small modular nuclear reactors: game changer
TRANSCRIPT
Small Modular Nuclear Reactors: Game Changer ?
Dr John Bauly ([email protected])
at Energy Studies Institute, National University of Singapore
24 October, 2013
1 John, Oct 2013
Agenda Nuclear power policies
World energy mix and implications:
Emissions, CO2 concentrations, and climate change
Effect of more nuclear
The nuclear power show-stoppers ( what went wrong...?)
- About accidents
- Design proliferation, etc.
Making choices
SMRs advantages
SMR world status
So what ?
Chances of game change ?
What needs to be done ?
2 John, Oct 2013
Nuclear Power Policies ? “Rather mixed“.... = no consensus....
• Singapore “Wait and see“ – monitor with due dilligence. ASEAN States Pro ? “Federal“ Pro ? Supportive ?
China, India, Pro, Supportive
USA States Varies
Federal Supportive
EU States Varies “Federal“ Supportive
3 John, Oct 2013
Nuclear Power Policy - Singapore
“Wait and see“ – watch with due dilligence.
15 Oct 2012: Ministry of Trade and Industry FACTSHEET: Nuclear energy Pre-feasibility Study:
“.... we prefer to wait for technology and safety to improve further
before reconsidering our options.“ “ Singapore needs to continue to monitor the progress. . “ Singapore needs to strengthen our capbilities to understand nuclear “ • “ Singapore should play an active role in global and regional cooperation on nuclear safety. “
4 John, Oct 2013
Singapore What is required for Singapore to be
Nuclear Ready ? Policy Dialogue at ESI, organised by Post Graduates of
the LKY School of Public Policy. Report 16th May 2013 : “ There is a great potential for Singapore to be the leading nuclear energy experts in the region. Building expertise will prepare Singapore for the prospect of nuclear energy domestically and within the region. One recommendation was to develop a small group of experts on nuclear readiness. “
5 John, Oct 2013
ASEAN ?
Philipinnes: Research reactor shut down First power plant in ASEAN, built 1985,
but never commissioned.....
Vietnam: Research reactor, ongoing Start builds in 2015?; 14 plants by 2030?
Thailand: Research reactor, ongoing Plans reduced after Fukushima 2 plants commissioning in 2026 ?
Indonesia: 3 research reactors, ongoing Plans reduced after Fukushima
Malaysia: 1 research reactor, ongoing Start build in 2021 ?
John, Sept 2013 6
Who is moving on, in, or out ?
Moving up: China, Russia, India, S.Korea, . . .
Moving in ? ? – eventually... : Iran, UAE, Turkey, Vietnam, Belarus, Jordon,
Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, + ~ 15 others
Moving out: German, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Spain,
(Italy, ?)
7 John, Oct 2013
Country Operating Under build "Total" % Elec. Gen,
2012
USA 104 5 109 19
France 58 1 59 75
Japan ??? 2/48 0 2/48 1/18
Russia 33 10 43 18
South Korea 23 4 27 35
India 20 7 27 4
Canada 19 0 19 16
China 17 32 49 2
UK 16 0 16 18
Ukraine 15 2 17 46
Sweden 10 0 10 40
Germany 9 0 9 18
Belgium 7 0 7 54
Spain 7 0 7 19
Czech Republic 6 0 6 34
Taiwan 6 2 8 18
Switzerland 5 0 5 40
Slovakia 4 2 6 54
All others 27 6 33
World i.e. on land 436 73 509 13
Ships and Subs. 180 ? 180? 100
8 John, Oct 2013
How old are they, World-wide? => approx rate of deployment (land based)
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Nu
mb
er
of
reac
tors
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Years
9
IAEA 2013
3 Mile Fukushima Chenobyl John, Oct 2013
International Energy Outlook, EIA, 2013 Report: DOE/EIA-048 (2013) - July Energy Information Administration Official Energy Statistics from the U.S. Government.
10 John, Oct 2013
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040
20
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
World energy consumption by fuel
Gtoe
= 800 quad
History 2010 Projections
Based on International Energy Outlook, EIA 2013 x 2.4 1990 -2040
11 John, Oct 2013
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040
Based on International Energy Outlook, EIA 2013
History 2010 Projections
World fuel consumption for electricity
Gtoe
8
6
4
2
0
x 3.1 1990 -2040
12 John, Oct 2013
2040 2050 2060
/ 2050 +
Based on C2ES Data (US Centre for Climate & Energy Solutions )
Game change, with more nuclear . . .
13
Further projection ?
John, Oct 2013
Atmospheric CO2 concentrations (ppm) ? ?
Keeling Curve
Vostok ice core analysis
natural equilibrium ?
1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050
Year
500
400
300
200
100
0
x 3 1990 -2040
“extra“
“extra“
14
Present game
Game change, with more nuclear . . .
John, Oct 2013
Climate change ? Serious ?
85 % of World Expert Judgement:
YES
What is “Expert Judgement“ ?
15 John, Oct 2013
1990 2040
20
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Renewables
World energy consumption by fuel
Gtoe
= 800 quad
“Official“ projections
Based on International Energy Outlook, EIA, 2013
CO
2 E
mm
isio
n ~
4500 m
t
CO
2
Em
mis
ion
~ 2
480 m
t
CO
2 E
mm
isn
~1
87
0 m
t
What could be ?
2040 2060
2040
2060, Peaking ?
John, Oct 2013
The nuclear power show-stoppers . . . .
• The accidents ….
• Growing public and national rejection..
• NO effective nuclear power Governance
• Inevitable difficulties of construction, commissioning, and operation due to their size, FOAK, etc.
• high risk big capital investment, uncertain pay-back times,
uncomfortable cash-flows
• Insurance ?
• Weapons proliferation ?
Could SMRs help solve those ? 17
John, Oct 2013
Some different types of plant
John, Sept 2013 18
450 MW Magnox Reactor, CO2
19 Sourced by John, Oct 2013
Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor AGR, CO2 ( Later, Helium used for High Temperature AGRs )
Reinforced
concrete
pressure vessel
Intermediate heat
exchangers
20 Sourced by John, Oct 2013
PWR Pressurized Water Reactor
• “Intermediate heat exchanger“
21 Sourced by John, Oct 2013 from http://www.solcomhouse.com/nuclear.htm ; original from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
BWR Boiling Water Reactor • NO “Intermediate heat exchanger“
22 Sourced by John, Oct 2013
About the accidents . . . 1979 Three Mile Island, Pennsylvasnia, 2 PWRs, 2 B&W; Partial Meltdown, Level 5.
Mechanical failures plus subsequent human operator failures.
140,000 people evacuated. Minimal damage to people and surrounds
Many B&W contracts cancelled.... Remaining PWR put back into use.
1986 Chernobyl, Pripyat, Ukraine, 2 BWRs, RBMK; Explosion and fire, explosions, Level 7. Due to a known system fault. Tests to characterise and correct the fault plus human error caused the eccident.
Plant ruined, Pripyat – 50,000 evacuated, Fall-out over Europe poisened crops and livestock for some months. Birth defects.
Death estimates vara from “ 31“ to 4000 in the short term, to estmated 1 million premature deaths up to 2004 . . .
2011 Fukushima, Daiichi, Japan, 6 BWRs. GE; Meltdowns, explosions, Level 7.
Due to flooding by tsuami following 50 minutes after earthquake.
300,000 evacuated, 130 deaths predicted in the short term, plus premature deaths from cancers, in the loger term.. yet to be determined....
Claims of negligence and falsification of safety records.
23
The show-stoppers...
John, Oct 2013
Chernobyle: Likely that much of the reactor material escaped . . .
24
The show-stoppers...
Sourced by John, Oct 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chernobyl_Disaster.jpg
About accidents
Determine
– What is possible, and “conceivable“
– What is possible, but “inconceivable“ ???
– What is impossible
UK concept: “Maximum credible accident...“
25
The show-stoppers...
John, Oct 2013
Plausible worst case ? Chernobyl, example...
• Likely that much of the reactor core material escaped
- deposited over the immediate vicinity, and the lighter particulants into the atmosphere – and deposited at danger levels up to 30 Km away, and at nuiscence/caution levels up to 1000 km away. .
- long half-lives of contamination, 30 years for Caesium 137 . . . .
26
The show-stoppers...
John, Oct 2013
About accidents.....
Affordable ? VIEW 1 :
YES:
1. After 50 years of nuclear power the lives lost is around 10,000.
This is very small as compared with losses by:
Transport, Pollution..
2. The lives lost per unit of energy generated, is much less for nuclear than for fossil
27
The show-stoppers...
John, Oct 2013
About accidents.....
Affordable ?
VIEW 2 :
NO ! :
• A level 7 (Chenobyl, Fukushima) event could make a city inhabitable for many years
We might save all the population by mass evacuation, - but the massive financial loss of the real estate , could be up to around $2,000 billion, or 12 % of the GDP of EU or USA.
• The radioactive emission pollution from accidents causes too high loss of people-years, plus unnaceptable damage to our gene-pool.
28
The show-stoppers...
John, Oct 2013
About accidents.....
The facts...
• Nuclear power has resulted in fewer life-years lost per unit
electricity generated than fossil power, by at least 10 times. That includes all the accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima.
• So . . . the issue is not life-years lost but the unnacceptable concentrated nature of the inpacts, and their violence.
29
The show-stoppers...
John, Oct 2013
Design Proliferation
• The many design options, mixed and matched, => large number of viable types of power plant.
• No dominant design(s); many types of ~ “equal merit“ ?
• High vested interests
30
The show-stoppers...
John, Oct 2013
No effective Nuclear Governance
• The Fukushima incident again showed that country self-governance is dangerously insufficient. (The IAEA warnings to Fukushima / Japanese athorities to update their tsunami defences, following the massive Indonesian tsunami, apparantly went unheeded...)
• Whilst the IAEA can be relied upon to make the necessary recommendations, updates, etc. There is no Governance power of policing & pesuasion that such are implimented, and that due diligence is applied.
• International Governance for Aviation is a possible model for the urgently needed Nuclear Governance
31
The show-stoppers...
John, Oct 2013
32
Product-Technology “S-Curve” (by Foster) Fission ?
Cumulative R&D Effort OR Time
HIGH
SPENDS,
LOTS OF
FALL - OUT
DOMINANT
DESIGN WINNERS &
LOSERS
POORER PAY-
BACK / UNIT
ON R&D ?
Product Performance
OR “Fitness for Purpose”
“ 2nd Generation “ PWRs, BWRs, CANDU ....
“ 1st Generation “ Magnox, AGRs ....
“ 3rd Generation“ CANDU 6, ....
“ 4th Generation“ TBA . . . .
John, Oct 2013
Design Types Options – Lots ?
• Reactor type: AGR, BWR, PWR, HTRs, CANDU, RBMK, Candle; pebble bed, fast breeder,….
• Fuel: e.g. uranium (low or high enrichment, 3- 20% ), thorium,
• Moderator: boron, graphite, heavy water, light water, etc.
• Cooling fluid, reactor: H2O, CO2, He, N2 ;
Na, Nak, Pb, molten salts, Pb-Bismuth,
• With or without intermediate heat exchanger
33 John, Oct 2013
Design Type Options – Lots more ? • Electricity generator: steam turbine, gas turbine, combined
cycles
• Steam cycles: sub-critical, super-critical, or “ultra-critical”
• Containment vessels: steel or reinforced concrete?
• Passive safety systems ? (= self limiting, rather than
self-sustaining instability )
• Reactor cooling: natural (= no pumps required )
or forced convention ( = pumped )
• - and is emergency cooling via natural circulation ?
34 John, Oct 2013
More Options ? • Capacity: electrical or heat output
• Electricity only
• “Total energy” = waste heat usefully recovered for district or process heating
• Location: above ground, below ground, off-shore (= floating platforms )
• Life to decommissioning : 30 – 60 years
• Refueling intervals: 1 – 30 years
• Can weapons grade plutonium be easily produced?
• Factory-made (= “packaged”), or built at site?
• Leasing ( i.e. rather than purchasing)
• Size: footprint and height
• Costs e.g. capital, operational, life cycle; per KW 35
John, Oct 2013
Making the selection ?
Used to be. . . . ?
1. Costs – capital and running 1.1 Reliability, minimum outages 1.2 Certainty of build costs and time
2. Safety : Incident chances and impacts
3. Want weapons grade materials ?
36 John, Oct 2013
Making the selection ?
- after Fukushima
Oddly, Fukushima has increased the fear factor more than Chernobyl ?
Growing public and national rejection ? Fukushima showed effective nuclear governance to be
dangerously absent. . . .
Why? (“the last straw...“?) “ We can 99.9 % prevent a major incident“ -
not believable....
37 John, Oct 2013
Making the selection ? - after Fukushima
1. Safety
2. Certainty of build costs and time
3. Costs – capital and running
Reliability, minimum outages
4. Want weapons grade materials ?
38 John, Oct 2013
Cost Sensitivity – now less ?
• Other green energy is anyway of higher cost.
• Energy costs will somewhat be contained by energy efficiency.
• Premium pricing acceptable for higher safety and other advantages.
39 John, Oct 2013
About “ size“ scaling laws...
Economies of size...
versus:
Economies of batch / mass production
e.g ship engines:
300 standard lorry diesel engines
Or
2 large diesel engines
40 John, Oct 2013
vSMRs advantages ? Addresses the “ Show Stoppers“ ? :
• Risks of massive impact accidents
• Vulnerability, earthquake and flood
• Public and national, rejection..
( “not in my back yard”….)
• Difficulties of construction, commissioning, and operation
• Need for high risk high capital investment with uncertain pay-back times, giving uncomfortable cash – flows.
• Insurability
41
John, Oct 2013
vSMRs advantages ? continued
- to minimise these concerns:
• Capital outlays an uncomfortably high proportion of a utility’s NPV / equity.
• Large effect on the grid of outages
• Poor location flexibility.
• Poor flexibility for total energy applications; the heat recovered may to be too much, and in the wrong place.
42 John, Oct 2013
Status..
• Lots of know-how , 180 naval SMRs
• Know-how transferrable from large plant
• SMR advantages gaining awareness worldwide (?)
• Readiness:
– 30+ SMRs already deployed
– “advanced SMRs“ under development in Canada, USA, India, China, Russia, Japan, Korea,
• Public funding (e.g. “USA government pay 50% development costs..
. Babcock & Wilcox promised Federal and State aid.....)
43
John, Oct 2013
Are there “safe design“ concepts ? For example....
• Minimum radioactive materials in the reactor core
• No explosion possibility: i.e. reactor core at atmospheric pressure
• - so liquid core preferred ? – also no “melt-down“ problems
• All / most of the material with shorter half-lives, - less than 2 years ???
• Fail-safe features like self shutdown if all auxillary power is lost, etc.
• Earthquake and flood immune
• Other ? e.g. 100% containment =› underground
44 John, Oct 2013
What is needed ? at least...
Define the meaning of “safe designs“ Determine if “safe designs“ seem possible - and demonstrate ? - scope out costs
Singapore to upgrade its knowledge sufficiently to be able to
influence Malaysia and Indonesia, et.al. - Singapore to enter the global nuclear debate
- More interaction with the IAEA ?
- Move towards nuclear governance... ******************* OR wait for Fusion ??
45 John, Oct 2013
What is needed ? Ideally...
1. Expert consensuses, documented and internationally or ASEAN recognised, on what are, and are not, acceptable impacts for conceivable accidents to nuclear plant in various defined locations e.g.
“very remote areas”, “within 40 Km of towns/cities”, “local to towns/cities”, etc. Those consensuses will then clarify the power plant design requirements, which
can then be used to establish the plant types design and parameters according to location
2. International or ASEAN agreement needs to be developed to require countries to build and operate plant according to the consensuses,
- and also to prevent any country from operating nuclear plant which could conceivably cause significant (defined) damage to its neighbours’ people or property.
• *****************************************
The above are arguably critical success factors for a future substantial expansion of nuclear power.
Can? Cannot? Who should do it ? What are IAEA doing ?..... 46
John, Oct 2013
ESI Stance ?
Singapore ?
ASEAN ?
Worldwide ?
47 John, Oct 2013
End of Presentation...
Your turn...
Comments Please .....
48 John, Oct 2013
Supplementary Slides
John, Sept 2013 49
• Also, no dominant designs for SMRs ?
John, Sept 2013 50
John, Sept 2013 51
John, Sept 2013 52
53
“Cyclic Model” of Technology Change ( A Model – some cycles may be a few months, others many decades !
May products contain various technologies in quite different stages of the cycle.)
“TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM”
Substitution
Invention Discontinuity
e.g. FISSION
Competing Designs
Winners
Dominant ?? Design(s)
Improvements by Incremental change Lower cost, weight
& size
Losers
Died
(Start new Cycle) Substitution
Invention – Discontinuity
e.g. FUSION
Embryonic Growth M a t u r i t y Decline Obsolete ?
Innovators & Forerunners
Mainstream Users
Followers Traditionalists Dead ?
John, Oct 2013
So let Fission run out, - and wait for Fusion ??
54
Disruptive Technologies can cause fast changes
Will an alternative technology improve to meet customer demands one day?
Sustaining Technology BIG
Disruptive Technology SMRs
Customer Demand Safe, etc
Pro
du
ct a
ttra
cti
ve
ne
ss
Time
John, Oct 2013
55 John, Oct 2013
The energy demand flip-flop . . .
56 John, Oct 2013