Is this the only way to make nuclear work (oilprice dot com) World

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Is This The Only Way To Make Nuclear Energy Work?

By Haley Zaremba - Dec 09, 2019 Join Our Community

Coal fired plant with smokestacks, coal conveyor belt and the wider natural draft cooling towers. Nuclear plants don’t have the smokestacks or coal conveyor belt.

The need for efficient, affordable, and scalable alternatives to traditional fossil fuels is more pressing than ever. While clean energy alternatives are already existent and abundant, however, there has been a serious lack of investment and any serious sea change towards decarbonizing the global economy. “Do we really want to be remembered as the generation that buried its head in the sand, that fiddled while the planet burned?” the Secretary General of the UN Climate Change Conference asked his audience last week.

Indeed, the seriousness of the situation is such that Forbes has accepted the hyperbolic as journalistic, proclaiming that “in recent years the issue of climate change has taken a decidedly apocalyptic turn” and that with the scientific community projecting that we

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will be hitting a tipping point of carbon emissions with an irreversible trajectory toward catastrophic climate change this century, “the apocalypse had been scheduled.”

Between all of the politicking and business as usual, there is also the issue of division between those energy experts that believe the world can run on 100% renewable energy and those who think that the reality is more complex and will require a more diverse energy mix. And then there are the ultra-divided camps of pro- versus anti-nuclear proponents.

Nuclear power is a divisive issue for a number of reasons. It’s an extremely efficient fuel source with absolutely zero carbon emissions, but neither is it a clean energy, thanks to the residual radioactive waste created by the process that stays radioactive for millions of years and costs exorbitant amounts of money to store and maintain. It is also a hard sell for both politicians and constituents alike due to a widespread mistrust of the safety of nuclear energy in the wake of high-profile disasters like Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island.

Those bad optics might not be entirely deserved, however. In fact, some studies show that thanks to the efficiency lack of emissions from nuclear power production, nuclear energy has ultimately saved lives.

Climate scientists Pushker Kharecha and James Hanson argue that nuclear power has already saved two million lives that would otherwise have been lost to air pollutionrelated deaths from the burning of fossil fuels in their study “Prevented mortality and greenhouse gas emissions from historical and projected nuclear power”, published by NASA. Furthermore, other factors that have made nuclear economically and politically untenable in the past (particularly in the United States--by contrast, nuclear has already been flourishing in countries like China and Russia) are starting to be turned around thanks to more investment and innovation in the field in recent years. Perhaps the single-biggest advancement set to transform the modern nuclear energy sector is the adoption of small modular reactors.

These are “basically smaller-than-usual nuclear reactors that are sometimes considered safer due to their size,” explains Canada’s National Post. “They generate less than 300 megawatts of electricity (MWe) per reactor and can be small enough to fit in a gymnasium, so they can operate in areas where less power is required. An SMR could even provide power to off-grid locations where power needs are only between two and 30 MWe. Canada’s current nuclear reactors supply between 515 and 881 MWe. SMRs are called “modular” because they can operate individually, or as part of a larger nuclear complex. Multiple SMRs can be set up at a single nuclear plant to supply a similar level of power as larger generators, which means a nuclear power plant could be expanded gradually, as demand increases.”

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What’s more, the size and uniformity of these units means that they can be constructed off-site, allowing for increased affordability and greater standardization across the sector, lowering construction and maintenance costs as well as making the reactors’ upkeep easier and therefore safer.

These smaller nuclear reactors would have a number of benefits in Canada, says the National Post. “SMRs could replace larger nuclear reactors when they are decommissioned as well as CO2-producing coal plants. They could also be used to provide energy to remote Indigenous communities in Canada that currently rely on diesel. In addition to generating electricity, SMRs can be used for water desalination, and they could be used to generate heat for oil sands production. SMRs are touted as being more attractive to communities that have not previously used nuclear power.

However, it is yet to be seen if SMRs can be cost effective enough to compete with largescale nuclear plants and other forms of energy.”

There are currently a number of startups and energy tech companies working on these smaller reactors in the U.S., Canada, and abroad. The next step is getting the greater energy industry on board, as there is truly no time to waste in the race toward decarbonization.

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com. She is a writer and journalist based in Mexico City.

NOTE by John Shanahan, Editor of allaboutenergy.net: Opinions differ significantly from ideas in this article.

One big difference is that carbon dioxide from fossil fuels is not a pollutant causing catastrophic man-made global warming. See over 400 articles here, here, here, and here.

Over the last fifty years, utilities concluded that large electric generating plants were less expensive in the long run. So, they built plants that were 1000 MWe to 1600 MWe. Today, the thinking has changed to smaller plants built in factories rather than custom built in the field, Small Modular Reactors, SMRs, 100 MWe to 300 MWe. Others are interested in Micro Reactors, 1 MWe to 20 MWe. Each size can meet different market needs.

Another variation is to use thorium as well as uranium for the nuclear fuel. There is more thorium than uranium. Both can last as long as we need energy.

There are a lot of choices. The future for a beautiful world is nuclear.

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