SMRs: Feds chart path on SMRs - questions remain . . . .

[Oscar]

Feds chart path on small modular reactors as questions on nuclear’s role in climate push remain

[ https://www.hilltimes.com/2018/08/30/bi ... 237/154736 ]

by Jolson Lim, Hill Times, August 30, 2018

[ https://tinyurl.com/ycz6ntb8 ]

The Liberal government is committing resources to creating a 'roadmap' for small modular reactors. However, it has shied away from explicitly endorsing new nuclear generation as part of its climate plan.

The Liberal government is examining the future potential of smaller nuclear reactors in Canada, even as it shies away from explicitly endorsing new nuclear generation as a way to move towards low-emission energy production.

Natural Resources Canada is asking stakeholders for their input on charting a “roadmap” on future development and demonstration of “small modular reactors.”

Consultations are being overseen on behalf of the department by the Canadian Nuclear Association (CNA)—the nuclear industry lobby group that has partly funded the exercise—and looks at the possibility of deploying reactors for on-grid generation, use in resource extraction and heavy industry, and replacing off-grid diesel for electricity, heating, and desalination in remote communities.

John Stewart, policy director at CNA, said the roadmap project is looking “not at technology, but at the human, environmental and energy, and community needs” that such reactors could meet.

“It’s not about the machine, it’s about who needs the machine,” he said.

Six meetings have been held, he said, involving Indigenous stakeholders from the North, provincial power utilities, and representatives from the oil and gas sector.

So far, key findings include that deployment would require a “fleet-based” approach in order to reach economies of scale, a need to further demonstrate the technology, and a desire to examine risk-sharing options between government and private partners. It also highlighted the need to address public concerns about safety, waste disposals, and costs.

Nuclear landscape in Canada

The Liberal government has embraced existing nuclear power as a low-emission source that has allowed Canada to have a head start with reducing greenhouse gases in the electricity sector. However, in its strategy to further reduce emissions, it hasn’t explicitly endorsed new nuclear power.

It contrasts to the “all of the above” energy strategy of former U.S. president Barack Obama, who supported both nuclear and renewables as a way to move towards lower carbon emissions.

In 2016, Canada got 14.6 per cent of its electricity from nuclear power. However, the expansion of nuclear power has stalled, seeing 0.2 per cent growth in share of total generation since 2005. The National Energy Board also anticipates no new nuclear reactors will be built in any province between now and 2040.

In an email on Aug. 11, Natural Resources Minister Amarjeet Sohi (Edmonton Wood Mills, Alta.) said “as a reliable, non-emitting source of energy, nuclear power will continue to play a role in our electricity grid.”

He added that “emerging nuclear technology could help reduce our reliance on fossil fuels such as coal and diesel, increase Canadian energy security, increase our economic competitiveness, and support innovation.”

In response to an 2017 House Natural Resource Committee report, the feds committed to more study, endorsing the idea of a nuclear innovation council.

CNA was critical of Ottawa in June, when it endorsed its advisory board’s Generation Energy report, saying it “overlooked” nuclear energy. The report recommended that “advanced power generation,” such as small reactors, should be introduced within the next 20 years. However, it did not explicitly mention new nuclear power as a way to meet its emissions targets.

The roadmap website also states that small reactors are a “promising potential source of non-emitting power for various applications,” but the “technology is at an early stage of development and there are still many questions to be answered.”

SMRs will face hurdles

Small modular reactors are typically defined as reactors generating less than 300 megawatts of electricity. Mr. Stewart said the historic trend is to build big plants in order to save money, but the intention now is to build in quantity. He said that Saskatchewan, with a smaller grid and plenty of end-of-life fossil fuel units, would be ideal for deploying small reactors. Small communities or resource projects in isolated places requiring heavy energy use could also use such reactors to offset diesel.

“You add it all up and you start to have a worldwide market of hundred and hundreds of units, and the economics start to look pretty good,” he said.

However, nuclear power in general faces high cost issues, especially in competition with a cheap natural gas and oil, according to M.V. Ramana, Simons chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security at the University of British Columbia. Nuclear energy production is much more complex compared to other sources, making it expensive to operate and build, he said.

“Nuclear is simply not economically competitive,” he said. “Those problems about safety and so on, those are not often the ones preventing or inhibiting countries from building nuclear plants.”

Prof. Ramana is also skeptical of the economies of scale argument for smaller reactors. He pointed to the United States and France, where the more nuclear plants they’ve built, the more costs have risen. That has to do with finding new safety vulnerabilities and then spending more money to patch them up, he said.

For small reactors, even if operators were to grasp the technological, safety, and manufacturing know-how relatively well, it still may not be enough to become more economical than less-complex renewables and still mean the construction of thousands of plants. And if demand isn’t there, factories to mass produce parts won’t run, or vice-versa, that creates a chicken and egg problem, he said.

“There’s simply no market for that,” he said.

For the public, there are also consistent concerns that nuclear power plants pose a significant safety and security risk. The 2011 Fukushima disaster sent a chill worldwide to future nuclear power development, and resulted in declining popular support for the source in many countries.

Gretchen Fitzgerald, national policy director at Sierra Club Canada, said there are still issues with how nuclear waste is disposed, and of the level of independence the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has. The regulator is currently asking the public for feedback on licensing for small reactors.

She also said small plants built across Canada would spread security and health concerns over much area.

“We have other solutions to the climate crisis at our fingertips that are safer and cheaper and create a more diverse sector of jobs,” she said.

But Mr. Stewart said nuclear has a much safer track record compared to other energy sources. He added that with the proper regulatory support, small reactors can be designed from the ground up and automatically shut down in an emergency.

Other activities

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) is currently partnering with small-reactor proponents to get a prototype built at ones of its sites by 2026 for future demonstration. The company wants to prove the commercial viability of such reactors and position Canada as a global hub for testing and development.

CNL is currently examining sites for construction, including at its Chalk River, Ont., campus about 190 kilometres north of Ottawa. CNL manages and operates the two research laboratories in Canada for Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. the crown corporation that owns such facilities.

Meanwhile, a Maryland-based company is teaming up with New Brunswick Power to work towards building a small reactor in the province, and is also looking at deploying reactors elsewhere in Canada.

The feds have also provided $32.3-million in funding since 2009 for two reactor projects by companies Terrestrial Energy and General Fusion through Sustainable Development Technology Canada.

The roadmap was announced in February, and a final document will be competed by fall. Mr. Stewart said it will then be presented to different levels of government for consideration.

For the most part, he said, the technology is already there given how nuclear power originated in smaller reactors and use on big submarines and ships.

“It’s not a problem with the technology, it’s more of a problem with things around it.”

[Oscar]

On Thu, 27 Sep 2018 22:10:19 -0400, Gordon Edwards wrote:

Background:

The accompanying article from the Hill Times outlines the Canadian Government’s current commitment to promote a whole new generation of nuclear plants, called “Small Modular Reactors” (SMRs). There has been no process of consultation with First Nations or with the Canadian public to support such a far-reaching policy decision.

The government is now developing a “roadmap” for the possible future deployment of small modular reactors throughout Canada. The SMR roadmap will be released publicly this fall, possibly during a three-day International Conference on SMRs to be held in Ottawa, November 6-8.

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) has won approval from the federal government and from Canada’s nuclear regulatory agency, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), to proceed with the licensing, building, and testing of one or a handful of SMRs in Canada — none of which has ever been built or tested before.

Lavishly-funded with taxpayer’s money, CNL is owned and operated by a consortium of profit-oriented multinational corporations that has contracted (by the previous administration under Prime Minister Stephen Harper) to run Canada’s federally-owned nuclear facilities and manage Canada’s radioactive waste liabilities.

CNL is eager to build and test one or more SMRs at Chalk River in Ontario and/or at the Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment in Manitoba. Bids from SMR designers have been solicited from around the world.

In order to do "get on with job" as soon as possible, CNL is proposing to implement unprecedented “quick and dirty” proposals for dealing rapidly with outstanding radioactive waste management problems.

At Chalk River, to “reduce” the eight-billion-dollar radioactive waste liability identified by the Auditor General of Canada, CNL proposes to pile one million cubic metres of radioactive waste in a surface mound five stories high, covering 11 hectares of land, less than one kilometre from the Ottawa River. CNL also proposes to entomb the radioactive remains of two defunct nuclear reactors right beside major rivers by grouting them with Portland cement, rather than dismantling the reactors and transporting the radioactive waste offsite.

Such proposals are diametrically opposed to all previous plans put forward in Canada for the long-term management of radioactive wastes and the decommissioning of nuclear reactors. They represent a radical departure from past promises and are seen by many as a betrayal of public trust.

Forty years ago the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility was created. At that time, CCNR submitted a brief to then Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau (on May 27 1977) entitled “Time to Stop and Think”. [ See http://www.ccnr.org/Stop_and_Think.html ]

The 1977 CCNR brief called on the government of Canada “to initiate a public inquiry to acquaint the people of Canada with the hazards and the benefits of nuclear energy developments.” That brief highlighted the dangers of nuclear reactor meltdowns, the nuclear weapons proliferation risks associated with plutonium commercialization, and the unsolved dilemma of keeping radioactive waste materials out of the environment of living things forever.

A public inquiry into the risks and benefits of nuclear technology forty years ago would have educated Canadian citizens and their elected officials of those dangers, and tested the industry’s ability to effectively deal with those challenges -- but such a federal inquiry has never taken place.

Instead of forcing Canada further down the nuclear path, the Canadian government has the option of initiating a genuine consultative process. That will allow Canadians to "stop and think" about where they want to be going as a society and as a species, and to avail themselves of the multi-millennial wisdom of the indigenous peoples of Canada. Unlike renewables like wind and solar, nuclear fission has consequences lasting forever.

Gordon Edwards, President,
Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility
http://www.ccnr.org