On today’s episode, 5G threatens aircraft systems and fourth-generation micro reactors move forward.
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It’s not very often that a new type of communications technology creates safety
issues in a completely unrelated industry, but this week the US Federal Aviation Administration
imposed restrictions on flight operations using some types of aircraft radar altimeters
that are close to 5G mobile service areas. 5G, the current state-of-the-art in wireless technology,
operates in C band radio frequencies, and commercial aircraft operators, airports and
global aviation authorities are concerned that 5G radiation may interfere with the operation
of aircraft altimeters during safety critical flight operations, especially during approach
and landing in poor visibility. US 5G services launched widely on January 19, and at that time,
62% of the US commercial aircraft fleet carried altimeters approved for low visibility approaches
in 5G deployment areas. The remaining 38% will operate with restrictions on low or zero
visibility landings. The FAA has published a list of airports with potential interference issues,
and it includes major hubs such as New York and Chicago. To mitigate the highly disruptive
effects of nationwide flight cancellations into airports where weather is a significant factor,
the agency has aggregated 5G transmitter location and power level information
from wireless companies and shared this data with the avionics industry.
A Limited workaround has been developed to use some GPS guided approaches at some airports,
and as developed a process called the Alternative Method of Compliance (AMOC) for
airlines to test their altimeters for reliability in a noisy 5G environment.
5G is not new, and other nations such as Japan and France have already rolled out significant
5G services without disruption to their aviation sectors. In France for example, 5G signal strength
is 2.5 times lower than in the US, and 5G safety buffer zones around airports are restricted to
interference over the last 96 seconds of final approach, compared to 20 seconds in the US.
France requires that 5G antennas angled downward to minimize interference. Mitigation efforts in
the US are expected to be similar at least in the short term, while the FAA approves avionics
and test procedures to clear more aircraft types. Most Airbus and Boeing aircraft are
already cleared, with one notable exception at press time: Boeing’s flagship, the 787 Dreamliner.
Regional jets, the backbone of the increasingly point-to-point system used today, are still under
study by the FAA. It’s unknown how long it will take before all current equipment is approved
for low visibility landings, but the telecom industry is cooperating the short-term with
reduced power levels around airports. We’ll report back when the FAA announces a definitive solution.
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CO2 reduction targets set by the Paris Accords is injected new life into technology that was once
declining: nuclear fission. While conventional light water and pressurized heavy water reactors
have been run successfully for over half a century, capital costs are very high both
through the scale of your power pet projects and the need for complex engineering to ensure safety.
A new generation of small modular reactors offer hope for more favourable economics with enhanced
safety, and South Korea based Hyundai Engineering has announced a $30 million equity stake in
Seattle-based Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation to develop and commercialize USNC’s novel reactor
design. Ultra Safe as developed a high-temperature gas cooled reactor using a graphite moderator
and a single pass uranium fuel cycle. The company claims coolant outlet temperatures
of up to 750 C, allowing practical use for tasks other than thermal electricity generation
including process heat and hydrogen production through a thermochemical sulfer-iodine cycle.
The key enabling technology for the reactor design is in the fuel. Ultra Safe’s design uses
tri-structural isotropic or TRISO fuels, which encapsulate small pellets of fissionable material
in layers of graphite and silicon carbide. Encapsulation of the fuel not only eliminates the
safety risks of fire or chemical reactions, but it allows Ultra Safe to preload fuel into a reactor
core during factory assembly, with no need for on-site refuelling for the life of the reactor.
Encapsulated fuel and careful reactor geometry makes the system intrinsically safe,
greatly reducing overall system cost through the elimination of control rods and their associated
actuators, for backup’s grams systems that poison the reactor. In Canada, the provincial electricity
generator Ontario Power Generation is entered into a joint venture with the company to install
a 5 Mw-e reactor at a test site in Chalk River, Ontario the centre of Canadian nuclear research.
OPG plans to use the technology for electricity generation, although the systems transportability
and lack of reliance on a large body of water for cooling makes it practical
for processor space heating applications in remote areas of the country as well.
If it proves cost-effective, the future of nuclear may be as much about heat as it is about power.
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