Miniplants to Pave the Way for Nuclear Renaissance
Industrial uses will save money, offset environmental concerns and boost the economy.
By Jim Ostroff, Associate Editor, The Kiplinger Letter
October 15, 2008
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The first new nuclear power plants in decades -- hot-tub-size minireactors -- are being developed by Toshiba, Hyperion Power Generation and NuScale Power. The miniplants can create enough electricity to power a town of about 25,000 homes. Municipal uses aren’t likely, though. In four to five years, the miniplants will show up in remote spots for heavy industrial uses, such as oil extraction from tar sands or water desalination.
Mininukes are getting a boost from environmental concerns about burning fossil fuels, which spew out carbon dioxide, implicated as the chief villain in global warming. It will be far cheaper to install a pint-size nuclear generating plant to produce electricity or heat than to build a coal- or natural gas-fired plant that requires costly carbon dioxide burial. It’ll also be a lot cheaper than purchasing carbon credits to offset the impact of fossil fuel pollution.
Mininukes aren't just suited to replace power generating stations. Hyperion Power Generation's unit should save around $2 billion over five years when used to replace gas-powered steam engines common in oil fields.
Look for Toshiba to be the first to get the nod from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to build miniature nuclear generators. The reactor, dubbed 4S and built by Toshiba and its Westinghouse Electric subsidiary, will have a generating capacity of 10 to 50 megawatts (MW). That's a pipsqueak compared with full-size nuclear generating stations with capacities of about 1,000 MW to 1,600 MW.
Hyperion is likely to get the OK a little later, but it has big plans to start building 4,000 or so 27 MW reactors at a New Mexico plant within four years or so. NuScale Power also expects to field a 45 MW unit.
In 2014 or 2015, look for the first new full-size plant to come on line, followed by a score or more of additional facilities erected within a handful of years. They will be the first new nuclear power generating facilities to crank up since the late 1970s.
In fact, demand will be large enough to support assembly-line production. The Shaw Group and Westinghouse Electric are building an enormous facility in Lake Charles, La., to mass-produce control systems, piping, steel reinforcing and other components for a standardized plant, the AP1000.
Only the reactor core needs to be built on-site. About half of the 20 or so new full-size nuclear power plants now seeking NRC approval will use this Westinghouse-designed reactor. The Shaw/Westinghouse commitment to spend about $100 million to build the plant is a major step toward the nuclear renaissance, as Kiplinger first forecast in 2004.
"The fact that these companies are making an investment of this size shows they believe the potential for a significant commercial nuclear power market is real," says Adrian Heymer, senior director for new plant deployment at the Nuclear Energy Institute.
The atom plant assembly line will trigger a wave of orders for suppliers nationwide. They’ll get around $18 billion over the next decade in new business -- everything from high tech to basic materials, including computers, control electronics, software, display consoles, steel, machine and specialty tools, wiring, concrete and asphalt.
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Reader Comments (13)
Posted by: Nomen at 10/15/2008 12:37:16 PM
As a scientist I believe that nuclear plants can be relatively safe and are the way to go in the future. But I am very alarmed at the prospect of thousands of miniplants. Even with the existing regulations and security, a large nuclear power plant near me was recently fined for not reporting a leak to the atmosphere for over a year. By then it's difficult to know just how much the public was exposed to. If the plant illegally withheld that information for a year, then it is also doubtful that they reported the true magnitude of the leak. Thousands of miniplants will eventually mean lax security,unqualified operators and a nightmare of transportation and waste disposal problems. At first everything will be done by the book but then the greed for more profit will reduce the number of security personnel and operator qualifications will degenerate to "No special training needed." Will corporate greed and lax government regulation win out over common sense and public safety? What has been their record so far? Do I support new large and closely regulated nuclear plants? YES! But thousands of miniplants? It would be safer to keep burning coal.
Posted by: Skepticalguy at 10/15/2008 01:10:19 PM
And just where will these mini-nukes be placed? NIMBY will kill these projects.
Posted by: Rod Adams at 10/17/2008 03:03:00 AM
Unlike Nomen, I am excited by the concept of much smaller nuclear plants. Part of my excitement is generated by the idea of burning less coal, oil and natural gas and part is by the idea of supplying clean, reliable power to places that have no access now to coal, oil and gas because of transportation difficulties. I am no scientist, but I have operated nuclear plants that are roughly on the same scale as those being planned for construction by Toshiba, Hyperion, NuScale and several others who have not yet publicly released their plans. Contrary to what people like Nomen thinks, these are not "personal" sized power plants - they are large enough to power small towns with thousands of residents. It is only when compared to the massive, mainframe plants built in the 1960s-1990s that one can think of a 10,000 to 50,000 kilowatt plant as "small". The plants I operated would occupy a structure about the size of a three or four truck fire station when you include all of the secondary steam plant and the supporting systems. I have carefully reviewed the plans for all of the described reactor based power systems - they will all be about that same size once you add in the power conversion units. They will also produce 5-20 million dollars worth of revenue each year and be adequately monitored. I far prefer the probability of unreported or undetected leaks of radioactive material to the certainty of continuous noxious and deadly emissions from coal, oil, and gas plants. If Nomen is that worried about the health effects of radioactive materials, it would be very simple and cheap for him to obtain measuring equipment sensitive enough to provide warning for his family WELL before there is any accumulation that would put their health at risk. The same cannot be said of a local fossil fuel plant - you can simply assume that the smoke, CO2, fly ash, CO, etc. will add some amount of risk to every breath taken. Rod Adams Editor, Atomic Insights
Posted by: wow at 10/17/2008 06:34:39 AM
If this goes through we will be assured to see a terrorist group get their hands on radioactive waste or even possibly take over a whole plant.
Posted by: michael at 10/17/2008 10:09:17 AM
I have worked with nuclear power for most of my adult life, and I can tell you with the knowledge and technology developed over the last 50 years {yes ..remember the Nautilus} power plants can, and probably will be,automated to the extent a laptop and remote sensing will be all that's needed. If you believe in all the bogeyman scenarios this country would have you believe you are sadly mistaken. To use the materials included in these plants would take weeks and highly specialized equipment to even handle let alone drag it all over the world.
Posted by: Bill at 10/17/2008 01:56:31 PM
Skepticaldude, The 1st S4 goes in at Galena, Alaska (hopefully). They are bermed (undergrounded), so bring a shovel if you want to see it.
Posted by: Finrod. at 10/17/2008 07:26:04 PM
"If this goes through we will be assured to see a terrorist group get their hands on radioactive waste or even possibly take over a whole plant." What kind of security precautions do we have currently at major hospitals which use highly radioactive elements on a regular basis in the course of analysing some maladies, and treating others? Terrorists could have been conducting raids on hospital cancer wards for years now to abtain highly radioactive materials for the construction of a 'dirty bomb'. This has not been happening. We might speculate that terrorist planners have considered this option themselves, and come to the conclusion that such an operation is worthless.
Posted by: Nomen at 10/20/2008 03:01:07 PM
Unlike Rod Adams, I am not blinded to the dangers involved with miniplants by dollar signs and the potential profit nor did I use the term "personal" sized. I DO favor large tightly regulated and controlled plants. Once again, the control and waste disposal from thousands of miniplants would be a complete nightmare. Wind, solar, and even cleaner coal plants could take up much of this demand. Rod even says he prefers "the probability of unreported or undetected leaks of radioactive material..." I DON'T. I have worked in radiation labs and metallurgy for years. I am familiar with the deterioration of materials by caused by radiation. When many of these miniplants are abandoned someday, they will eventually leak and the cleanup(usually at tax payer expense) will cost far more than any money saved. I am concerned about green house gases and, yes, I do have a radiation detector as the result of leaks that have happened already. Remember folks, many scientists will say what their employer tells them to. I am not being paid by anyone.
Posted by: Dave at 10/25/2008 07:00:48 PM
Nomen makes the point on 10/20 that wind, solar, and cleaner coal could pick up much of the demand. He is right. We need a mix of distributed sources for energy: nuclear, wind, solar, wave, methane from our landfills, geothermal, etc. We need to save our crude oil for use as feedstocks for the chemical industry for manufacturing plastics and other similar materials. Boone Pickens has a plan for capturing the wind in the mid west. Critics claim it won't supply enough of the needed energy. But it's a start and we have to start somewhere, sometime. Building and installing mini nuclear plants is another place to start. Unfortunately, as Skepticalguy says, NIMBY will try to kill these nuclear plants. NIMBY is trying to kill anything that does not currently exist, be it nuclear, wind, solar or any other form of alternative energy. Here in south central PA, we have a homeowner who applied for permission to install a wind turbine on his property. The neighbors are aghast! "It will spoil my view." "The noise will keep me awake at night." "Look at all the birds these wind things kill." And so on. ARGH!!!!!!
Posted by: Rod Adams at 10/26/2008 06:56:55 AM
@Nomen - I am not blinded by potential profits or paid by anyone to say what I say. I have a good, full time job as a professional naval officer. If anything, my employer would probably prefer for me to have nothing to say on this particular topic. However, I have worked with radiation and radioactive materials for a number of years. I also worked as the atmosphere control officer as a collateral duty on my sub and can tell you that I was far more concerned about the immediate health effects from combustion byproducts than the exceedingly remote possibility of long term health effects from radiation doses at the rates expected for any normal conditions or minor leaks. Please understand - we were operating in a sealed environment and could not depend on "dilution is the solution to pollution." Nomen - please tell me about those "cleaner" coal plants that you advocate. How clean are they? Where do the toxic waste products go? If you remove materials like SO2 from the exhaust gas, where is the solid residue buried? What do you think about all of the other trace contaminants from burning coal, things like mercury, arsenic, uranium and thorium?
Posted by: Nomen at 10/27/2008 09:40:54 PM
Well Rod, how are you going to safely transport and bury all that hot nuclear waste from 1000s of minplants? While cleaner coal plants should be considered an intermediate and partial step(notice that I also included wind and solar). Wastes like SO2 could be commercially valuable if reclaimed. While it will take many years for the current CO2 levels to come down naturally, it will be many thousands of years before the nuclear waste would be safe. As a naval officer you seem to think that the civilian world will be as well trained and disciplined. NOT A CHANCE!!! A few pennies profit throws all that out the window. If businesses and our government didn't keep easily testable lead painted toys off the shelves last Christmas,how will they do with 1000s of miniplants? I remember Love Canal.
Posted by: Rod Adams at 10/30/2008 02:50:20 AM
@Nomen - First of all, we have been safely storing and transporting radioactive materials for well over 50 years. People who opposed the use of radioactive materials as fossil fuel replacements often raise the idea that nuclear materials remain radioactive for long periods of time, but that, by itself should be of no real concern. After all, the raw material that we use as fuel is already radioactive and has been for the entire history of the planet. The more abundant isotope of uranium has a half life of 4.5 billion years and thorium has a half life of 14 billion years. If the time that a material remains radioactive is really important, it should be encouraging to know that nuclear reactors turn that long lived material into products with half lives that are almost all less than 30 years. With only a few minor exceptions, the only long lived materials that are produced in a reactor can be recycled into new fuel where they will again have a good chance of being converted into relatively short lived materials. Since the ultimate waste material - the stuff that cannot be reused as fuel - has a half life of less than 30 years, the required storage before the radiation is insignificant is only about 150 years (5 half lives) or 300 years (10 half lives) if you are really really afraid of minor radiation doses. The criteria set by the EPA for Yucca Mountain demonstrates just how silly our imposed fear of radiation has become. The engineers have been told that they have to design the facility to a standard where no person can potentially be exposed to 15 mrem per year from material stored in that facility. The average person in the US receives an annual dose today from natural sources of about 350 mrem and an overall average of 700 mrem if medical exposures are averaged over the population. Of course that average hides an enormous variation with the least exposed people - probably nuclear submariners who spend much of the year sealed away from cosmic radiation and radon - getting less than 150 and the most exposed - probably cancer patients - getting tens of thousands of mrem. What sense does it make to have a standard of 15? Storing and handling radioactive materials is not hard. If you get taught simple principles like "time, distance, and shielding" you can live and work around radioactive materials with a great deal of safety. Unfortunately there is no similar protection against the long term health effects of fossil fuel pollution since the only way that industry handles its deadly waste is to dump it constantly into our common environment. I get the sneaking suspicion that the coal industry would love your message, Nomen. They do not like the idea of lots of new nuclear plants because they know that they will lose market share and profits. The natural gas industry and the petroleum industry are similarly afraid of the competition that nuclear power can provide. Final thought - I did notice that you included wind and solar, but those weather dependent, intermittent and very expensive power sources have been around since the earth was formed. Humans have known that they can be harnessed to do work for thousands of years. Very smart humans learned several hundred years ago how to build very refined shapes to collect wind power and drive sailing ships and windmills, but they lost in commercial competition to even very primitive coal fired steam plants. There is a reason that dozens of generations of scientists and engineers have not been satisfied with waiting for the sun to shine or the wind to blow.
Posted by: Nomen at 11/17/2008 07:40:58 PM
Rod, save the sales pitch. I know the numbers and how the real world operates. THE ISSUE IS AND WILL BE SAFETY. Miniplants will be an unacceptable hazard. PERIOD. I am puzzled by your contempt for wind and solar. Too much competition or just too safe??