Small Modular Reactors: Nuclear Power Fad or Future?, by Daniel T Ingersoll
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Small Modular Reactors: Nuclear Power Fad or Future?, by Daniel T Ingersoll
Free Ebook PDF Small Modular Reactors: Nuclear Power Fad or Future?, by Daniel T Ingersoll
There is currently significant interest in the development of small modular reactors (SMRs) for the generation of both electricity and process heat. SMRs offer potential benefits in terms of better affordability and enhanced safety, and can also be sited more flexibly than traditional nuclear plants. Small Modular Reactors: Nuclear Power Fad or Future? reviews SMR features, promises, and problems, also discussing what lies ahead for reactors of this type.
The book is organized into three major parts with the first part focused on the role of energy, especially nuclear energy, for global development. It also provides a brief history of SMRs. The second major part presents basic nuclear power plant terminology and then discusses in depth the attributes of SMRs that distinguish them from traditional nuclear plants. The third and final major section discusses the current interest in SMRs from a customer’s perspective and delineates several remaining hurdles that must be addressed to achieve wide-spread SMR deployment.
- Provides decision-makers in governments, business, and research with the needed background on small nuclear power and an overview of the current situation
- Presents a balanced discussion of the many advantages of SMRs and the challenges they face
- Written by a highly respected expert in the nuclear industry
- Published on: 2015-11-20
- Released on: 2015-11-20
- Format: Kindle eBook
About the Author Daniel T. Ingersoll, NuScale Power, USA
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Small Modular Reactors Are Important to Our Future, and Not a Fad - By Loyd Eskildson America pioneered the nuclear industry. America still leads the world in installed nuclear capacity with 104 reactors, representing about 30% of global nuclear generation. However, the U.S. is in danger of ceding leadership to other countries. We've experienced a 30-year drought in building new plants, thanks to cost overruns, construction delays, inaction on handling nuclear waste, and low natural gas prices. (The Energy Information Administration estimates prices will rise slowly over the next two decades and not exceed $6/million BTU until around 2030; SMRs may need natural gas prices to reach $7 or $8 to be competitive.) Further, the vast majority of the nation's nuclear power plants are nearing the end of their originally designed lifetimes - by 2030, most of these aging plants will need to be retired. With China expected to more than triple the number of installed nuclear reactors between 2011 and 2015, the U.S. may become less relevant in ensuring adequate safeguards against weapons proliferation - a strong domestic nuclear industry will better position the U.S. to lead on this issue. Existing strong players, besides American-linked firms Westinghouse and G.E., include South Korea's Kepco, France's Areva, U.K.-based AMEC, Russia (five different prototypes under development), and Japan (owns Westinghouse). Finally, the rapid increase in demand for electricity around the world over the next several decades, along with replacement of existing aging nuclear and coal facilities, presents the U.S. with a good opportunity to create jobs through exporting nuclear technology.The industry needs a new approach. Developing Small Modular Reactors (less than 300 megawatts, about less than one-third the size of a conventional large reactor) offers a new path. These may be water-cooled, pebble-based high-temperature gas cooled, or liquid-metal cooled - there are more than 45 designs currently under development - including a barge-mounted floating power unit..Coal requires the least infrastructure to emplace, thus the developing world i keeping coal in the position of fastest growing energy source globally. Natural gas is second, nuclear, hydro, and renewables bring up the rear. We need to reverse this trend. The toxic wastes generated by a 1000-MW coal plant is 10 million times as voluminous as the waste generated from the same-sized nuclear plant. The carbon emitted from coal plants is almost 100X that of nuclear plants for the same energy produced. A 1000-MW nuclear reactor on a one-square-mile site will produce the same amount of energy over its lifetime as 10,000 1-MW wind turbines on 1,500 square miles. Because nuclear reactors run for so many decades, the actual lifetime costs of nuclear energy are the second lowest of all sources (short-term finance and energy market issues aside), second only to hydroelectric. Two-thirds of the electricity in 2014 U.S. came from fossil-based fuels, 40% from coal, nuclear (19%), hydropower (6%) and renewables (7%) .Because of these properties, 72 new nuclear reactors are under construction around the world, and 150 more are firmly planned. China is rapidly adding electricity-generating capacity (it tripled energy consumption/capita between 1997 and 2011) hoping to replace 300 of their coal plants with 28 nuclear ones by mid-century - as well as adding nearly 400 coal plants and having the fastest rate of new solar capacity growth in the world, and India is planning 100 new nuclear reactors over the next 30 years. The UAE is currently building its first four nuclear power plants, and others nearby are also pursuing nuclear power programs. There is sufficient nuclear fuel for thousands of years, even at roughly double our current world usage.Hydro is still growing in the developing world, but fast approaching its limits and is vulnerable to droughts. Nuclear is nowhere near its limit, and mostly immune to climate and weather changes.Small modular reactors (SMRs), with their design simplifications, lower costs, expanded safety margins, greater feasibility for 'grid-independent' applications, and flexibilities, are key to enjoying that energy. Unfortunately, a series of events and announcements in early 2014 (two prominent U.S. SMR declared they were significantly reducing their efforts in the SMR sector) cast undue doubt on their ability to succeed. Ingersoll's purpose in this book is to refute those doubts.Water and electric power are both essential to high-level standards of human life. It takes water to produce energy (41% of the U.S.' fresh water withdrawal in 2005 was used for cooling thermoelectric power plants, and an average 7,300 MW of power was used globally to produce 35 million cubic meters/day of clean water. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that global energy consumption will grow 56% in the next 30 years, nearly doubling in developing countries and increasing 17% in developed countries.Coal plants in the U.S. account for 75% of CO2 emissions from the electricity production sector. If U.S. utilities were to close all coal plants over 50 years old, they would need to replace about 75 GWe (GigaWatt electric) of capacity, 100 GWe if plants older than 40 are closed. The 'bad news' is that even if the U.S. succeeds in decarbonizing the entire electricity generation market, it would have achieved only about a quarter of the CO2 reduction 2050 target.Currently there are 59 nuclear plants in 9 countries that support district heating systems. Author Ingersoll believes that considerably more would be used for industrial applications that use vast amounts of heat (eg. refineries, metals production) - if smaller, modular sources were available. (On the other hand, the NRC requires 10 miles emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants, making it difficult to site a small reactor near urban centers where it could be used for applications other than centralized electricity generation. Proponents believe the passive safety features of SMR design will allow reducing this zone to a half-mile.) SMRs are also predicted to have higher fuel costs than large reactors - from 15% to 70%.The biggest challenge today to expanding nuclear power sources is the availability of cheap natural gas, which emits roughly half the carbon/energy unit vs. coal. Another - the fact that federal subsidies and tax credits for wind, solar, and natural gas exceed those for nuclear, and the abandonment of billions spent to provide a permanent repository for high-level nuclear waste; both send wrong signals to the nuclear and investment industries. A third - the fact that nuclear plants to-date have come only in one size - 'extra large,' barring their usefulness to small utilities. Finally, a fourth significant challenges comes from the three high-profile accidents at nuclear plants - Three-Miles Island in 1979, Chernobyl in 1986, and Japan's Fukushima Daiichi in 2011.In the 1970s, the collective capacity factor for U.S. nuclear plants bounced around the 50% level; the average has been at 90% or so for the past 15 years. Multiple SMRs can further improve operating time - a single site can have eg. 3-4 SMRs, allowing one to go off-line for refueling while the others stay online, allowing power to be continuously generated. (In a conventional large nuclear reactor, the entire plant must go offline to refuel.)Smaller-sized commercial nuclear reactors (less than 300 MWe) have been around for several decades. They're also typically designed so that the entire reactor unit can be prefabricated in a factory and then transported to a site. Also favoring SMRs in the U.S. is the fact that we've mostly given away the large plant (1,000+ MWE). The traditional vendor giants (Westinghouse - now owned by Toshiba; G.E. - now partnered with Hitachi) and major components such as the reactor and steam generator vessels can only be manufactured overseas where component suppliers still exist for local nuclear markets.SMRs are better able to incorporate passive safety features that do not require human or electronic actions to function properly. These include cooling systems that use gravity instead of relying on access to power, natural convection systems, and passive heat removal. Incorporating the primary reactor core, steam generator, and the pressurizer into a common pressure vessel is only possible in a small design - large reactors have components outside the containment vessel, increasing the chance of an accident. Unlike larger reactors, SMRs can be installed underground, reducing vulnerability to terrorist attack or natural disaster. (A design from Gen4 seals off the reactor underground would operate for 10 years before refueling, compared to conventional large reactors that require refueling every 18-24 months.)A large nuclear plant can cost between $6 and $9 billion, often exceeding the financing capabilities of most financial institutions, utilities, or even small countries. SMRs at commercial scale could produce a 100 MW plant for $250 million, and allow shorter lead times (one-half to one-third) --> lower financial risks and lower costs of financing. Smaller project sizes and standardized designs also reduce risks of cost-overruns.The most frustrating aspect of wind and solar power is that they are unreliable - the former at any time, the latter at night.
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