What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the term ‘nuclear power’?
If you’re thinking of past disasters, giant cooling towers in the middle
of nowhere or stores of radioactive waste then, well, you’re not alone.
Despite its carbon-free credentials, nuclear power has an unhappy reputation,
and while public support for it may have increased since the mid-1980s,
a quarter of Americans, for example, are still not in favour.
But now, engineers may have found a way to turn things around.
No, we’re not talking about fusion, as exciting as that may be.
Instead, we might be looking at the next iteration of more traditional nuclear:
making those big ugly power stations smaller — in some cases quite a bit smaller.
These new designs will be cheaper, safer, quicker and easier to build than their predecessors,
meaning they can be deployed anywhere, from large cities to remote locations.
And even though there has been some scepticism, the first projects are already in the works.
So, does the future of nuclear power mean a reactor in every town,
or is this whole concept destined for a meltdown?
Climate change might be the biggest issue of the 21st century. To help dodge the worst
of its impact, humanity has set itself a huge challenge — cutting greenhouse gases to net-zero.
Renewables are the main strategy but, wind,
solar and hydro won’t be enough on their own. We need something else in reserve.
According to The International Energy Agency,
to get where we need to be we’re going to have to invest more in nuclear power.
But the use of nuclear has been decreasing for decades — not
helped by Japan’s Fukushima disaster in 2011.
Nuclear power has been declining in terms of its importance to global electricity generation for
more than 25 years at this point.
M.V. Ramana is a professor at the University of British Columbia’s
School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, specialising in nuclear energy.
The maximum contribution of nuclear power to global electricity was in
1995 — it was 17.5% — and it has declined to about 10 percent.
Nuclear power plants can take decades to build, cost billions, and are hugely complex.
Finding the right location can be difficult and there
are often setbacks during planning and construction.
The two reactors being constructed in the United States and the Vogtle project
in Georgia are running at around $30 billion dollars at this point,
and that amount of cost is too much for most utilities to bear.
But what if they didn’t have to be so big and complicated?
What if we could do nuclear without all the hassle?
Well, soon we might be able to do just that. Several companies are working on
small modular reactors, or SMRs, which promise to make nuclear power much simpler and easier.
Instead of giant reactors that deliver a gigawatt of power
but need years of construction, SMRs are mass produced in factories.
Unlike conventional power stations, which are individual projects requiring a great
deal of prep work, with these you just have to add one to your basket and it’s on the way.
Their modular nature means that SMRs will be less expensive and
easier to install — at least that’s the aim.
So, how small are we talking exactly?
SMRs or small modular reactors are any reactor
that has a power output of 300 megawatts electric or less.
So our design is a 77 megawatt electric reactor, and each of those modules
is able to work with other modules so we can put them in arrangements of four,
six or 12 to produce different power outputs, depending on what the customer needs.
Small reactors aren’t entirely new.
In fact, they were being designed as far back as the 1950s — mostly
for submarines and big aircraft carriers.
There were civilian uses too,
but not many, as larger reactors went on to become more economically viable.
Where things are different this time, is in the modular design.
A 60MW reactor, for example, might not be enough to power the thing you want it
to on its own — say, for instance a large city — but you could order more than one,
stacking them together to get as much power as you need.
They’re also portable enough to go pretty much anywhere. You can use an SMR to power something
which needs a lot of juice, like a factory, without having to be hooked into the grid.
We’re the first commercial nuclear power plant that's been approved by the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission to not require independent connections to the grid.
And that's huge because that allows us to work closely with industry,
for example, hydrogen production.
One of our modules working with high temperature steam electrolysis could
produce about 50 tonnes of hydrogen per day.
Sounds great, but we know what you’re thinking. If we’re going to have nuclear reactors everywhere,
how do I know there won’t be a mini-Chernobyl in my hometown?
Before you go digging a bunker in your backyard,
these units are designed to be far safer than their predecessors.
Because the cores of SMRs are much smaller, they generate less heat
and there are far fewer moving parts to worry about. They’ve got clever safety features too.
For our design, under the worst case conditions, the reactors will safely shut themselves down
without any operator action, without any AC or DC power,
and they'll remain cool for an unlimited period of time without the need to add water.
So that's a first for commercial nuclear power,
and it makes it extremely resilient and extremely safe.
Making sure things don’t go wrong is clearly a priority for this other new company,
Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation — a name we can’t decide whether we love or hate.
Inside its reactor the fuel is encased within layered ceramic coatings,
placed inside a silicone carbide matrix.
We’re not entirely sure what that means,
but we’re told it makes the fuel highly rugged and stable, even at extreme temperatures.
As for waste, when all the fuel has been spent after about 20 years,
the caskets can be swapped out — like a giant AA battery — and stored in an underground repository.
Another firm, Moltex Energy, has gone a step further by designing
an SMR that’s fuelled by recycled nuclear waste.
Called the SSR-W, it’s a type of reactor that uses molten salt for fuelling and cooling.
This method allows any radioactive gases to be absorbed and in the event of an
emergency the reactor can be drained and the salt solidified, preventing a meltdown.
You might not have heard of these companies but
you will know some of the people and tech firms linked to them.
Radiant, developer of a one-megawatt microreactor, is run by former SpaceX engineers.
Meanwhile TerraPower, which plans to build a demo reactor in Wyoming, was set up by Bill Gates.
At 345MW, TerraPower’s tech is arguably too big to be an
SMR but it’s still much smaller than a regular power station.
The same goes for Rolls-Royce and its new 470MW reactor.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, there are already
several small modular reactors under construction around the world.
Argentina was the first to break ground with an SMR project — the 25MW CAREM,
which has been underway since 2014.
Although it’s just a prototype, the plan is to follow up with a
bigger version of at least 100MW once it’s complete — hopefully in 2023.
China has also announced it’s building a 125MW demo project in Hainan Province.
Linglong One was the first small reactor to pass a safety review from the IAEA
in 2016, and construction began in 2021.
These schemes may be small in terms of reactor size,
but they still need a huge amount of time and effort to complete.
These are issues that NuScale and its competitors plan to
tackle if they overcome their remaining hurdles.
Despite the challenges, NuScale’s first SMR project at the Idaho National Laboratory is
scheduled to start providing power by 2029 and other firms have set similar timelines.
Things do seem to be progressing nicely but there
are certain factors that are making some experts sceptical.
Professor Ramana isn’t convinced they’ll produce enough power to make them cost-effective.
You're going to start with reactors which are fundamentally even more expensive on a per
kilowatt hour basis compared to large reactors, and large reactors themselves are much more
expensive than the other low carbon alternatives, including solar and wind power at this point.
He also believes that getting full regulatory approvals isn't going to be easy.
If you're going to be building them all over the place, including near towns and in remote places
and so on, you want to be absolutely sure that you're trying to make it as safe as possible.
Any good nuclear safety regulator will ask a lot of difficult questions like what happens
if there is a fire? What happens if the operator makes this kind of a mistake?
What happens if this equipment fails and answering those questions is going to be very difficult.
But new ideas are desperately needed to battle the climate crisis, and whether or not SMR technology
ends up making a difference, you can see why it’s starting to generate so much excitement.
If it's time to give nuclear another chance then
perhaps good things really do come in small packages.
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