Antinuclear

TODAY. Small modular reactors – yes -the nuclear lobby will keep hyping them – no matter what!

Well, we all do know why. The small nuclear reactor (SMR)power industry – moribund though it is, is essential for the nuclear weapons industry – for a number of reasons, but importantly – to put a sweet gloss on that murderous industry.

Never mind that USA’s NuScale’s SMRs were a resounding flop – NuScale is still being touted, along with all the other little nuclear unicorns manouvreing to get tax-payer funding.

The facts remain, and apparently just need to be hammered again and again:

SMRs are not cheap, not safe, do not reduce wastes, are not reliable for off-grid power, are not more efficient fuel users than are large reactors.

The latest hyped -up push for SMRs is in Canada – with the boast that they will benefit indigenous communities . Successful bribery of indigenous people would give a huge boost to the global nuclear lobby, – as indigenous people have historically been the most distrustful of uranium mining and of the whole nuclear fuel chain.

The gimmicks this time are floating nuclear power plants – barges carrying Westinghouse’s eVinci microreactors. These would take over from the current deisal power plants serving remote communities. There are already some solar, wind and battery projects – frowned upon by the nuclear lobby, of course.

These projects are being strongly promoted, but poorly explained to indigenous communities, would bring radiological hazards along Canada’s Northern shoreline

And what really are the chances that these little nuclear power sources would be effective anyway? Recent reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reveal that while 83 small nuclear reactors are “in development”, but there are only 2 in operation.

In both cases, the development of the reactors was a very lengthy and expensive process.

The Chinese SMR HTR-PM- “Between January and December 2022, the reactors operated for only 27 hours out of a possible maximum of 8,760 hours. In the subsequent three months, they seem to have operated at a load factor of around 10 percent.” 

For the Russian SMR –  “The operating records of the two KLT-40S reactors have been quite poor. According to the IAEA’s PRIS [Power Reactor Information System] database, the two reactors had load factors of just 26.4 and 30.5 percent respectively in 2022, and lifetime load factors of just 34 and 22.4 percent.”

Will Canada’s remote indigenous communitites buy the duplicitous nuclear lobby’s propaganda on SMRs ? And then, subsequently, will the rest of us buy it, despite the facts. I guess that the corporate media will help, – if lies are repeated often enough, people come to believe them.

May 5, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | energy, news, nuclear, nuclear-energy, nuclear-power | Leave a comment

Can floating nuclear power plants help solve Northern Canada’s energy woes?

Diesel is the only way to keep the lights on in many remote Arctic towns. A new project wants to offer a greener [?] option – but first it has to assuage safety and cost concerns and compete with other renewables

The Globe and Mail MATTHEW MCCLEARN 3 May 24

The nuclear industry is seeking to establish a beachhead in Canada’s North – literally – with a proposed floating nuclear power plant to serve remote Indigenous communities.

Westinghouse, a U.S.-based reactor vendor, has partnered with Prodigy Clean Energy, a Montreal-based company, to develop a transportable nuclear power plant. Essentially a barge housing one or more of Westinghouse’s eVinci microreactors, it would be built in a shipyard and moved thousands of kilometres by a heavy-lift carrier to its destination in the Far North. There it could be moored within a protected harbour, or installed on land near the shore.

Prodigy, which spent the past eight years developing the barge, markets it as a solution for delivering small modular reactors (SMRs) for coastal applications. To serve markets with larger energy appetites, Prodigy has partnered with another American vendor, NuScale, whose reactor produces far more electricity than the eVinci.

While both the eVinci and barge are still works in progress, the partners vow to have their first transportable nuclear plant operating by the end of this decade. “We are talking here about really starting a new industry,” said chief executive Mathias Trojer. “Prodigy solves the SMR deployment problem.”

Prodigy markets its product as an alternative to diesel-fired power plants, which power nearly all Northern remote communities. Diesel is unpopular because of its high emissions and the considerable logistical challenges and costs associated with shipping it to far-flung places.

Prodigy’s message dovetails with broader marketing efforts by the federal government and the nuclear industry to promote SMRs: The word “Indigenous” appeared in the government’s 80-page “SMR road map” more than 100 times, mostly in relation to how communities should be engaged with well in advance of specific project proposals. Yet tangible details on how nuclear technology might be deployed for the benefit of Indigenous peoples were almost entirely absent.

With Prodigy’s transportable plant, a more coherent vision is beginning to emerge. In March, Prodigy announced it had reached an agreement with Des Nëdhé Group, a development corporation of the English River First Nation in northern Saskatchewan. Des Nëdhé’s task will be to engage with First Nations, Inuit and Métis across Canada on potential installations.

“You have Indigenous people that want to be part of this process, that want to include other Indigenous people and treat them like value-added partners,” said Sean Willy, Des Nëdhé’s president and CEO. “Having Indigenous people talk to Indigenous people seems to work a lot better than bringing in a bunch of outside consultants and highly technical people. That’s why we’re part of this project.”

Floating reactors are marketed for other purposes, too. At a conference the International Atomic Energy Agency held late last year that focused on them, possibilities discussed included supplying power to offshore oil and gas platforms, island nations, desalination plants and ports.

But as the partners race to commercialize their transportable nuclear plant, a few Northern communities are already using renewables such as wind and solar to reduce diesel consumption. Will floating nuclear power plants be ready in time and at an affordable price?

Diesel dissatisfaction

Gjoa Haven, Sachs Harbour, Puvirnituq, Arviat: They’re four of the roughly 200 remote communities across Canada lacking a connection to North America’s continental electricity grid and natural gas pipelines. For many decades, diesel-fired plants were the only option. 

Their ubiquity stems in part from low upfront capital costs, and they’re relatively straightforward to maintain. They can respond rapidly to shifting demand – a quality that is particularly important for small communities. They have proved dependable in harsh environments.

Diesel “can be installed almost anywhere,” said Michael Ross, a professor at Yukon University who studies Northern energy needs. “It’s been around for many, many years, and we know how it works.”

And yet it’s woefully unpopular. According to one estimate, Northern communities consume an average of 680 million litres of diesel every year. Severe conditions in the North leave a short delivery window each summer; shipments may arrive only once or twice a year. (Nunavut alone consumes approximately 15 million litres of diesel annually.) To ensure those supplies last, communities often maintain large excess reserves, which are expensive. Operating costs are high. A 2015 Senate committee report found that many of the North’s diesel plants were built in the 1950s and 60s and had already surpassed their expected service lives, driving costs higher still.

These and other factors drive up Northerners’ power bills to levels that would incite outrage elsewhere. Yet were it not for heavy government subsidies, they’d pay between 10 and 30 times today’s rates, according to the Pembina Institute, a clean energy think-tank. It estimates direct subsidies at between $300-million and $400-million annually.

Environmental effects are also considerable.  Diesel-fired plants emit sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, impairing local air quality, along with greenhouse gases. Leaks and accidental spills occur frequently. Even so, as recently as a few years ago, the consensus was that there were no alternatives. ………………………………………………….

 The 2021 mandate letter for Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson ordered him to work with Indigenous partners to help replace diesel-fuelled power with renewables by 2030. Though nuclear technology is not renewable and was not mentioned, Mr. Wilkinson is an ardent supporter, and his government has funded SMR vendors. The federal government has already contributed $27.2-million to support the eVinci’s development.

Barging in

The underlying technology for floating nuclear power plants has a long history. The first nuclear-powered submarine entered service in the 1950s. Since then, reactors have powered American, British and Russian submarines as well as aircraft carriers and icebreakers……………………………………………….

In Siberia, the four-reactor Bilibino nuclear plant was constructed during the 1970s and supplied electricity to the port of Pevek, hundreds of kilometres away. Its output was recently replaced by the Akademik Lomonosov, which is sometimes described not only as the world’s lone floating nuclear power plant, but also the only true functioning SMRs. (According to reports, more floating SMRs are being constructed to supply electricity to mines near Pevek, and there are proposals to deploy Chinese-built floating nukes in the South China Sea.)

The Akademik Lomonosov’s history, though, is not entirely encouraging. According to Mycle Schneider, a nuclear energy analyst and consultant who produces annual reports on the state of the industry, the original plan was to build the plant in less than four years and commission it in 2010; it was delivered a full decade late, and far over budget…………………………………………………..

Even ballpark pricing for a five-megawatt transportable plant is unavailable. Cost is no small consideration here: Nuclear has traditionally been regarded as among the most expensive options for generating power. And according to the Pembina Institute, Indigenous communities and businesses have difficulty accessing capital.

Qulliq Energy, Nunavut’s sole electricity provider, generates nearly all the electricity for its approximately 15,000 customers using 25 diesel plants. It has demonstrated a willingness to consider nuclear power, but admits it can’t afford to pay for any alternatives. A 2020 report said the utility “will not be able to incorporate alternative energy sources into its generation supply mix unless significant funding becomes available.” It looked to the federal government to pay.

Qulliq’s media relations department did not respond to inquiries. Michael MacDonald, a spokesperson for the federal Natural Resources Department, said his department hadn’t provided funding to Qulliq for SMRs or for any other nuclear project. It did provide Qulliq with funding for a solar project in Kugluktuk

Mr. Trojer insisted a floating eVinci’s power would be “very significantly more affordable” than diesel. M.V. Ramana, a professor at the University of British Columbia who specializes in nuclear issues and has studied the economic attractiveness of SMRs in remote applications, disagrees. He estimates costs for SMRs could be as much as 10 times higher than diesel.

“If you really are interested in lowering their costs, I think one would first try out a lot more renewable options, and seek to reduce the demand for diesel before you even think about nuclear,” he said.

Racing against alternatives

The earliest Northern communities to reduce their dependence on diesel have done precisely that – they’ve pursued renewables.

The White River First Nation’s Beaver Creek Solar Project, in Yukon, featured 1.9 megawatts of solar panels and 3.5 megawatt hours of battery storage capacity, and is expected to reduce diesel consumption by more than half. The Sree Vyàa solar project, in Old Crow, Yukon, aimed to reduce that community’s diesel consumption by 190,000 litres.

“Wind and solar seem to be the most sought-after solutions, in partnership with batteries,” said Prof. Ross, who has work on 11 Northern renewable energy projects……………………………………

SMRs are often marketed as producers of “clean” energy, but this overlooks their radioactive wastes. In Southern Canada, the longstanding practice has been to store spent fuel in special facilities at nuclear power plants. But being saddled with a floating radiological hazard on its shoreline could be a worst-case scenario for a Northern community – around the world, there’s a long history of derelict vessels abandoned and left for others to deal with.

…………………………………………………………………………………………….. The Nuclear Waste Management Organization is responsible for long-term storage of spent fuel, and proposes to construct an underground disposal site known as a Deep Geological Repository to permanently store it. It says the repository would be able “to accommodate changes in technology,” but is currently focused on reactors already in the licensing process.

“We are aware of and actively monitoring additional technologies, including the eVinci, however these are still at a preliminary stage,” it said in a statement……………………………………………….

Other issues must be ironed out as well. All of Canada’s existing nuclear plants are large industrial facilities – the largest have thousands of employees and multiple parking lots. It’s not clear yet how many people would be required to operate a transportable nuclear plant equipped with an eVinci. Enticing highly skilled workers to tiny remote communities – and retaining them – could be a challenge.

Canada’s existing nuclear plants are patrolled by security teams. How many individuals with automatic weapons would be needed to patrol a transportable plant? This also has yet to be determined.

Citing waste concerns, the Assembly of First Nations, a national advocacy group, adopted a resolution in 2018 opposing construction and operation of SMRs anywhere in Canada. In March, Biigtigong Nishnaabeg First Nation (Ontario), Kabaowek First Nation (Quebec) and the Passamaquoddy Recognition Group (New Brunswick) were among hundreds of civil society groups who signed a declaration in Brussels against the backdrop of an international nuclear summit.

“Time is precious,” the declaration read, “and too many governments are wasting it with nuclear energy fairy tales.”

……………………………………………….. Whether Ottawa’s ready or not, Prodigy is pushing forward. Mr. Trojer said his company has ensured all elements of the transportable nuclear power plant can be licensed under existing rules and regulations. And Prodigy has closely co-ordinated with delivery dates promised by partners like Westinghouse. It’s now speaking with Canadian shipyards in hopes of finding one to build the transportable nuclear power plant.

The 2030 target, he vowed, will be met. “Prodigy absolutely will meet this timeline.”  https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-can-floating-nuclear-power-plants-help-solve-northern-canadas-energy

May 5, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | energy, news, nuclear, nuclear-energy, nuclear-power | Leave a comment