authoritarianism in its various guises, and further tweaking of the energy markets the Western societies are willing to go. Although the heyday of neoliberalism is clearly behind us and government intervention is no longer the kind of swearword it was before the early 2000s, nothing guarantees that the nuclear euphoria following the Atoms for Peace program in the 1950s can be replicated. Moreover, the reliance of the SMR business case on complex global supply chains as well as on massive deployment and geographical dispersion of nuclear facilities creates its own geopolitical vulnerabilities and security problems.

Second, the experience from techno-scientific promising in a number of sectors has shown that to be socially robust, promises need constructive confrontation with counter-promises. In this regard, the Atlanta conference constituted somewhat of a missed opportunity. The absence of critical voices reflected a longstanding problem of the nuclear community recognized even by insiders—namely its unwillingness to embrace criticism and engage in constructive debate with sceptics. “Safe spaces” for internal debates within a like-minded community certainly have their place, yet in the current atmosphere of increasing hype, the SMR promise needs constructive controversy and mistrust more than ever.”  https://thebulletin.org/2022/12/building-promises-of-small-modular-reactors-one-conference-at-a-time

Nuclear Power Is a Dead End. We Must Abandon It Completely.

In fact, the knock-out arguments against the nuclear industry today are reactors’ cost and deployment time. The greatest barriers to this claimed renaissance—and it is primarily talk, not investment—is its inability to deliver affordable power on time and on budget.

Small nuclear reactors (SMRs) -both slower to deploy than conventional reactors and more expensive per kilowatt capacity. “overall, SMRs are inferior to conventional reactors with respect to radioactive waste generation, management requirements, and disposal options.”

Even given Europe’s energy crisis, the case against nuclear power has never been so conclusive—and so important.

The Nation, By Paul Hockenos 13 Oct 22,

BERLIN—Amid a confluence of crises—the Ukraine war, an energy crisis, and climate breakdown—nuclear energy is experiencing a renaissance, at least in the rhetoric of politicians and pundits across Europe, North America, and beyond. After all, it’s tempting to propose these generators of low-carbon energy as a panacea to this daunting phalanx of calamities.

But in fact, the case against nuclear power and for genuinely renewable energies has never been so conclusive—and so important. In early March, Russia captured the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine—the largest in Europe with six reactors, each the size of the one that melted down in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster—and transformed it into an army base from which it fires artillery at Ukrainian positions.

Although this weaponizing of nuclear reactors had long been recognized as a threat, the vulnerability of nuclear power plants in conflict zones is now center stage in Europe. The battlefield in this case is controlled by an unpredictable autocrat who has threatened that he’ll use every means at his disposal to destroy Ukraine. At the Zaporizhzhia station, the Russian military has taken the Ukrainian nuclear engineers hostage, and is working them at gunpoint. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned in August that there’s a “real risk of nuclear disaster” unless the fighting stops. Russia could sabotage a power plant like Zaporizhzhia and attempt to shift the blame onto Ukraine. A nuclear weapon strike would be a crime against humanity, but a disaster at nuclear plant could blur responsibility and complicate the international response. Nuclear plants, where military-scale security is nonexistent, are sitting ducks for acts of terrorism and wartime targeting.

At the same time, the world’s nuclear power champion, France, has punctured the myth that nuclear power is a round-the-clock energy source that can operate without back-up reserves—a favorite trope of wind and solar power skeptics. Nowhere in Europe today is the energy crisis more acute than in France, where for much of this year, between a third and over half of France’s 56 nuclear reactors have been shut down either because weather-warmed rivers cannot cool their systems or on account of corrosion damage, hairline cracks, staff shortages, and pending maintenance work on their geriatric hardware. The outages have forced France to rely on Germany for electricity imports—culled in large part from the wind and solar farms that supply almost half of Germany’s electricity. In August, France’s power prices hit €1,100 per megawatt-hour, more than 10 times the 2021 price, smashing records across the continent………………………………………

Critics’ original concern with nuclear power, namely its safety, remains paramount. The two most catastrophic meltdowns, in 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Soviet Union and the Fukushima site in Japan, in 2011, had horrific repercussions that still haunt those regions. But these mega disasters are only the most well known. According to IAEA, there have been 33 serious incidents at nuclear power stations worldwide since 1952—two in France and six in the United States.

These accident numbers don’t include the toxic fallout from lax disposal and storage of nuclear waste.

Between 1945 and 1993, 13 countries, including the UK, the US, and the Soviet Union, heaved barrels of nuclear waste into their seas—a total of 200,000 tons—presuming the vast ocean waters would dissolve and dilute it. Those casks still lie there today.

This sad chapter belongs to the 80-year-old saga of nuclear waste. Currently, there’s over a quarter-million metric tons of spent fuel rods sitting above ground, usually in cooling pools at both closed-down and operative nuclear plants, waiting like Samuel Beckett’s protagonists Vladimir and Estragon for a definitive solution that will never come.

In northern Europe, the Finns claim that they’ve solved it by digging 100 tunnels 1,400 feet into the bedrock of an uninhabited island in the Gulf of Bothnia. Underway now for decades, this $3.4 billion undertaking, the first permanent repository in the world, will eventually hold all of Finland’s spent nuclear refuse—less than 1 percent of the world’s accumulated radioactive remnants—until about 2100. This highly radioactive mass will, its operators promise, remain catacombed for 100,000 years. (Since nuclear waste is lethal for up to 300,000 years, these sites are a time-bomb for whoever or whatever is inhabiting the planet then, assuming geological conditions allow it to lie peacefully for that long.) In light of Finland’s small volume of radioactive waste, the full lifetime price tag of nearly $8 billion dollars is significantly more per ton than the estimated $34.9 billion, $19.8 billion, and $96 billion that the France, Germany, and the United States respectively will shell out for nuclear waste management, according to the World Nuclear Waste Report 2019.

Most countries don’t have barren islands far from groundwater sources, so they have to make do, like Switzerland did in September when it announced that it intends to excavate a geological storage repository near the German border, closer to German towns in Baden Württemberg than Swiss ones. Germany’s borderland communities are vigorously contesting the choice, which will probably be abandoned by the Swiss. Nearly all proposed sites end up scratched for the obvious reason that nobody wants to live next to a nuclear waste dump.

“Nowhere in the world has anyone managed to create a place where we can bury extremely nasty nuclear waste forever,” Denis Florin of Lavoisier Conseil, an energy-focused management consultancy in Paris, told the Financial Times earlier this year. “We cannot go on using nuclear without being adult about the waste, without accepting we need to find a permanent solution.”

The inherent danger of nuclear power is often relativized by advocates as the bitter pill we must choke down in light of its other advantages. In fact, the knock-out arguments against the nuclear industry today are reactors’ cost and deployment time. The greatest barriers to this claimed renaissance—and it is primarily talk, not investment—is its inability to deliver affordable power on time and on budget.

Nuclear energy is such a colossal expense—into the tens of billions of dollars, like the $30 billion Vogtle units in Waynesboro, Ga.—that few private investors will touch them, even with prodigious government bankrolling.

The UK government finally found a taker for its Hinkley Point C station in 2016 when it offered lavish subsidies to the French energy firm EDF. But even that deal becomes less sweet the higher construction costs spiral and the longer EDF postpones its opening beyond 2025. So catastrophic are the cost overruns of EDF’s projects worldwide that the company could no longer service its €43 billion debt and this year agreed to full nationalization. But experts say this alone won’t solve any of the fundamental problems at Hinkley C or the Flamanville plant in Normandy, which is 10 years behind schedule, with costs fives times in excess of the original budget. Cost overruns are one reason that one in eight new reactor projects that start construction are abandoned.

While safety concerns drive up the cost of nuclear plant insurance, the price of renewables is predicted to sink by 50 percent or more by 2030. Study after study attests that wind and solar cost a fraction of the price of nuclear power: at least three to eight times the bang for the buck in terms of energy generation and climate protection, at a time when the exorbitant cost of energy is causing recessions and street protests across Europe. It is because solar photovoltaic and wind power are the cheapest bulk power source in most of the world that renewables, grids, and storage now account for more than 80 percent of power sector investment. In 2021, companies, governments, and households invested 15 times as much in renewable energy than in nuclear. They’re simply the better buy.

NUCLEAR IS MUCH TOO SLOW

Indeed, in the face of an ever more cataclysmic climate crisis that demands solutions now—like hitting the EU’s 2030 targets of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 55 percent of 1990 levels by 2030—the build-out of nuclear is painfully, prohibitively slow. In Europe, just one nuclear reactor has been planned, commissioned, financed, constructed, and put online since 2000—that’s Finland’s Olkiluoto-3 reactors (March 2022). Europe’s flagship nuclear projects—called European Pressurized Reactors—have been dogged by delays from the start. The Olkiluoto-3 reactors in Finland, which had been scheduled to go online in 2009, still isn’t heating homes. Globally, the average construction time—which count the planning, licensing, site preparation, and arranging of finances—is about a decade.

Small-scale modular reactors (SMR), advanced with funding during the Obama administration, are supposedly the industry’s savior—the so-called next generation—although they’ve been around for decades. Purportedly quicker to build, with factory-made parts, they generate at most a 10th of the energy as a conventional reactor. Yet they are not significantly different in terms of their problems. The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2022 claims that, so far, they have been both slower to deploy than conventional reactors and more expensive per kilowatt capacity. A recent study conducted by Stanford University and University of British Columbia came to the conclusion that “overall, SMRs are inferior to conventional reactors with respect to radioactive waste generation, management requirements, and disposal options.”

NUCLEAR AND RENEWABLES DON’T MIX

Finally, the last claim of nuclear supporters is that the massive baseload supply that reactors provide when they’re up and running is just what systems reliant on weather-based renewables need at down times. In fact, nuclear is the opposite of what decentralized clean energy systems require.

Renewables and nuclear energy don’t mix well in one system, explains Toby Couture of the Berlin-based think tank E3 Analytics. “What renewables need is not so-called baseload power,” he told me, “which is inflexible and unable to ramp up and down, but flexible, nimble supply provided by the likes of storage capacity, smart grids, demand management, and a growing toolbox of other mechanisms, not the large and inflexible supply of nuclear reactors.”

Couture added, “The inability of nuclear power to ramp down effectively to ‘make room’ for cheap wind and solar is one of the main reasons why France’s own domestic renewable energy development has lagged behind its peers.” According to Couture, France’s inability to flexibly accommodate wind and solar has exacerbated the continent-wide power supply crunch.

In light of the energy crisis, Germany may extend the lifetime of two of its three remaining nuclear plants for three months, in a reserve capacity beyond their scheduled end-of-year closure date. This emergency measure, a direct consequence of the previous governments’ failures, does not alter the logic against nuclear power, which even Germany’s own nuclear industry now accepts. Renewables, clean tech, and energy efficiency are easy to rollout, cost-effective, safe, and proven. Let’s concentrate on deploying these technologies at full speed to decarbonize our world before the impacts of climate change overwhelm us. https://www.thenation.com/article/world/nuclear-power-europe-energy/

Small nuclear reactors will bleed us dry and won’t solve climate change – unfounded promises

there is every reason to believe that if and when a NuScale SMR is built, its final cost too will vastly exceed current official estimates. 

Unfounded promises — Beyond Nuclear International Small Modular Reactors epitomize culture that embraces exaggeration
By M.V. Ramana
In 2006, Elizabeth Holmes, founder of a Silicon Valley startup company called Theranos, was featured in Inc magazine’s annual list of 30 under 30 entrepreneurs. Her entrepreneurship involved blood, or more precisely, testing blood. Instead of the usual vials of blood, Holmes claimed to be able to obtain precise results about the health of patients using a very small sample of blood drawn from just a pinprick. 

The promise was enticing and Holmes had a great run for a decade. She was supported by a bevy of celebrities and powerful individuals, including former U.S. secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, James Mattis, who later served as U.S. secretary of defense, and media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Not that any of them would be expected to know much about medical science or blood testing. But all that public endorsement helped. As did savvy marketing by Holmes. Theranos raised over $700 million from investors, and receive a market valuation of nearly $9 billion by 2014. 

The downfall started the following year, when the Wall Street Journal exposed that Theranos was actually using standard blood tests behind the scenes because its technology did not really work. In January 2022, Holmes was found guilty of defrauding investors.

The second part of the Theranos story is an exception. In a culture which praises a strategy of routine exaggeration, encapsulated by the slogan “fake it till you make it”, it is rare for a tech CEO being found guilty of making false promises. But the first part of Theranos story—hype, advertisement, and belief in impossible promises—is very much the norm, and not just in the case of companies involved in the health care industry. 

Small Modular Nuclear Reactors

Nuclear power offers a great example. In 2003, an important study produced by nuclear advocates at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology identified costs, safety, proliferation and waste as the four “unresolved problems” with nuclear power. Not surprisingly, then, companies trying to sell new reactor designs claim that their product will be cheaper, will produce less—or  no—radioactive waste, be immune to accidents, and not contribute to nuclear proliferation. These tantalizing promises are the equivalent of testing blood with a pin prick. 

And, as was the case with Theranos, many such companies have been backed up by wealthy investors and influential spokespeople, who have typically had as much to do with nuclear power as Kissinger had to with testing blood. Examples include Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley investor; Stephen Harper, the former Prime Minister of Canada; and  Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin group. But just as the Theranos product did not do what Elizabeth Holmes and her backers were claiming, new nuclear reactor designs will not solve the multiple challenges faced by nuclear power.

One class of nuclear reactors that have been extensively promoted in this vein during the last decade are Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). The promotion has been productive for these companies, especially in Canada. Some of these companies have received large amounts of funding from the national and provincial governments. This includes Terrestrial Energy that received CAD 20 million and Moltex that received CAD 50.5 million, both from the Federal Government. The province of New Brunswick added to these by awarding CAD 5 million to Moltex and CAD 25 million in all to ARC-100. 

All these companies have made various claims about the above mentioned problems. Moltex, for example, claims that its reactor design “reduces waste”, a claim also made by ARC-100. ARC-100 also claims to be inherently safe, while Terrestrial claims to be cost-competive. Both Terrestrial and ARC-100 claim to do well on proliferation resistance. In general, no design will admit to failing on any of these challenges. 

Dealing with any of these challenges—safety enhancement, proliferation resistance, decreased generation of waste, and cost reduction—will have to be reflected in the technical design of the nuclear reactor. The problem is that each of these goals will drive the requirements on the reactor design in different, sometimes opposing, directions.

Economics

The hardest challenge is economics. Nuclear energy is an expensive way to generate electricity. In the 2021 edition of its annual cost report, Lazard, the Wall Street firm, estimated that the levelized cost of electricity from new nuclear plants will be between $131 and $204 per megawatt hour; in contrast, newly constructed utility-scale solar and wind plants produce electricity at somewhere between $26 and $50 per megawatt hour according to Lazard. The gap between nuclear power and renewables is large, and is growing larger. While nuclear costs have increased with time, the levelized cost of electricity for solar and wind have declined rapidly, and this is expected to continue over the coming decades. 

Even operating costs for nuclear power plants are high and many reactors have been shut down because they are unprofitable. In 2018, NextEra, a large electric utility company in the United States, decided to shut down the Duane Arnold nuclear reactor, because it estimated that replacing nuclear with wind power will “save customers nearly $300 million in energy costs, on a net present value basis.” 

The high cost of constructing and operating nuclear plants is a key driver of the decline of nuclear power around the world. In 1996, nuclear energy’s share of global commercial gross electricity generation peaked at 17.5 percent. By 2020, that had fallen to 10.1 percent, a 40 percent decline. 

The high costs described above are for large nuclear power plants. SMRs, as the name suggests, produce relatively small amounts of electricity in comparison. Economically, this is a disadvantage. When the power output of the reactor decreases, it generates less revenue for the owning utility, but the cost of constructing the reactor is not proportionately smaller. SMRs will, therefore, cost more than large reactors for each unit (megawatt) of generation capacity. This makes electricity from small reactors more expensive. This is why most of the early small reactors built in the United States shut down early: they just couldn’t compete economically.

SMR proponents argue that the lost economies of scale will be compensated by savings through mass manufacture in factories and as these plants are built in large numbers costs will go down. But this claim is not very tenable. Historically, in the United States and France, the countries with the highest number of nuclear plants, costs went up, not down, with experience. Further, to achieve such savings, these reactors have to be manufactured by the hundreds, if not the thousands, even under very optimistic assumptions about rates of learning. Finally, even if SMRs were to become comparable in cost per unit capacity of large nuclear reactors, that would not be sufficient to make them economically competitive, because their electricity production cost would still be far higher than solar and wind energy.

…………………………………………. Cost escalations are already apparent in the case of the NuScale SMR, arguably the design that is most developed in the West. The estimated cost of the Utah Association of Municipal Power Systems project went from approximately $3 billion in 2014 to $6.1 billion in 2020—this is to build twelve units of the NuScale SMR that were to generate 600 megawatts of power. The cost was so high that NuScale had to change its offering to a smaller number of units that produce only 462 megawatts, but at a cost of $5.32 billion. In other words, the cost per kilowatt of generation capacity is around $11,500 (US dollars). That figure is around 80 percent more than the per kilowatt cost of the infamous Vogtle project at the time its construction started. Since that initial estimate of $14 billion for the two AP1000 reactors, the estimated cost of the much delayed project has escalated beyond $30 billion. As with the AP1000 reactors, there is every reason to believe that if and when a NuScale SMR is built, its final cost too will vastly exceed current official estimates. ……………

Timelines

The other promise made by SMR developers is how fast they can be deployed. GE-Hitachi, for example, claims that an SMR could be “complete as early as 2028” at the Darlington site.  ARC-100 described an operational date of 2029 as an “aggressive but achievable target”. 

Again, the historical record suggests otherwise. Consider NuScale. In 2008, the company projected that “a NuScale plant could be producing electricity by 2015-16”. As of 2022, the company projects 2029-30 as the date for start of generation. Russia’s KLT-40S, a reactor deployed on a barge, offers another example. When construction started in 2007, the reactor was projected to start operations in October 2010. It was actually commissioned a whole decade later, in May 2020. 

The SMR designs being considered in Canada are even further off. In December 2021, Ontario Power Generation chose the BWRX-300 for the Darlington site. That design is based on GE-Hitachi’s Economical Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) design, which was submitted for licensing to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2005. That ESBWR design was changed nine times; the NRC finally approved revision 10 from 2014. If the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission does its due diligence, it might be 2030 or later before the BWRX-300 is even licensed for construction. That assumes that the BWRX-300 design remains unchanged. And, then, of course, there will be the inevitable delays (and cost escalations) during construction. ………….

Waste, Proliferation and Safety

Small reactors also cause all of the usual problems: the risk of severe accidents, the production of radioactive waste, and the potential for nuclear weapons proliferation. …………

……………  small modular reactor proposals often envision building multiple reactors at a site. The aim is to lower costs by taking advantage of common infrastructure elements. The configuration offered by NuScale, for example, has twelve reactor modules at each site, although it also offers four- and six-unit versions. With multiple reactors, the combined radioactive inventories might be comparable to that of a large reactor. Multiple reactors at a site increase the risk that an accident at one unit might either induce accidents at other reactors or make it harder to take preventive actions at others. This is especially the case if the underlying reason for the accident is a common one that affects all of the reactors, such as an earthquake. In the case of the accidents at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant, explosions at one reactor damaged the spent fuel pool in a co-located reactor. Radiation leaks from one unit made it difficult for emergency workers to approach the other units. ……………………………

Claims by SMR proponents about not producing waste are not credible, especially if waste is understood not as one kind of material but a number of different streams. A recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examined three specific SMR designs and calculates that “relative to a gigawatt-scale PWR” these three will produce up to 5.5 times more spent fuel, 30 times more long-lived low and intermediate level waste, and 35 times more short-lived low and intermediate level waste. In other words, in comparison with large light water reactors, SMRs produce more, not less, waste per unit of electricity generated. As Paul Dorfman from the University of Sussex commented, “compared with existing conventional reactors, SMRs would increase the volume and complexity of the nuclear waste problem”.

Further, some of the SMR designs involve the use of materials that are corrosive and/or pyrophoric. Dealing with these forms is more complicated. For example, the ARC-100 design will use sodium that cannot be disposed of in geological repositories without extensive processing. Such processing has never been carried out at scale. The difference in chemical properties mean that the methods developed for dealing with waste from CANDU reactors will not work as such for these wastes.

Many SMR designs also make the problem of proliferation worse. Unlike the CANDU reactor design that uses natural uranium, many SMR designs use fuel forms that require either enriched uranium or plutonium. Either plutonium or uranium that is highly enriched in the uranium-235 isotope can be used to make nuclear weapons. Because uranium enrichment facilities can be reconfigured to alter enrichment levels, it is possible for a uranium enrichment facility designed to produce fuel for a reactor to be reconfigured to produce fuel for a bomb. All else being equal, nuclear reactor designs that require fuel with higher levels of uranium enrichment pose a greater proliferation risk—this is the reason for the international effort to convert highly enriched uranium fueled research reactors to low enriched uranium fuel or shutting them down.

Plutonium is created in all nuclear power plants that use uranium fuel, but it is produced alongside intensely radioactive fission products. Practically any mixture of plutonium isotopes could be used for making weapons. Using the plutonium either to fabricate nuclear fuel or to make nuclear weapons, require the “reprocessing” of the spent fuel. Canada has not reprocessed its power reactor spent fuel, but some SMR designs, such as the Moltex design, propose to “recycle” CANDU spent fuel. Last year, nine US nonproliferation experts wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressing serious concerns “about the technology Moltex proposes to use.” 

The proliferation problem is made worse by SMRs in many ways. ……………………..

Conclusion

The saga of Theranos should remind us to be skeptical of unfounded promises. Such promises are the fuel that drive the current interest in small modular nuclear reactors………

Rather than seeing the writing on the wall, unfortunately, government agencies are wasting money on funding small modular reactor proposals. Worse, they seek to justify such funding by repeating the tall claims made by promoters of these technologies……  https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2022/07/31/unfounded-promises00

Much hyping for France’s NUWARD small modular reactor (SMR) design: construction to start in 2030 (but will it be a lemon?)

France’s NUWARD SMR Will Be Test Case for European Early Joint Nuclear Regulatory Review,   Power, 5 June 22. The French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), the Czech State Office for Nuclear Safety (SUJB), and Finland’s Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) have picked France’s NUWARD small modular reactor (SMR) design as a test case for an early joint regulatory review for SMRs. The development marks a notable step by European regulators to align practices in a bid to harmonize licensing and regulation for SMRs in the region.

EDF, an entity that is majority held by the French government, on June 2 announced the reactor design will be the subject of the review, which “will be based on the current set of national regulations from each country, the highest international safety objectives and reference levels, and up-to-date knowledge and relevant good practice.”

The technical discussions and collaborative efforts associated with the review will both help ASN, STUK, and SUJB “increase their respective knowledge of each other’s regulatory practices at the European level,” as well as “improve NUWARD’s ability to anticipate the challenges of international licensing and meet future market needs,” it said.

A European Frontrunner

NUWARD, which is still currently in the conceptual design phase, may be a frontrunner in the deployment of SMRs in Europe. It was unveiled in 2019 by EDF, France’s Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), French defense contractor Naval Group, and TechnicAtome, a designer of naval propulsion nuclear reactors and an operator of nuclear defense facilities. The consortium in May tasked Belgian engineering firm Tractabel with completing—by October 2022—conceptual design studies for parts of the conventional island (turbine hall), the balance of plant (water intake and servicing system), and the 3D modeling of the buildings that will house those systems.

Launched as a design that derives from the “best-in-class French technologies” and “more than 50 years of experience in pressurized water reactor (PWR) design, development, construction, and operation,” the design proposes a 340-MWe power plant configured with twin 170-MWe modules. NUWARD is based on an integrated PWR design with full integration of the main components within the reactor pressure vessel, including the control rod drive mechanisms, compact steam generators, and pressurizer, CEA says.

As “the most compact reactor in the world,” the design is well-suited for power generation, including replacing coal and gas-fired generation, as well as for electrification of medium-sized cities and isolated industrial sites, CEA says. According to Tractabel, the next phase of the NUWARD project—the basic design completion—is slated to begin in 2023. Construction of a reference plant is expected to start in 2030.

Crucial to SMR Deployment: Harmonization of Regulations

On Thursday, EDF noted that while SMR technology innovation is important, deployment of SMRs, which will be integral to the energy transition toward carbon neutrality, will require “a serial production process and a clear regulatory framework.” Harmonization of regulations and requirements in Europe and elsewhere will be “an essential element to support aspirations of standardization of design, in-factory series production and limited design adaptations to country-specific requirements,” it said.  

Several efforts to encourage collaboration on SMR licensing and regulatory alignment are already underway in Europe. These include the European SMR Partnership led by FORATOM, the Brussels-based trade association for the nuclear energy industry in Europe, and the Sustainable Nuclear Energy Technology Platform (SNETP), as well as the Nuclear Harmonisation and Standardisation Initiative (NHSI), which the International Atomic Energy Agency launched in March.

The European Union is separately spearheading the ELSMOR project, which aims to enhance the European capability to assess and develop the innovative light water reactor (LWR) SMR concepts and their safety features, as well as sharing that information with policymakers and regulators.

SMRs Part of Future Plans for France, Czech Republic, Finland

Participation of the three countries—France, the Czech Republic, and Finland—is noteworthy for their near-term plans to expand generation portfolios with new nuclear. French President Emmanuel Macron on Feb. 10 said France will build six new nuclear reactors and will consider building eight more. Macron also notably said $1.1 billion would be made available through the France 2030 re-industrialization plan for the NUWARD SMR project.

In the Czech Republic, which has six existing nuclear reactors that generate about a third of its power, energy giant ČEZ has designated a site at the Temelín Nuclear Power Plant as a potential site for an SMR. ČEZ has signed a memorandum of understanding on SMRs with NuScale, and it also has cooperation agreements with GE Hitachi, Rolls-Royce, EDF, Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power, and Holtec.

Finland has five operating reactors, and it is in the process of starting up Olkiluoto 3, a 1.6-GW EPR (EDF’s next-generation nuclear reactor), whose construction began in 2005. Two others were planned: Olkiluoto 4 and Hanhikivi 1. Early in May, however, Finnish-led consortium Fennovoima said it had scrapped an engineering, procurement, and construction contract for Russia’s state-owned Rosatom to build the 1.2-GW Hanhikivi 1, citing delays and increased risks due to the war in Ukraine. On May 24, Fennovoima withdrew the Hanhikivi 1 nuclear power plant construction license application.

The VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland is actively developing an SMR intended for district heating. While Finland now mostly relies on coal for district heat, it has pledged to phase out coal by 2029. VTT, notably, coordinates with the ELSMOR project for European SMR licensing practices. In addition, VTT says it is leading a work package related to the new McSAFER project, which is developing next-generation calculation tools for the modeling of SMR physics.

—Sonal Patel is a POWER senior associate editor (@sonalcpatel, @POWERmagazine).

https://www.powermag.com/frances-nuward-smr-will-be-test-case-for-european-early-joint-nuclear-regulatory-review/

Nuclear waste from small modular reactors

Lindsay M. Krall https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6962-7608 Lindsay.Krall@skb.se, Allison M. Macfarlane https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8359-9324, and Rodney C. Ewing https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9472-4031Authors Info & Affiliations

May 31, 2022  Small modular reactors (SMRs), proposed as the future of nuclear energy, have purported cost and safety advantages over existing gigawatt-scale light water reactors (LWRs). However, few studies have assessed the implications of SMRs for the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle. The low-, intermediate-, and high-level waste stream characterization presented here reveals that SMRs will produce more voluminous and chemically/physically reactive waste than LWRs, which will impact options for the management and disposal of this waste. Although the analysis focuses on only three of dozens of proposed SMR designs, the intrinsically higher neutron leakage associated with SMRs suggests that most designs are inferior to LWRs with respect to the generation, management, and final disposal of key radionuclides in nuclear waste.

Abstract

Small modular reactors (SMRs; i.e., nuclear reactors that produce <300 MWelec each) have garnered attention because of claims of inherent safety features and reduced cost. However, remarkably few studies have analyzed the management and disposal of their nuclear waste streams. Here, we compare three distinct SMR designs to an 1,100-MWelec pressurized water reactor in terms of the energy-equivalent volume, (radio-)chemistry, decay heat, and fissile isotope composition of (notional) high-, intermediate-, and low-level waste streams. Results reveal that water-, molten salt–, and sodium-cooled SMR designs will increase the volume of nuclear waste in need of management and disposal by factors of 2 to 30. The excess waste volume is attributed to the use of neutron reflectors and/or of chemically reactive fuels and coolants in SMR designs. That said, volume is not the most important evaluation metric; rather, geologic repository performance is driven by the decay heat power and the (radio-)chemistry of spent nuclear fuel, for which SMRs provide no benefit. 

 SMRs will not reduce the generation of geochemically mobile 129I, 99Tc, and 79Se fission products, which are important dose contributors for most repository designs. In addition, SMR spent fuel will contain relatively high concentrations of fissile nuclides, which will demand novel approaches to evaluating criticality during storage and disposal. Since waste stream properties are influenced by neutron leakage, a basic physical process that is enhanced in small reactor cores, SMRs will exacerbate the challenges of nuclear waste management and disposal.

In recent years, the number of vendors promoting small modular reactor (SMR) designs, each having an electric power capacity <300 MWelec, has multiplied dramatically (1, 2). Most recently constructed reactors have electric power capacities >1,000 MWelec and utilize water as a coolant. Approximately 30 of the 70 SMR designs listed in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Advanced Reactors Information System are considered “advanced” reactors, which call for seldom-used, nonwater coolants (e.g., helium, liquid metal, or molten salt) (3). Developers promise that these technologies will reduce the financial, safety, security, and waste burdens associated with larger nuclear power plants that operate at the gigawatt scale (3). Here, we make a detailed assessment of the impact of SMRs on the management and disposal of nuclear waste relative to that generated by larger commercial reactors of traditional design.

Nuclear technology developers and advocates often employ simple metrics, such as mass or total radiotoxicity, to suggest that advanced reactors will generate “less” spent nuclear fuel (SNF) or high-level waste (HLW) than a gigawatt-scale pressurized water reactor (PWR), the prevalent type of commercial reactor today. For instance, Wigeland et al. (4) suggest that advanced reactors will reduce the mass and long-lived radioactivity of HLW by 94 and ∼80%, respectively. These bulk metrics, however, offer little insight into the resources that will be required to store, package, and dispose of HLW (5). Rather, the safety and the cost of managing a nuclear waste stream depend on its fissile, radiological, physical, and chemical properties (6). Reactor type, size, and fuel cycle each influence the properties of a nuclear waste stream, which in addition to HLW, can be in the form of low- and intermediate-level waste (LILW) (6–8). Although the costs and time line for SMR deployment are discussed in many reports, the impact that these fuel cycles will have on nuclear waste management and disposal is generally neglected (9–11).

Here, we estimate the amount and characterize the nature of SNF and LILW for three distinct SMR designs. From the specifications given in the NuScale integral pressurized water reactor (iPWR) certification application, we analyze basic principles of reactor physics relevant to estimating the volumes and composition of iPWR waste and then, apply a similar methodology to a back-end analysis of sodium- and molten salt–cooled SMRs. Through this bottom-up framework, we find that, compared with existing PWRs, SMRs will increase the volume and complexity of LILW and SNF. This increase of volume and chemical complexity will be an additional burden on waste storage, packaging, and geologic disposal. Also, SMRs offer no apparent benefit in the development of a safety case for a well-functioning geological repository.

1. SMR Neutronics and Design………………

2. Framework for Waste Comparison………….

3. SMR Waste Streams: Volumes and Characteristics………….

………….. 

3.3.2. Corroded vessels from molten salt reactors.

Molten salt reactor vessel lifetimes will be limited by the corrosive, high-temperature, and radioactive in-core environment (23, 24). In particular, the chromium content of 316-type stainless steel that constitutes a PWR pressure vessel is susceptible to corrosion in halide salts (25). Nevertheless, some developers, such as ThorCon, plan to adopt this stainless steel rather than to qualify a more corrosion-resistant material for the reactor vessel (25).

Terrestrial Energy may construct their 400-MWth IMSR vessel from Hastelloy N, a nickel-based alloy that has not been code certified for commercial nuclear applications by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (26, 27). Since this nickel-based alloy suffers from helium embrittlement (27), Terrestrial Energy envisions a 7-y lifetime for their reactor vessel (28). Molten salt reactor vessels will become contaminated by salt-insoluble fission products (28) and will also become neutron-activated through exposure to a thermal neutron flux greater than 1012 neutrons/cm2-s (29). Thus, it is unlikely that a commercially viable decontamination process will enable the recycling of their alloy constituents. Terrestrial Energy’s 400-MWth SMR might generate as much as 1.0 m3/GWth-y of steel or nickel alloy in need of management and disposal as long-lived LILW (Fig. 1, Table 1, and SI Appendix, Fig. S3 and section 2) [on original]…………

4. Management and Disposal of SMR Waste

The excess volume of SMR wastes will bear chemical and physical differences from PWR waste that will impact their management and final disposal. …………………….

5. Conclusions

This analysis of three distinct SMR designs shows that, relative to a gigawatt-scale PWR, these reactors will increase the energy-equivalent volumes of SNF, long-lived LILW, and short-lived LILW by factors of up to 5.5, 30, and 35, respectively. These findings stand in contrast to the waste reduction benefits that advocates have claimed for advanced nuclear technologies. More importantly, SMR waste streams will bear significant (radio-)chemical differences from those of existing reactors. Molten salt– and sodium-cooled SMRs will use highly corrosive and pyrophoric fuels and coolants that, following irradiation, will become highly radioactive. Relatively high concentrations of 239Pu and 235U in low–burnup SMR SNF will render recriticality a significant risk for these chemically unstable waste streams.

SMR waste streams that are susceptible to exothermic chemical reactions or nuclear criticality when in contact with water or other repository materials are unsuitable for direct geologic disposal. Hence, the large volumes of reactive SMR waste will need to be treated, conditioned, and appropriately packaged prior to geological disposal. These processes will introduce significant costs—and likely, radiation exposure and fissile material proliferation pathways—to the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle and entail no apparent benefit for long-term safety.

Although we have analyzed only three of the dozens of proposed SMR designs, these findings are driven by the basic physical reality that, relative to a larger reactor with a similar design and fuel cycle, neutron leakage will be enhanced in the SMR core. Therefore, most SMR designs entail a significant net disadvantage for nuclear waste disposal activities. Given that SMRs are incompatible with existing nuclear waste disposal technologies and concepts, future studies should address whether safe interim storage of reactive SMR waste streams is credible in the context of a continued delay in the development of a geologic repository in the United States.

Supporting Information

Appendix 01 (PDF)

Note

This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. E.J.S. is a guest editor invited by the Editorial Board.

References……………………………..  https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2111833119