One of Europe’s longest-running and most bitter corporate disputes looked to have come to an end as Areva and Siemens settled over a Finnish nuclear power plant that is more than a decade late.  Ft.com

SCANA Corp. knew its contractors were mismanaging millions of dollars in construction material soon after work at South Carolina’s V.C. Summer Nuclear Station began in 2013, and the large Cayce company was unable to stop the waste before the $9 billion project was abandoned last year.  Postandcourier.com

Russia has today connected unit 1 of the Leningrad Phase II nuclear power plant to the grid and it has started producing its first power, state nuclear corporation Rosatom has announced. The VVER 1200 reactor was brought to the minimum controllable power level on 6 February. World-nuclear-news.org

An Industrial Way Forward Agreement signed on 10 March by the CEOs of EDF and Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) sets out the industrial framework and planned timetable for the implementation of six EPR reactors at Jaitapur, as well as the roles and responsibilities of the partners. World-nuclear-news.org

 

 

 

 

       Most of the articles about nuclear power in this blog focus on the technology of nuclear fission reactors. In these reactors, radioactive isotopes of heavy elements such as uranium and plutonium breakdown and generate heat which is captured to generate electricity. There is a great deal of radioactivity involved including the creation of radioactive waste that is still not being dealt with effectively after sixty years of nuclear power use in the U.S.

       I have occasionally blogged about nuclear fusion as a source of power. In nuclear fusion, very light elements such as hydrogen and helium are fused into heavier elements, releasing a great deal of energy in the process. There is very little radioactivity involved in most of the designs and little or no waste is generated.

       There are multiple approaches to generating nuclear fusion and a great deal of research has been conducted over the past sixty years, but no one has yet created a fusion reactor that can generate more energy that has to be put into the reactor.

        There are at least half a dozen companies in the U.S. with more in other countries that are racing to be the first to produce a commercial fusion reactor. Estimates currently run to ten or more years to produce a working prototype.

       The Michigan Institute of Technology (MIT) is a highly respected technical research institution. They are also working on developing a commercial fusion reactor. MIT is collaborating with Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) a new private company that was created to commercialize the new technology. The Italian energy company ENI is investing fifty million dollars in the project. Thirty million of the investment is for R&D at MIT over the next three years.

       MIT is working on one of the common approaches to nuclear fusion that involved the creation of a “bottle” of power magnetic fields that traps and crushes a plasma of light element particles together with enough pressure and temperature to trigger a nuclear fusion reaction.

      The current work is referred to as SPARC. MIT is working on the creation of new superconducting magnets that will be able to create magnetic fields that are four times stronger that any previous technology. The new superconducting magnets will be incorporated into a fusion reactor that will operate in pulses of about ten seconds. The first MIT reactor should working on a fusion reactor that will produce one hundred megawatts of heat. The current design will not convert the heat into electricity but, if it works as designed, it should be able to produce twice the power that has to been injected to trigger the fusion reaction.

       MIT and CFS are creating a first version fusion reactor and they hope to be able to have a prototype of a commercial reactor in ten years. The plan is to have a commercial reactor available for the energy market within fifteen years.

       The President of MIT said, “This is an important historical moment: Advances in superconducting magnets have put fusion energy potentially within reach, offering the prospect of a safe, carbon-free energy future. As humanity confronts the rising risks of climate disruption, I am thrilled that MIT is joining with industrial allies, both longstanding and new, to run full-speed toward this transformative vision for our shared future on Earth.”

        The CEO of CFS said, “The aspiration is to have a working power plant in time to combat climate change. We think we have the science, speed and scale to put carbon-free fusion power on the grid in 15 years.”

       Although all previous fusion research projects have failed to produce more energy than they consume, MIT has a solid reputation for technical excellence and innovation as well as decades of experience with fusion research. If anyone can finally deliver commercial fusion power, MIT is an excellent candidate.

 

SCANA and Santee Cooper agreed in 2008 to move forward with construction on two new nuclear reactors without a final design, with an estimated price tag of more than $10 billion, which would eventually nearly double. Aikenstandard.com

A new report says mistakes and mismanagement are to blame for the exposure of workers to radioactive particles at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state. Abcnews.go.com

The US Senate has passed a bill that could accelerate the development of advanced nuclear reactors, providing a boost to technologies that promise to make nuclear power cheaper, safer, and easier to build. Technologyreview.com

Fukushima nuclear disaster: did the evacuation raise the death toll? Ft.com

 

 

 

Lawmakers are reportedly not going to fund Yucca Mountain development this year, despite a $120 million request from President Trump who has indicated he wants to revive development. That will maintain the status quo for dealing with spent fuel, a process which involves companies suing the federal government to recover their costs. Utilitydive.com

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has begun a technical review of a license for an interim storage site for nuclear waste in New Mexico. It’s a hopeful sign for those fighting to find an alternative to burying spent nuclear fuel 100 feet from the beach at San Onofre. Kpbs.com

A number of recent letters have shown support for nuclear energy, including one from Nick Armstrong (March 6th) who supplied useful information on global clean energy options and costs. The future of nuclear energy as it applies to Ireland is quite different, however. This difference will probably be to our advantage, as imminent developments in small nuclear reactor design have the potential to change the minds of many in Ireland who oppose nuclear almost on instinct. Irishtimes.com

As America enters into its most public debate about nuclear weapons and missile defense in decades, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee is warning that Russia will likely try to influence the debate about the Pentagon’s modernization plans — potentially including attempts to co-opt the nonproliferation community. Defensenews.com

 

 

 

California is on the cusp of environmental progress. Or is it? That’s the question that at least one candidate for the state’s governorship is asking, pointing out that a key difference exist between one calling themselves an “environmentalist” and one referring to themselves as a “climate hawk.” Forbes.com

An Australian Farming Town Divided: Do We Want a Nuclear Site that Brings Jobs? Nytimes.com

The Tri-City Herald reports the Columbia Generating Station failed to be removed from the 2018 list of plants requiring increased oversight by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as the federal agency completed its annual assessment. Usnews.com

Iran intends to again accuse the United States of violating the landmark 2015 nuclear accord between Tehran and world powers at next week’s meeting on the agreement in Vienna, a senior Iranian diplomat said Wednesday . English.kyodonews.net

 

 

3. Climate change mitigation

        Concern over climate change has boosted the acceptability of nuclear power. Due to the low carbon footprint of nuclear power, even die-hard environmentalists are jumping onboard the nuclear train. Proponents of nuclear power are saying that it is the only possible solution for major carbon reduction.

         Actually, there are reasonable and economical plans for renewable energy sources to supply all the world’s electrical needs by 2050. Renewable projects can come online in a few years as opposed to the decade or more that it can take to site, license and construct nuclear power plants. In addition, there is a great deal of carbon dioxide released in the construction of a nuclear power plant that takes years of plant operation to pay back. We have to go with energy sources that can be constructed and operational as quickly as possible to fight climate change. Even with the boom in Chinese nuclear reactor construction, the amount of electricity that the new nuclear plants will add to the Chinese power grid is tiny compared to the operating and polluting coal power plants there. Nuclear power is not going to be the magic solution to climate change mitigation.

4. Uncertainty of abundant cheap natural gas

        The boom in natural gas production has helped it replace coal as the biggest source of power generation in the U.S. Since carbon emissions are lower for gas than coal power plants, abundant natural gas does help reduce overall carbon emissions. However, if natural gas replaces aging nuclear power plants, the carbon emission go up.

         Abundant natural gas can serve as a bridge to renewable sources taking over all energy generation by 2050. Natural gas will continue to be cheap long enough for renewable to replace it. The price tag for nuclear power just keeps going up and the cost of renewables just keeps going down.  

5. New types of reactors

        Proponents of nuclear power say that new types of nuclear power reactors such as small modular reactors (SMRs) can bring down prices and improve safety for nuclear power because they will be built in factories and shipped to the site where they will operate.

       As problems with falsifying quality control documents for nuclear components should indicate, just being built in a factory does not guarantee quality control. It is questionable whether three SMR reactors that produce a combined total of nine hundred megawatts can be built and operated any cheaper than a single nine hundred megawatt conventional reactors. While there is increasing interest and investment in SMRs around the world, the fact is that there are none that have been licensed yet to operate anywhere. There will be years of design, testing, regulatory review and licensing necessary before any SMRs are constructed and attached to the grid. With the continuing expansion of and lowering cost of renewable sources of energy generation there may be no need for a fleet of SMRs.

       I am not impressed with the arguments above on the coming “rebound” of nuclear power in 2018. There are many other factors opposing major expansion of nuclear power in the near future but I will mention just one. Another major nuclear accident somewhere in the world is inevitable. When it happens, the prospects for nuclear power will take a major nose-dive.