Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
Enthusiasm is high for this program in the U.S. nuclear industry. One reason is that the space is becoming increasingly competitive. This was detailed in a September 2020 report from the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Advanced Reactors Information Systems. Currently, there are more than eighteen advanced reactor designs in different stages of development in the U.S.
Among U.S. water-cooled land-based SMRs are: NuScale; GEH’s BWRX-300; Holtec’s SMR-160; Westinghouse’s W-SMR; and BWX Technology’s mPower. The companies working on developing high-temperature gas-cooled (HTGR) includes: X-energy’s Xe-100, StarCore, and Framatome’s SC-HTGR. Among larger fast neutron spectrum reactors are: General Atomic’s Energy Multiplier Module, Westinghouse’s LFR, and Argonne National Laboratory’s SUPERSTAR reactor. And among larger molten salt reactors are Flibe Energy’s LFTR; Kairos’ KP-FHR; and Elysium’s MCSFR.
This list of companies includes three interesting micro-reactor designs: Oklo’s 1.5-MW Aurora (a fast reactor); Westinghouse’s 2-MW eVinci (a heat-pipe reactor); and USNC’s 5-MW MMR (an HTGR).
The national think tank Third Way says that in order to ensure that the ARDP will effectively established commercially viable advanced reactor technologies, “it is crucial that the Department chooses to develop two advanced reactor designs that are cost-competitive, attractive to utilities, and able to flexibly integrate into a renewable-heavy grid.” Jackie Kempfer is the Third Way senior policy advisor and John Freed senior vice president of the think tank’s Climate and Energy Program. She wrote in a memo in August, “This is why the DOE should select at least one advanced, non-light water reactor for demonstration.”
During the last decade, Congress has appropriated over seven hundred million dollars to help develop and license SMR designs. So far, there has been little progress. Near term prospects for SMR deployments are currently dependent on NuScale Power which has plans to construct twelve modules which are each rated at sixty megawatts. These are part of the Carbon Free Power Project at an Idaho National Laboratory site for potential sale to Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS).
A smaller fifty-megawatt module version of the NuScale SMR design became the first SMR to obtain a final safety evaluation report (FSER) from the NRC. UAMPS is now waiting for a possible one billion four hundred million dollars federal grant from the DoE to put their project on track for a first unit competition by 2029. According to the Post Register newspaper, the Carbon Free Power Project’s costs have now expanded from three billion six hundred million dollars in 2017 to an estimated six billion dollars this year.
The analysists at the Third Way said, “Despite this significant taxpayer support, SMRs appear to be facing some of the challenges that have confronted the development of traditional large light water reactors. They have run into scheduling delays and cost increases that, while unsurprising in a new and complex technology, have narrowed the gap between SMRs and more advanced designs. This means it no longer makes sense to spend the lion’s share of new federal funding on designs that constitute a smaller, modernized version of light water technology.”
The Third Way suggests that the ARDP has been an open opportunity “to diversify the U.S. nuclear ecosystem so that the future of the advanced nuclear industry does not hinge on one technology. Therefore, we believe that one of the two ARDP demonstrations should be a non-light water utility-scale reactor that could bring significant amounts of carbon-free power onto the grid.”
On October 6th, the DoE Office of Nuclear Energy promoted three advanced reactor systems that it suggests “could be operational within a decade.” These three projects include sodium-cooled fast reactors, very high temperature reactors, and molten salt reactors.