Beautiful new reactor world
Around the world, more than 60 nuclear power plants are growing, almost all giants with more than 1000 megawatts of power. Only two of the new buildings seem to have fallen out of time. Test balloons for small reactors are off the shelf, as they are to be built in a factory in series.
"Walkaway safe" - this is the promise of the US company Martingale for its Thorcon reactor, which can be seen here in the model.
In the London office of Nuscale Power. A good place to get to Buckingham Palace is to walk from here just a few minutes. The young company can afford to do this because a powerful investor believes in it: a US plant builder with more than 19 billion dollars of annual revenue.
"Our main office is in Corvallis, Oregon, about two hours south of Portland, which is the seat of Oregon State University, which has been involved in the development of Nuscale technology since the early 2000s."
Tom Mundy manages the start-up business in Europe and this has a mission: It wants to build small reactors modules off the shelf, ready and ready from the factory - a product that does not exist so far.
"In recent years, there has been a trend towards the construction of gigawatt nuclear power plants in China and the Middle East. In addition, we are experiencing a second trend towards smaller, easier-to-use, more flexible and smoother, with the Small Modular Reactors, the SMR Cost-effective solutions. "
Beautiful new reactor world - small plants for the nuclear market
Worldwide more than 60 nuclear power plants are under construction: in China, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Russia, the USA, India, Finland, France. Most are to bring it to 1300 and more megawatts. However, two new buildings on the list attract attention: At 27 and 70 MW, they seem to have fallen out of time, as relicts from the early days of the civilian use of nuclear power. The smaller plant is scheduled to go into operation soon in Argentina - Carem-25: A prototype, which the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEO classifies as a research reactor. The other is a floating nuclear power plant, the academy Lomonossov. It is to take over the electricity and heat supply of the 4000-inhabitant city Pewek in Siberia in 2019 and that of the mining companies nearby. Both fall into the category SMR.
Until the 1950s, the idea of building small, modular reactors instead of large nuclear power plants is enough, according to William Magwood. He is Director-General of the OECD-NEA, the Nuclear Agency of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris:
"So she appeared every 17 years, swirled around like a cicada for a while, made a lot of noise and disappeared, but now we might really experience her breakthrough, so she can prove if they make sense, fill a gap and help us in the long term To produce electricity. "
Costs for classical nuclear power plants are high
Prior to joining Magwood, he was a member of the Barack Obama Commission on the Nuclear Future of America. Now he sits in an office with a fantastic view of the deep blue Seine and the Chateau de Saint Cloud on the opposite bank. You can hear nothing from the crowded traffic on the Quai Alphonse le Gallo.
Cross section of a reactor building, as the US company NuScale Power has designed
"In my opinion, the great interest in the SMR concept is based primarily on the fact that the cost of the classical nuclear power plant construction is quite high. The idea with the small reactor modules came up because people hope that they have a new approach to construction Instead of building a large nuclear power plant at an initial investment of ten billion euros over the next ten years, we are using a lot of smaller, factory-made modules, installing them, bringing them to the grid, and earning it Money until you add the next module, as required. "
Economic hopefuls
Billions of losses in their US nuclear division Westinghouse have brought the parent company Toshiba to the brink of ruin. The French nuclear power plant construction company Areva has also been approached: in 2014, he again recorded a record loss. Responsibility was not limited to construction defects and delays in the Finnish Olkiluoto and the French Flamanville.
"The idea is that reactor modules are built in factories where quality control requirements are high, time schedules are safer, and costs are normally controllable, and advocates want the nuclear industry to be much more like aircraft construction Very complex machines, with predictable prices and predictable delivery dates. "
Small Modular Reactors as a Savior of the Nuclear Industry. The Ministry of Energy of the Canadian province of Ottawa would like to save remote communities from expensive and dirty diesel generators. In Great Britain, they have advanced to the economic hopes of hope, especially since the Brexit vote. They are supposed to place the country on the forefront of international export markets. Arrived nuclear corporations such as GE Hitachi or old-established companies such as Urenco, research institutes such as the Nuclear Power Institute of China or the US Department of Energy: They all expect large of the small modules. This also applies to the newcomer Nuscale.
Everything seems clear
"Our technology is premised upon what we call the Nuscale power module."
Europe's CEO Tony Mundy is a veteran. Even before the British Oberhaus, he has already presented the Nuscale concept. It accesses a sketch with a section through the reactor module. At first glance, it looks like a sleek silo.
"One of the design elements is simplicity: we chose a design in which the coolant water circulates through the reactor only because of the natural convection. It works because of the laws of physics: hot water rises, cold sinks."
Everything seems clear: outside the steel container, the safety container, as in a Russian Babushka of the reactor pressure vessel. Down, in the reactor core, the chain reaction proceeds. It heats the water in the primary circuit, which releases its heat in the heat exchanger to the secondary circuit before it flows back into the reactor core. So far, so classic, only that everything runs in one and the same vessel, passively, without pumps and valves:
Mock-up of a Nuscale control room.
"Our power module is an integral reactor vessel, integrally meaning that the core, the steam generator and the primary circuit lines lie in the reactor pressure vessel. In the classical nuclear power plants, the all-large single components are: connected by pipes and pumps and valves that generate electricity "The container and the reactor pressure vessel form the power module, which will be completely manufactured in a factory."
By sword transport to the place of use
50 megawatts should deliver such a module. With a height of about 22 meters and a width of four and a half meters, it is to be transported to the place of operation by sword transport.
"Up to twelve of these modules are housed in a building and together deliver 600 MW, each of which is independent of the others, and the others continue to operate, and they can be used differently, producing steam for power generation Supply process heat for a factory or desalination of seawater. "
The modules should stand side by side in a pool filled with 28 million liters of water. This also serves as a decaying basin for the fuel elements. And then the basin is hot water for emergency. According to calculations, it should guarantee the cooling even for 30 days, even if all the modules fail at the same time. And since in the small reactors by far not as much decomposition heat as in a large, until then the danger of a nuclear melt was banned - without any one would have to intervene.
Doubts about reactor safety
As far as the plan. The approval for the US market has begun the start-up at the beginning of the year. There is a first construction site in Idaho, where the environmental reports are running. The Nuscale SMR could become the first in the country, smaller, more efficient, more flexible than the heavy-duty large power plants, promises Tom Mundy, but above all: safer.
"In fact our safety case is so strong that we've coined what we call the Triple Crown of Nuclear Safety."
Edwin Lyman does not really believe in the reliability of the reactor. He is a nuclear expert for the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington DC. He presented his criticism to the "Committee on Energy and Natural Resources" of the US Senate.
"One of the most important arguments of the SMR proponents is that less heat is generated in the reactor and the heat can be dissipated more easily. No need for electric pumps, the cooling circuit is passive, the natural convection is rich."
Critics see problems in incidents
Reactors are designed against all accidents that engineers consider likely to be the design failures, Lyman explains. But what if it is worse if the burden goes beyond this interpretation?
"What happens, say, in an earthquake that is stronger than expected, and where, for example, debris falls into the pool of Nuscale reactors, can passive cooling be stopped in some way? What does the back-up look like?
"I do not think, the proposals, that I have seen, adequately account for the protection against beyond design basis accidents."
None of the reactor concepts he has seen are adequately responsive to misinterpretations, according to Edwin Lyman. The fact that back-up systems are missing has, in his opinion, a reason for this: they make the reactor more expensive. And costs are a central argument for the SMR. The plants will only be able to penetrate the market if they are competitive. Saving can be, for example, on the number of items, white OECD nuclear expert William Magwood. And the staff.
Staff costs should be reduced
"The largest cost-driver in the operation of a nuclear power plant today is - apart from the safety requirements - the personnel costs."
"The operating costs of these SMRs could theoretically be much lower than those of a large nuclear power plant, although this can only be said when the approval process has passed, but the vendors assume that they need much less staff in the control room for maintenance And the object security, if only 10 or 20 percent of the people who are working on a central station by concentrating the facilities there makes a big difference. "
"How to manage twelve small reactors instead of a single one?" The operating team would have to be able to monitor and monitor the many reactors and react to incidents, even if everything happens at the same time and one incident in one module affects the others.For me is not clear at all, That it is safer to run a dozen small reactors instead of a large one. "
Cheaper produce than coal-fired power plants
Nevertheless, other developers go even further. They hope to be able to do without a team. "Walkaway safe" means the concept: everything is safe, everyone can go.
The US company Martingale promises "Walkaway safe" for its Thorcon reactor. The main focus is on veteran scientists who want to provide carbon dioxide-free energy to developing and newly industrialized countries:
"To be honest, our goal is to produce more cheaply than coal-fired power plants so that we can stop or limit the increase in carbon dioxide emissions."
This is how a nuscale plant at the sea could look.
Robert Hargraves is a former mathematics professor, an idealist who tours the world and lectures to convince his audience of liquid salt reactors. In the 1950s, this technology was explored at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee: first as a drive for a nuclear-powered aircraft, later for power generation:
"Liquid salt reactors literally consist of salt, fluorides of - in our case - beryllium and sodium, in which uranium and thorium fluorides are dissolved as fuel."
Nuclear fission in liquid salt
The heart of the Thorcon system is a "pot" with 700 ° C hot, liquid salt: the nuclear fission is carried out, whereby graphite as the moderator ensures that the chain reaction is running. From this pot, a pump sucks liquid salt and presses it through the heat exchanger where it delivers its heat to the secondary circuit and flows back into the pot:
"This cylindric pot, the pump and the heat exchanger, everything that comes into contact with radioactivity is put into a sealed container with a diameter of six meters and a height of twelve meters. Our Thorcon container is to be built by ship in a factory in Asia Its location and installed underground. This module will be exchanged as a whole later. "
This is a lesson from the Oak Ridge experiment, which was abandoned in 1969. The hot salt had corroded the metal: fine cracks had formed in the surface:
"Our design solves the problem with the longevity of the material by exchanging the hot area every four years to allow it to be centrally maintained. This is easy with modular systems."
Developers and newly industrialized countries need urgent electricity
If something passes and the operating temperature increases, the reactor switches itself off by itself, explains Hargraves. Just below the pot, a tank will hang. Both are connected via a valve that melts as soon as it gets too hot. The salt flows off, the chain reaction runs dead, everything cools down. The radionuclides are chemically bound in the salt and gas-tight barriers separate the reactor from the environment - nothing can happen, prophesies the retired professor.
"In the US, it is hard to sell reactors because electricity does not increase and people worry about nuclear energy, but developing and emerging markets need electricity, and the feedback is positive Four demonstration plants in Indonesia to prove that we can supply cheap electricity. "
The island state of Indonesia, which wants to improve energy supplies for remote areas, does not seem averse: Three state firms are feasible after the preliminary studies, and the Indonesian approval authority is examining the design. The first prototype will be working in four years.
Around 60 SMR concepts are being developed around the world
A completely new design, which has never been tested in a power reactor, is the first to be allowed in a newly industrialized country without nuclear experience: OECD nuclear party William Magwood is not enthusiastic:
"If these systems are first successfully used in developed countries, when they are the subject of a high-quality manufacturing process and the whole is tried and tested, it is much easier to use them in developing countries Infrastructure, including the intellectual infrastructure of contractors, the reactor and maintenance staff, and most certainly the regulatory and regulatory authorities. "
Around 60 SMR concepts are currently being developed around the world. Optimists estimate that 2035 could be almost ten percent of all newly built nuclear power plants SMR. They are supposed to bring a renaissance of atomic energy, and convince even a critical population: the little ones are so sure that they no longer need evacuation zones. And they fit perfectly with the renewables. Because unlike large nuclear power plants, the small ones would be flexible, could be quickly switched off or switched on and thus adapted to the requirements in the network. According to the OECD Nuclear Group's analysis, their potential in electricity networks with a high share of renewables is even to be the largest. And also the scrapping would not be a problem - also that could be done in a factory.
Floating reactor for Siberia
Nor have the drafts proved itself in reality. But the first test will begin in 2019. The Lomonossov academy is scheduled to start operation, a 150 meter long barge with two 35 MW reactors installed. The barge will be launched in Saint Petersburg and then towed along the northern coast of Eurasia: nothing but water, ice and tundra To the Chukchi Sea. This is where the goal is: Pewek, the northernmost city in Asia, once the site of two Gulags, where gold and tin are still being promoted today, mercury and hard coal. The academy Lomonossov is to supply power and heat in the port:
"In Russia, there are quite a few remote cities and villages, for example, in the far north, where it is too expensive, difficult, and not always very promising to build permanent nuclear power plants."
For example, FleishmanHillard, the consultancy firm entrusted with public relations, is continuing the answers from the Russian reactors:
"The economic development must be advanced and modern living and working conditions must be created for the inhabitants in all, including the electricity-insulated regions.
Heavily armed special units
The crew of the Academy of Lomossov is currently being trained in Petersburg: 78 people. They will work in shifts, around the clock, guarded by heavily armed special units: A floating nuclear power plant in the solitude of Siberia could offer an attractive target for criminals and terrorists.
(KLT-40C) reactors are based on a major modernization of reactors used on ice breakers. "
The cooling, it says, now works by itself, without pumps. And compared to a classic ship reactor, the nuclear fuel is not enriched so much - for reasons of proliferation.
Reactor ships are not only working in Russia: the Canadian company Dunedin Energy Systems wants to build similar plants for remote mining projects in America. And in the Chinese Chengdu, the Nuclear Power Institute is setting up its cooperation with the British company Lloyd's Register for its floating reactor:
"The reactor, designed by the Nuclear Power Institute of China, is a so-called 'integral light-water reactor'."
Guidelines for maritime navigation
King Lee heads the Nuclear Development Department at Lloyd's Register.
"As a Lloyd's, the institute will advise on the safety regulations and requirements to be met by the company, which is to be used in a wide range of applications, including the production of electricity, process heat, steam, seawater desalination, offshore oil and gas platforms, The floating nuclear power plant will have to meet and what technical standards should be taken into account in design and design. "
Not a simple job: floating nuclear power plants must not only comply with the requirements of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but also those of the International Maritime Organization (IMO).
"There are already a number of reactors that propel icebreakers, ships, or submarines, but the International Maritime Organization recently formulated a provisional list of requirements for a wider use of offshore nuclear power Safety standards but on nuclear power plants on land, we will have to develop further regulations and technical requirements for floating systems. "
Safety, even if the reactor goes down
Instead of earthquakes, ships and reactors would have to be designed against ship collisions, for example, or tropical cyclones, tsunamis. How high the waves are, the safety systems of the reactor have to work in any case. Even then, when the reactor vessel hits and falls into the deep sea. "
"There are several ways to cool a reactor, and it may well be beneficial to have the sea as the ultimate heat mass, but the challenge is to prevent seawater coming into contact with the radioactive material Cooling system. "
This is exactly what Edwin Lyman of the "Concerned Scientists" sees the problem, and it is not the only thing.
"In an accident or a terrorist attack, which causes the reactor to lose its cooling, for example, emergency teams must be able to get on board quickly, and the difficulty of getting help quickly becomes apparent when one thinks about the causes of an accident Help from outside would be impossible. "
Authorizations are still pending
Whether the SMR is truly a bright future depends very fundamentally on a factor that lay people do not immediately think of: the licensing authorities. They could destroy the flying dreams even before the small reactors have lifted off properly.
The wishes of the SMR developers deviate far from the traditional, make the authorities faced with major challenges: often expertise is required in areas where they have never worked, says OECD NEA Director William Magwood:
"Authorization authorities have never certified a factory for the construction of reactors, and if reactors like airplanes were being built, this would be a completely new approach, so the process will be very different from the current one."
The floating nuclear reactor "Akademik Lomonosov" in the port of St.Petersburg.
Today, every single reactor is certified and approved in every country in which it is to be built, as if the concept were brand new. This is expensive, but the immense investment for large nuclear power plants is hardly significant. In reactor modules, which cost only a fraction, it looks different. A further point is that the standardization must be high, since this would lead to the concept that SMR would have to be built in large numbers and used in many countries:
"International licensing or international co-operation among the supervisory authorities will probably be very challenging, with the SMR being about real coordination in the licensing process, which we have never done before, and it would be really exciting if we could do it . "
Trump wants to cancel nuclear promotion
Long after the idea came up, the small nuclear reactors took up a ride. There are still a few questions left unanswered. And while some experts wish the concept to fail, others dream of a climate-neutral solution to the energy question, or lucrative business. For US companies, a new problem has been raised: coal and fracking friend Donald Trump wants to shorten nuclear activities. The SMR budget is available at the Department of Energy DOE. Republican Congressmen have written a letter to their president to continue the promotion in the interests of the US economy.
"We know that the foreign nuclear programs are supported by their governments on a large scale, which is a significant competitive disadvantage for the US nuclear sector."
The history of the US is open.
Meanwhile, the citizens of the Siberian Pewek are waiting for the Lomonossov Academy to provide them with electricity and heat, and to put an end to the old Bilibino nuclear power plant. The preliminary work is underway: the electricity network has to be modernized and the connections in the port have been built. When the floating nuclear power plant is working, the citizens have to get used to the sight of heavily armed special units: a bark with two nuclear reactors on board in the middle of nowhere.