Part 3 of 3 Parts (Please read Parts 1 and 2 first)
Desalinization:
Many nuclear power advocates have suggested that SMRs and other next generation reactors could be used to provide the high energy requirements that are need to removed salt from sea water to meet the growing global need for clean water. According to the UN, about twenty percent of the population of the world does not have access to clearn drinking water. Climate change will reduce water availability in many areas and deploying desalination facilities may be part of the solution. Nuclear power generation could utilize its carbon-free energy production and excess heat to condense seawater into potable water vapor.
John Hopkins is the NuScale Chairman and CEO. He said in an interview, “For me, I think the energy for desalination is going to be big. You take a town like Cape Town, South Africa, 3.7 million people, they don't have any water. One 12-pack [of small modular reactors] could provide the energy requirements for the potable water for a city of that size.” Nuclear energy will have to compete with other power sources such as solar power which has been widely deployed for desalinization.
Advanced manufacturing:
Some reactor developers are considering the use of their technology to make raw materials for use in advanced manufacturing. For some applications, manufactures might need a lot of high-quality steam which the nuclear industry can offer. Kosnick said, “All of a sudden the product that you're making — it's not just the electrons.”
The DoE recently awarded a one-million-dollar grant to a partnership between the Bill Gates-backed advanced nuclear company named TerraPower and Ramaco Carbon based in Wyoming to research the use of coal to produce carbon fibers which can provide light weight but strong materials for a variety of uses. The researchers will consider how the extreme heat from nuclear reactors could be used to change coal into products such as carbon fibers that could give coal an important application beyond using it for power generation.
Most carbon fiber today is produced from polyacrylonitrile which is a petrochemical product. This new process being researched could bring down the cost of production of carbon fibers which would make carbon fiber more available for use in the transportation sector. The material’s high strength and high heat resistance could be used to make vehicles safer and more fuel-efficient by reducing weight.
Josh Walter is the project manager for integrated energy systems and innovation manager at TerraPower. He said, “We believe we can create carbon fiber precursor using elements of coal instead [of petrochemicals], extracted by heating it with a non-CO2-emitting form of energy. In the future, that might be nuclear energy.”
While these four novel applications for nuclear energy look promising, they do not address some of the major problems with nuclear energy production. We still have to deal with huge amounts of spent nuclear fuel. Nuclear power plants are still vulnerable to terrorist attacks to steal nuclear materials or to destroy the facility distributing nuclear materials over the nearby environment. Shoddy manufacturing and lacks adherence to nuclear regulations can still lead to nuclear accidents which could endanger millions of people.