http://thehill.com/
By Timothy Cama - 06/15/15 06:00 AM EDT
Federal officials are preparing for a future in which small nuclear reactors are a key piece of the United States’ energy policy.
The technology, known as the small modular reactor, has attracted the attention of regulators, lawmakers, utilities, manufacturers and others.
The reactors are less than 300 megawatts in capacity and usually manufactured away from the place they’re operated. A handful of companies are working to design such reactors, though none is ready for operation yet. Proponents say the reactors, less than a third the size of a reactor at a standard power plant, could bring the greenhouse gas and other benefits of nuclear power with a lower cost.
But the same problems that have slowed development of full-size nuclear reactors to nearly a halt — safety and cost — could keep delaying or even kill the potential for small modular reactors to take off.
The nuclear industry’s congressional supporters see a role for the federal government in enabling development of small reactors.
“I have long supported and advocated for the development and deployment of small modular reactors,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), chairwoman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said last month at an industry conference.
“The potential for this technology in my home state of Alaska is very exciting — the size, power potential, and ability to add unit by unit could be a game changer for small, remote communities that currently pay extremely high energy costs or to supply power to our military bases,” she said.
Murkowski said that the federal government has to make sure it doesn’t stand in the way of small reactors, or they might not be viable.
Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), who chairs the spending subcommittee panel with authority over energy, said at a recent hearing that federal research spending should prioritize small modular reactors, part of the GOP lawmaker's goal to double energy research funding.
Alexander is also a lead sponsor of the Competes Act, which has similar energy research goals.
The Obama administration is also on board with pushing further development of small reactors, arguing that it’s an essential step to making major cuts in carbon emissions.
The Energy Department nuclear energy office has named the reactors as one of its highest priorities for research and development, along with helping get some of the designs licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
“Small modular reactors offer the advantage of lower initial capital investment, scalability, and siting flexibility at locations unable to accommodate more traditional larger reactors,” the Energy Department stated recently. “They also have the potential for enhanced safety and security.”
The department is working on multiple fronts to help out the industry. It’s dedicating $452 million over six years to help reactors get licensed, partnering with mPower America to develop a reactor with a goal of operation by 2022 and working with NuScale Power on its own reactor development, a program worth $217 million.
The Energy Department also has an industry-wide program aimed at assisting with licensing.
The nuclear power sector has argued in recent years that the NRC needs to update its safety regulations to accommodate small reactors, including reduced licensing fees and more flexibility in staffing levels, emergency planning zones and other rules.
The NRC says it’s ready to start considering applications for small reactors, and NRC Chairman Stephen Burns told lawmakers in April that his agency has budgeted to review one application in fiscal 2016.
In May, the NRC voted to adopt a sliding scale for reactor license fees, which would provide for lower costs for small reactors.
However, the prospect of changing rules for small reactors is troubling to nuclear safety and security advocates such as the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Edwin Lyman, a senior scientists with the group, said small reactors have no safety or security advantages when compared with larger ones. But since they would produce less power, there is pressure to scale down the requirements.
“The simple fact is that SMRs have a significant cost penalty compared to large reactors on a per-megawatt basis because of diseconomies of scale,” Lyman said.
“No utility will want to buy them unless they can be exempted from a lot of costly regulations that large reactors must meet,” he continued. “But in light of the Fukushima disaster, one must be very wary of the safety claims made by the nuclear industry, especially for reactor designs that have never been built or tested.”
The Tennessee Valley Authority is hoping to have the first operational small modular reactor, though the timeline is in flux.
The utility says it’s planning to buy up to four reactors to install at its Clinch River site near Oak Ridge, Tenn.This article is part of America's Nuclear Energy Future series, sponsored by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). For more information about NEI, visit Why the U.S. should invest a lot more in nuclear research
Why the U.S. should invest a lot more in nuclear research
http://theweek.com/
REUTERS June 18, 2015
For the past several years, nuclear power has been a focus of sharp disagreement in the debate over climate change. Traditional environmentalists tend to oppose it, while climate trolls argue it is the savior of mankind, only stopped by green ignorance. For all the hyperbole, both sides make some good points. Nuclear power is not as dangerous as it is often portrayed, at least compared to coal, while the trolls fail to acknowledge the major problem with traditional nuclear power: its stupendous cost. However, there are reasons to hope there could be a way to end this impasse. The answer lies in moving away from existing nuclear technology, and towards general research. The theoretical benefits of non-standard nuclear technologies are very great, but these technologies are not currently in a workable form. Thus, more research could pay off handsomely. The Department of Energy is moving in just this direction, with $60 million recently awarded towards new nuclear research. That's a good step, but an insufficient one. We ought to be doing much more. The main problem with traditional nuclear power plants is that they're too big. Existing nuclear technology is based on uranium fission, which requires enormous generators to work properly. The plants are huge, complicated, dangerous, and therefore extremely expensive to build and insure. Typically, that means large government subsidies are required to get one actually built, and cost overruns and other headaches are very common. As a result, many nuclear projects have been abandoned outright. What's worse, nuclear has stagnated or even increased in price over the years. Like any big piece of infrastructure these days, American institutions struggle to get them done on time and within budget. That stands in stark contrast to wind and especially solar, which have been plummeting in price. Faced with a likely price assault from renewables, many utilities are attempting to capture regulated ratepayers who can be forced to pay for their unprofitable nuclear plants.
Then, of course, there is the small but real danger of nuclear meltdown, which could turn huge swaths of country into a radioactive wasteland for centuries. Newer reactor designs have the potential to alleviate most or all of these problems. Some research funded by the Department of Energy concentrates on smaller, modular reactors, which could standardize the manufacturing process and bring down prices, since one of the expensive aspects of traditional design is having to build custom parts and equipment for huge generation facilities.
Another, even more promising research area is in thorium reactors. This is another fission reactor, but with several major advantages. Thorium is vastly commoner than uranium, making the fuel cheaper. The reaction pathway generates far less waste. Such a reactor also must be constantly bombarded with neutrons to keep the reaction going, instead of being modulated with control rods — meaning that it will tend to naturally cool down on its own during an emergency loss of power, rather than spiral out of control.
In perhaps the most promising design, thorium is dissolved in a molten fluoride salt, which means the reactor can be operated at atmospheric pressure, instead of the very high pressure of traditional reactors. It can even include an electric-cooled reactor plug, so if power fails, the plug will melt and the reactor will automatically drain and shut itself off.
Aside from cold fusion, this has long been the holy grail of nuclear energy. So why hasn't it been figured out? Nuclear weapons, for one. It's nearly impossible to get weapons-grade plutonium or uranium out of a thorium reactor — a potential benefit today, but a major strike against thorium during the Cold War. The U.S. actually had a prototype thorium reactor back in the 1960s, but President Nixon fired the major thorium proponent because Nixon was more interested in the nukes.
To be clear, thorium research isn't included among the current grants, since it would cost a lot more than $60 million — though the Department of Energy is reportedly helping China develop a prototype, while Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which housed the '60s prototype, is helping Canada build one.
All that said, we shouldn't be counting our nuclear chickens. By all accounts, the theory here checks out, but it would have been done by now if the implementation weren't very, very hard. Nuclear reactors — even small ones — are some of the most difficult engineering humankind has ever attempted. Even if these theories can be made to work, it will likely take years and a great deal of money to move from the prototype to the mass-implementation phase.
Still, at the very least it's worth a shot. Just last year the government gave billions in loan guarantees to two additional units at the Vogtle nuclear plant — potentially groundbreaking research ought to get at least equal support.
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