The Small Reactors at Savannah River

The Department of Energy proposed a couple of years ago spurring the development of small nuclear reactors by entering public-private partnerships with several vendors to foster the building of prototypes and, eventually, generate NRC license applications for the designs.
Now, the first fruit of this program has budded:

Hyperion Power Generation Inc., the Department of Energy – Savannah River, and Savannah River National Laboratory have announced their commitment to deploy a privately-funded first-of-a-kind Hyperion reactor at the DOE Savannah River Site.

Hyperion doesn’t need a license to pursue its work, as it could sell its reactor technology overseas if it chose and go through whatever processes are established in other countries. But it recognizes the value of the NRC’s license procedure as a kind of gold standard:

“It is important that we achieve NRC licensing to provide worldwide confidence in the technology and design of our advanced Generation 4 reactor,” said Dave Carlson, COO and Chief Nuclear Officer with HPG.

Let’s back up over the news a little bit.
Hyperion joins NuScale and Holtec International among the companies included in the DOE program. The work by all three companies will be done at South Carolina’s Savannah River Site. NuScale and Hyperion have small reactor designs.
So does Holtec, which I’ve generally regarded as a parts fabrication company. Holtec’s HI-SMUR 140 is a 140-megawatt reactor with an underground core. The design requires no reactor coolant pump or off-site power to cool the reactor core.
A little more about what the announcements mean:

The agreements will allow these private companies to gain information on SMR reactor deployment at SRS and offer a framework to develop land use and site services contracts to promote these initiatives. The MOUs help to leverage Savannah River’s nuclear expertise, energy facilities and land assets that support private sectors to develop, test and license prototype SMR technologies.

That’s a chunk of acronyms – MOU is memorandum of understanding, the agreements between Savannah River Site and the companies, presumably to be followed by contracts.
World Nuclear News expands on this a bit:

However, the DoE stressed that the new agreements "do not constitute a federal funding commitment." It said that it envisages private sector funding to be used to develop these technologies and support deployment plans. The DoE added that the agreements are unrelated to its funding opportunity announcement for SMR cost-share projects announced in January.

This forward-looking projects will be interesting to follow, something I’m sure the three companies and DOE will be eager to help us do.
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A speech given about the Canadian response to the accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi site is an interesting echo of the American response, with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in the role of the NRC and the World Association of Nuclear Operators playing INPO (and INPO playing INPO, too.)
The speaker is Tom Mitchell, the President and CEO of Ontario Power Generation. The following excerpts are adapted from notes he put together for the speech. You can read the whole thing here. (I like that the Canadians use the term learnings for lessons learned,too.)

Much has been written about Fukushima – some of it critical of our industry. Yet as I look back at events over the past year, I believe our reaction to Fukushima was timely, appropriate and effective.
Right from the start, here in Canada we moved quickly to give people as many facts as possible about the event – and assure them of the safety of our nuclear units. The CNA was very active during this period. So was OPG as well as our nuclear colleagues.
At OPG, we communicated quickly and across a number of fronts --- with local communities and on regional, national and international level. We dedicated a portion of our website to the event – providing fact-based information about the event and our stations. We made our executives available for speeches and interviews. We did extensive outreach in our nuclear site communities. We published information pieces in local and regional newspapers. And we established regular and ongoing communications with nuclear organizations from around the world – including WANO (World Association of Nuclear Operators), INPO (Institute of Nuclear Power Operations) and the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency).
Our message was clear.
The geology at our sites was stable and our nuclear safety systems were robust – with redundant back-up power so that we were not vulnerable to Fukushima-type acts of nature.
The CNSC (Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission) was also active.
Shortly after the event, it asked Canadian nuclear operators to provide verification their reactors were safe. The CNSC also provided information on its website that was useful to both the industry and the general public. In response to the CNSC’s request, OPG and other operators launched a thorough assessment of their operations to confirm their safety.
We also committed to a number of specific actions based on lessons learned from Fukushima. By April, we had reconfirmed that our stations were indeed safe and the systems in place at OPG’s nuclear facilities were robust enough to withstand significant emergencies. In July we issued another report in which we outlined the steps we were taking to address the key learnings coming out of Fukushima. These learnings included the absolute necessity to guard against external events – specifically those that threaten to overwhelm the design basis of the plant’s systems and equipment.

I’m not sure of the CNSC’s role – it may not carry the same regulatory heft of the NRC or perhaps Sullivan just wanted to stress his company’s activities. 
There’s a section of the speech about the CANDU (which stands for Canada Deuterium Uranium) reactor, the country’s home-grown variation on a pressurized heavy water reactor. Canada has 18 operating reactors, 16 in Ontario, one in Quebec and one in New Brunswick. All are CANDUs. Canada has also sold about 32 CANDUs to other countries. None are in the United States. You can read more about the CANDU reactor here.
Nuclear energy provides about 15 per cent of the country’s electricity and 50 percent of Ontario’s electricity.
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Well:

Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) cadres hurled stones on anti-nuclear energy protesters here on Saturday. A police constable, Murugesan (45), suffered head injuries in the incident.

The story in The Hindu offers more details but not enough context to understand why government pelting occurred here. Apparently, the protest involves the building of the Kudankulum facility in Tamil Nadu, which has indeed become contentious, but that’s all I can figure out. Let’s file this one away until more information surfaces. In the meantime: no pelting.
The Hyperion Power Module is actually the little pellet-like element indicated by the arrow in this conceptual drawing.

Utah – the Place for Nuclear Energy?

Utah’s Governor Gary Herbert talked about the importance of nuclear energy during his State of the State address earlier this year – then the accident at Fukushima happened – then -

“The lessons we learn from that horrific situation [in Japan] must not be lost as we discuss any possible future nuclear power generation here,” he said during the release of his 10-year energy plan in March. “The disasters in Japan, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island will not preempt the debate of nuclear power — but they certainly will influence it.”

That seems sensible enough. A little more surprising:

While noncommittal about the proposed Utah project, Herbert insists that nuclear power is “safer than ever” and still up for discussion in his state.

Or maybe not so surprising:

Approximately 82 percent of the electricity produced in Utah in 2008 was from coal-fired generation, with six plants active statewide, according to the Utah Geological Survey. Natural gas accounted for the second-largest proportion at 15.6 percent. Hydroelectric provided 1.4 percent, while geothermal and petroleum each comprise less than 1 percent of net generation of electricity in Utah.

So, in Utah, the renewables and nuclear energy stand on the same patch, but at least this gives the state a lot of options going forward.

The first article linked above mentions a company called Blue Castle Holdings that wants to build the first nuclear facility in the state. Blue Castle has hired former NRC Chairman Nils Diaz to help out, so its has potent assistance in the public relations game.

We wish Blue Castle good fortune. Herbert’s support for the atom is more subdued than before but still present – which is politic - and Utah could do with broadening its electricity portfolio. Utah just might be the place.

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CNET takes a look at the MIT Finance Forum and is surprised to find that nuclear energy still has the nerve to shove its nose through the door. Why?

"Our investors have a very long time horizon and the reason they supported it is the long-term societal implications and the potentially significant returns from that (so) we haven't seen any wavering of support," said Tyler Ellis, a project manager at TerraPower.

So that’s why there’s been no wavering of support. Writer Martin LaMonica focuses on small reactors, probably because CNET covers a lot of tech news and Microsoft’s Bill Gates is an investor in TerraPower. So it all fits together.

LaMonica provides a nice overview of the benefits of small reactors. I’ve always found some of the offered reasons a little thin:

Although none has actually been built, modular plants have a slight advantage in terms of cost: simply, financiers don't need to raise as much money, said Bob Percopo, a project finance expert who works at the energy division of AIG. "On balance, small modular reactors probably have a leg up on the financing side," he said.

In addition to being quicker to build, the smaller plants require fewer operators, which lowers the operations costs, [NuScale Power CEO Paul] Lorenzini said.

True statements all – well, the one about financing is unknown at this point. But I wonder if small reactors will be sold ultimately as an alternative to their full size peers or as supplements used for different purposes.

That isn’t completely clear yet, but I do think the better argument isn’t their cost effectiveness – though that’s a selling point – but that they can be used in all kinds of situations where full scale plants might be too ambitious – providing power to military bases when they’re cut off from the grid, providing process heat for industrial processes, etc.

After all, the flux capacitor ran a car, so if you’ve got a different form factor, devise a different use case (and admittedly, most of the small reactor companies have done this – LaMonica just didn’t pick up on it.)

Visit NuScale here and TerraPower here for more on what they can do.

From the Utah state song, Utah – This Is the Place:

Utah! People working together; Utah! What a great place to be; Blessed from Heaven above; It's the land that we love; This is the place!

Fluor Invests in NuScale

You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what?

NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C.

Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now.

Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said.

And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough:

Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misappropriated at least $53 million in investor funds and used the money for self-dealing transactions," according to an SEC document. The SEC action did not allege any wrongdoing on the part of the nuclear firm, but the loss of its lead investor forced NuScale into dormancy.

This was a Ponzi scheme. NuScale had nothing to do with it, of course, just as Bernard Madoff’s clients had nothing to do with his scheming, either. They were all victims. So Fluor’s investment puts NuScale back on a full footing.

So what does NuScale aim to sell? This is how the company describes its technology:

NuScale Power, Inc., is commercializing a modular, scalable 45 Megawatt electric Light Water Reactor nuclear power plant. Each NuScale module has its own combined containment vessel and reactor system, and its own designated turbine-generator set. NuScale power plants are scalable, allowing for a single facility to have just one or up to 12 units. In a multi-module plant, one unit can be taken out of service without affecting the operation of the others.

This is interesting, too.

In a NuScale system, the reactor pressure vessel contains both the nuclear fuel, or reactor, and the steam generators. Water in the reactor circulates using a convection process known as natural circulation. This is also described as a passive safety system because no pumps or other mechanical devices are required to circulate the water.

Passive is bad in relationships, but good in industrial plants because it allows the reactor to take care of itself (broadly speaking) instead of depending on operator action or an electric connection. If the plant loses power, for example, it can remain operational (again, broadly speaking) until it can be safely shut down. It doesn’t make other plants unsafe, but it gives this one an interesting profile.

We’re not really plumping for NuScale – may the best company win and all that – and the small reactor field is crowded but still very young. No design has been licensed by the NRC, though the commission has signaled that it is ready for applications – particularly for light water reactors like NuScale’s. It’s a technology the NRC already understands well. But it’s nice that NuScale escaped an awful situation – and it’s heartening to see the nuclear energy industry moving forward in productive ways.

So – good news all around.

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And now, your moment of fun:

"I don't care what the nuclear energy industry says," [Dr. Helen] Caldicott said through an Internet phone call. "I speak to you as a doctor. We are absolutely credible."

Almost sounds like Dr. McCoy: "I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer." Or a credible critic of nuclear energy, for that matter. But Dr. McCoy never pretended to be one, did he?

Fluor’s John Hopkins. If he visits Baltimore, he may want to use his middle initial and avoid the teasing.

Jordan – Gates – Germany - NuScale

A couple of days ago, I expressed a little disappointment that Bahrain was not joining the nuclear family – well, maybe it will, but it doesn’t seem to be on its radar right now. So let’s replace that bit of grimness:

Like many others, Jordan is not giving up on its nuclear program, which it considers an essential part of its energy plan. The country has plans to build two reactors in the next decade, and two additional reactors are planned for the next 25 years.

Jordan is at the stage where it is scoping out vendors:

The country’s atomic commission has pre-selected possible technologies from Atomic Energy of Canada, Russia’s ZAO Atomstroyexport and Atmea, a joint venture between France’s Areva and Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

Rolling right along.

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Bill Gates has been enough a fan of nuclear energy to invest money in it. Have events in Japan changed his mind? Wired thought it would find out:

The good news about nuclear is that there’s hardly been any innovation in the past three decades, so the room to do things differently is quite dramatic. The difference between today’s designs and one from the 1960s is night and day. We understand heat pipes a lot better today. We understand what the decay of heat looks like. There’s this company, TerraPower, which former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myrhvold and I have spun out of his invention group, Intellectual Ventures. We’ve got a new nuclear design, a generation four. On paper it’s quite amazing.

Well, I can’t say I agree with everything here, but Gates is on the hunt for the next big thing (as he often is) and he’s decided that TerraPower is it. That makes everything else, in his mind, rather outmoded – out with DOS, in with OS/2.

You can read the rest at Wired. A lot of his views on energy are counterintuitive, but that makes them challenging even when you find yourself disagreeing with him most of the time.

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Economist Ferdinand Banks takes a look at the German decision to close its nuclear plants. The piece is a little dense in style, but easily comprehensible and even amusing. A taste:

Here it needs to be appreciated that if the German nuclear retreat were a reality instead of a politically motivated and bizarre fantasy, the French nuclear sector might have already started to expand in order to receive the hundreds of billions in export income that would become available when German nuclear facilities begin to close their doors.

Not completely fair, I’m sure, but love it anyway.

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NuScale, a prospective designer of a small reactor design, recently found itself the negative beneficiary of an investment firm heavily involved in a Ponzi scheme. NuScale had nothing to do with the bad business, but of course, suffered a stark reversal of fortune and almost collapsed. Better days ahead:

NuScale Power has been quietly recalling laid-off employees over the past two months as it slowly recovers from a financial crisis that very nearly proved catastrophic.

That’s good news.

NuScale's modular reactor technology has continued to attract attention in the nuclear industry, however, and some modest outside investment. Landrey declined to say how much new backing NuScale has raised so far, but said his company is increasingly confident about its future.

That’s chief marketing officer Bruce Landrey and that’s about what you’d expect him to say. Some of the vendors working on small reactors likely won’t last – it’s just how business works – but it would have been a shame to see NuScale go pear shaped due to the bad behavior of others.

Bill Gates