The new Nuclear Energy in 2024

Does BWR technology need to die for SMRs to grow?

In May, General Electric Hitachi announced the closure of the Vallecitos nuclear environment (because talking about transferring to a decommissioning company is the same as talking about transferring to a decommissioning company).link.

Nuclear power plants are basically comprised of two families, pressurized water and boiling water. The first family that was developed for civilian use was precisely the boiling water reactor (BWR) at the Argonne laboratory, called EBWR. It seemed so promising that, in spite of the investment effort, General Electric decided not only to support the network of laboratories and their reactors but also to develop its own reactors for research in all the areas that required it, from research on the kinetics of nuclear reactions, the associated radiolysis, the chemistry of the materials and new ones to be employed, new instrumentation, safety margins... so many things.... and all that started in Vallecitos in 1957; obviously it was not but for a vision of a future development and an alliance with a company such as PG&E that made the economic bet viable... here is a video of its inauguration...

If one goes by sentiment, one can see it as something else in the fight against nuclear power... well, what it does mean is the statement of the end of an era for one part. The slow decline of a stake by its parent company even though its core technology continues to serve as the basis for some more promising new reactor technologies such as Terrapower's Natrium SMRs.

Perhaps one might think that it could be a fabulous environment to continue testing new types of fail-safe nuclear fuel, or new instrumentation or new control systems, perhaps its maintenance was abandoned so long ago that it was no longer economical to upgrade the facility versus starting another one from scratch.

In fact, I remember that, back in 2014, we had to perform some very demanding tests for the reactor level control system to be modernized, and simulation environments that would allow to evaluate the impact of all the variables of a nuclear reactor in transients (temperature effects, reactivity, voids depending on the thermal power or the addition of cold water e.g.) were not possible except for the technology of a company called Tecnatom. A Spanish company until now and which is a contrast, both for the closing of a stage, that of the Spanish nuclear industry, and for the turning of the page that means that another American giant, Westinghouse, has just acquired it. link

And speaking of the birth of another generation, that of the SMR... and some doubts

Nuclear energy is called to be one of the solutions (not the only one) to provide CO2 free energy, scalable to large amounts of energy, controllable and safe.

This "safe" has always been the fear of society, but as Bill Gates says, "won't it be safer if we investigate the application of new technologies in this area?"

However, if we are talking about new developments that allow for shorter construction periods (and thus, shorter return on investment periods too) and lower risks that allow for simplification of the permitting process, perhaps we have the necessary ingredients. And perhaps this is why Westinghouse itself was acquired - almost at the same time as Tecnatom was acquired - by Brookfield Asset Management and Cameco. link

Analyzing the acquisition, one must think that it is a way to consolidate positions before a new renaissance, on the side of Brookfield in its commitment to CO2-free technologies and the true perspective of high growth, and on the side of Cameco, the main uranium mining corporation, in completing the full cycle from extraction, production and recycling, consolidating a state commitment that allows it to compete with China, which is the one who is betting most strongly on this technology today.

That is why we are talking about the new modular reactors, basically it is about making systems of lower energy accumulation that allow to give credibility to the scenarios proposed of fuel that can withstand cooling failures or reactions that can be extinguished by passive means.

Now, those of us who have known a little about this, know that the same knowledge and engineering disciplines are required to be involved for a small plant as for a large one, therefore, the solution will be to make sites of similar size to the current ones, although composed of several modular reactors instead of one large one and repeat platform with a higher degree of standardization.

But not everything seems so shiny, this year we have had another news that has not gone viral, the first SMR project to be canceled, that of the company NuScale. link

Many voices are being raised against the role of the current Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and how its large administrative framework, adapted to large operating plants, is being a big problem for new projects, both for the direct impact on costs and for the delay in the development phases of the projects. Some talk about how the beginnings of the nuclear industry had nothing to do with regulators, but with highly trained scientists, both in the technology and its failures and consequences, and how these served for both technological and regulatory development.

Certainly, here I am not entirely equanimous, it does not make much sense to require the same analyses when we talk about the use of non-pressurized reactors, when we talk about passive reactivity quenching mechanisms or fail-safe fuel as is being proposed as versus considerations for reactors designed in the 1960s and 1970s, which are the majority of those currently deployed.

And yet, the analysis of new control systems, including virtual and dynamic environments, can not be certified based on the same postulates as 20 years ago (let alone 40 or 60 years, there is NOTHING left that is 100% analog) I mean to apply American directives such as RG 1.152 or from 1.168 to 1. 172, or international ones like IEC 62645/ 63096 for new digital and instrumentation platforms, but above all to change certain concepts like electrical divisions for computing environments, to a proper combination of all technologies, from non-modifiable FPGA to edge computing and to apply cybersecurity at all levels under ISA/IEC62443 and RG 5.71.

Let's also think that, in those early years, there were accidents, especially in nuclear labs, and that both planned tests and accidents helped to mature tremendously.

However, and it is fair to say, it was the Three Mile Island accident that led to huge safety reviews of these reactors (and nearly compromised the Spanish plan since the reforms required long delays in all projects to ensure the measures). But doesn't it also make sense to have a progressive approach that does not compromise the early, small-scale developments, while allowing for more learning of the new technology as it moves to larger sizes?

Progressivity in terms of material requirements, pressure equipment certifications, platform verification based on the subsystems being deployed, etc. will allow for a growth of pilot projects, an increase in the experience curve, which in turn will allow for a better ability to reduce uncertainties for future projects, and a better ability to assess the impact of new requirements for larger plants.

Will we be able to do this or will we be left with complacent failure?

#nuclear #SMR #westinghouse #tecnatom #natrium #terrapower #nuscale