Antinuclear

Small Nuclear Reactors for Australia would require same planning as large, proponents conclude

INFRASTRUCTURE, GOVERNMENT AND RESOURCE REQUIREMENTS FOR BOTH LARGE AND SMALL MODULAR REACTOR POWER PLANTS IN AUSTRALIA PART 1- INFRASTRUCTURE 1,2 JAMES BROWN, 1,2 STEFAAN SIMONS and 1,2ANTHONY D. OWEN 1 International Energy Policy Institute (IEPI), UCL Australia, Adelaide, Australia 2 University College London, UK e-mail: james.c.brown@ucl.ac.uk

Abstract This paper considers the minimum infrastructure, construction and waste resource requirements for Australia to deploy both large reactors and small modular reactors to be licensed in the near term, including NuScale, mPower and Westinghouse SMR. The requirements for other types of small modular reactors are provided in some of the comparisons to broaden the range of estimates.

Preliminary estimates suggest that FOAK large and small reactor plants would likely have similar land, infrastructure, fuel and waste requirements per MWe capacity under current regulatory regimes.

This is somewhat in contrast to the perception that SMRs allow for faster approvals, siting and deployment of power plants requiring less infrastructure and resources. However, in the U.S. the development of regulatory approaches for SMR licensing continues, in order to take into account the various designs, modularity, collocation features, and size of the emergency planning zone (EPZ).

This paper concludes that there are sound arguments for reducing the regulatory requirements due to the inherent safety features of new reactor designs.

However, it would be prudent, though, for governments to proceed with nuclear infrastructure and regulatory planning on the basis that the regulatory requirements for SMRs will not be significantly different to large nuclear power plants, until sometime after they have been commercially deployed.

While this paper acknowledges that SMRs may provide some financial benefits over larger reactors, it is argued that there is little difference in the scale of preparations required to develop Australia’s nuclear that there is little difference in the scale of preparations required to develop Australia’s nuclear power programme capabilities in the near term……..ttp://www.jnrd-nuclear.ro/images/JNRD/No.7/jnrd-7_art1.pdf

February 18, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, technology