Rolls-Royce consortium shopping for factory sites to build mini-nuclear reactors UK aerospace and engineering giant Rolls-Royce is on the hunt for sites for its much-touted small nuclear reactors, which received a £210m grant from the UK government last year. A consortium of BNF Resources UK Ltd, Exelon Generation Ltd, and Roll-Royce Group is set to invest £195m roughly over three years, qualifying it for …
How about a discount on your heating and electicity? I'd suggest based on an inverse square relation to distance of your residence from from the plant. Could apply this to wind turbines and such, too. Why not give people a cash-in-hand incentive rather than the usual vacuous promises about jobs and sustainability?
An excellent proposal. Still, the only way NIMBY can be overcome when it comes to nuclear power is if that district sets aside a rather large buffer zone for the SMR in case of emergency. This relegates SMR-heated districting to edge-rural locations, but that can still work if other factors are considered (transportation and other functional infrastructure).
It does have echos of [the eventual finale of] Pripyat however...
I wouldn't be surprised if some people here in Oxford go all "nuclear free zone!" about it, completely failing to appreciate there's been a whole bunch of albeit small nuclear reactors just down the road for decades. Personally I'd be quite happy to have them as neighbours; even if they are probably PWR or related. Meh.
Scotland is almost completely self sufficient for green energy
Only when you fiddle the figures, as Sturgeon & the SNP propaganda does.
That statement is based on the idea that (in 2020) Scotland produced 32TWh of renewable electricity, and consumed 33TWh of electricity and therefore "almost all Scotland's electricity comes from renewables". In reality, renewable energy production is dependent on weather, and the supply/demand periods don't align.
In 2020, Scotland exported over 13TWh of renewable electricity at some times, and used over 14TWh of non-renewable at other times. Over the course of a year only about 55% of Scotland's electricity comes from Scottish renewables (the remaining 45% is from nuclear, gas & oil), a far cry from "self-sufficient".
I think you need some remedial arithmetic lessons. There's little difference in quantity between 32 and 33.
Your numbers say Scotland produced 32TWh of renewable electricity and consumed 33TWh of electricity in 2020. So supply and demand are almost equal. In other words, total renewable electricity generation in Scotland pretty much matches the nation's total electricity consumption.
It's true the supply and demand periods don't always align. This is no big deal. Power companies deal with this all the time. It's a basic principle of the electricity business: you supply me with your extra power when I need it and I'll reciprocate when I've got extra that you need.
@LybsterRoy
Its not all about "windmills" - about 1/5 of the Scottish renewables from hydro on lots of rivers, each one not generating a huge amount (a few mega Watts) , but will always be generating power (bar mechanical breakdown) so a "reliable" renewable compared to wind, solar etc.
We will always have a few days of low/no wind in the UK so wind alone will never be a panacea, so a good mix of renewables is vital.
As for nuclear, I don't think that many people are thinking "mushroom cloud imminent", more likely to be concerned about risk of local "leaks" and the issue of what happens to all the waste long term as that's the issue that keeps getting kicked into the long grass. The botched cover ups / lack of honesty about nuclear incidents in the UK has been counter productive, fessing up to fuckups would have been better, the whole lie to the public stance actively encouraged more distrust of nuclear IMHO.
Ironically I grew up in a mining area and back then virtually all the homes were heated by coal (until it was made a smokeless zone) - and so would have been exposed to more radioactivity from coal combustion than if I lived near a reactor (especially as I often got the job of clearing the ash from the grate and throwing it in the bin, where the radioactive residues would be nicely concentrated)
As for nuclear, I don't think that many people are thinking "mushroom cloud imminent"
I'm not sure everyone is capable of making that distinction. If they were we probably wouldn't also have anti-vaxxers, Ng phone mast arsonists etc. Never under-estimate the technical ignorance of a Grauniad reader Sun reader substantial chunk of the UK population.
"It's true the supply and demand periods don't always align. This is no big deal. Power companies deal with this all the time."
Germany already has this problem. It is "handled" by depending on France, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland to supply and consume large amounts of electricity to/from Germany.
In other words, wind+solar need 100% backup in the form of coal, methane, Uranium, Plutonium (the Russians currently burn some of that) and Thorium.
Prices at the spot market now approach 100cent/kWh. Rail cargo transport ceases to be possible at this price point.
The Greenies (rooted in Maoism) are ideologues and liars, masters of both.
Just round the corner from Canary Wharf is a brown field site in need of development. Just needs planning permission. With the government keen to promote the adoption of these power sources, it shouldn't be a problem. Just needs a word in the right ears.
The locals would be more than happy to have it on the site of the decommissioned Chapelcross Magnox nuclear power station… or (much irony) Dounreay ‘being decommissioned’ former *Nuclear Power Development Site* or the shutdown on 7-Jan-22 Hunterston AGR nuclear power station.
The Scottish government… not so much.
Quite.
I ask the same question of why building new 'normal' size nukes is seemingly such a difficult, time-consuming and hugely expensive task, despite the world having decades of experience building them already - see EDF and Hinkley, etc.
It seems like as time goes by, we* get progressively worse** at building things. Houses, railways, reactors and so on.
* - The UK, or at least England
** - worse meaning they are either of worse quality, or take far more money and time to achieve than before. For example, we spend a lot more money per km of railway than other countries with comparable geographical constraints. And, er, HS2...
"Good or cheap" is an adage that applies to Chinese products as much as anyone else's. I'd also point out that they have 50 nuclear reactors online and so far none has gone bang.
Not that I'm pro-China, but you're a little naive if you think one billion people who manufacture most of the worlds stuff somehow still haven't figured out how to do it properly. Although I do agree with your other point that we outsource everything but continue to be surprised when we wind up having no control over the process.
If you don't go through some QC iterations before committing to full production then expect tat to arrive by the boatload, engineering/build quality is just another expense for beancounters.
Chinese companies will build at the quality level you're willing to pay for.
Good point here. China actually built an interesting transfer policy around it. Simply said, China doesn't allow dumb manufacturing for foreigners anymore, nor does it allow "dumb" installations on its soil by foreign compaies. Ten years ago, Daimler would build their own factory in China, just like they do in Mexico or Spain, German companies would design, build and commission the factory, locals would be allowed in as workers. Not anymore. Everything must be done in partnership with local companies, including design and equipment sourcing. It happened quite recently for general public to notice in full, but one already sees local jet airliners supplementing the huge fleets of Boeings and Airbuses, and, to the point, nuclear power plants being built by local consortia with technology and knowledge transfer being an important part of the deals.
Ironically this is the exact opposite of how China does infrastructure projects in Africa, so I'm told. They turn up with the entire workforce and don't hire locally at all, which is a marked change to how it used to be done with European firms.
That "2-3 times the cost" is standard government operating procedure. If they told the House of Parliament what it would really cost for 95% of government programs, they wouldn't be started.
Besides, you can blame that on a mentality that always awards contracts to the lowest bidder. In all industries, that has led to an SOP of underbidding to get the job, and billing "extra" later for "upgrades" and "changes."
>For example, we spend a lot more money per km of railway than other countries with comparable geographical constraints
Not quite the same.
France = monsieur farmer would you like more money to turn your land into a TGV line than you currently get from the Eu for not farming it ? Mais Oui !
Japan = there is an uninhabited mountain range between two major cities. Get tunnelling. Hai
China = there is nobody living in the flat farmland between these two cities. Excuse me I live here ! (sound of gunshot off screen) There is nobody living in the flat farmland between these two cities
UK = The land between these 2 cities goes through 1000s of privately owned Englishmen's suburban castles, each of which for some reason is worth £1M. And the farmland is all owned by somebody who lives in an actual castle and is in the House of Lords. And there is a rare toad somewhere outside Birmingham so the line will have to go via Lands End.
Ha - love it.
I still think we'd be worse off even without that factor. Too much red tape and a government hell-bent on outsourcing everything and losing money hand-over-fist in the process.
"What's that <serco/deloitte/acme>, you want two billion pounds to sit and think about the idea for a few years? Don't be shy, here's three!"
Whilst Corbyn was/is a prat, the magic money trees are thoroughly Tory. Amber Rudd and Teresa May suggested Jeremy wanted one and that they didn't exist, but actually it turned out they were growing in the Number 10 garden all along, just no one had noticed because they were behind the glass recycling bins.
> I ask the same question of why building new 'normal' size nukes is seemingly such a difficult, time-consuming and hugely expensive task, despite the world having decades of experience building them already - see EDF and Hinkley, etc.
One reason (amongst many) is alluded to in the article:
"prefabricated units of SMRs can be manufactured and then shipped and installed on-site, making them more affordable to build than large power reactors, which are often custom-designed for a particular location, sometimes leading to construction delays.Even though a series of reactors may be built to "Reactor Type X" plan, each individual reactor is essentially custom hand-built on site. As well as the expense in hand-building these things, since they are each effectively a custom unit, each one has to be certified separately that it is actually built to the common plan for Type X, and that any deviations are verified, and so on. This makes them incredibly expensive individually, as you need skilled (nuclear reactor skilled) workers on site, custom fabrications, running into unexpected issues which leads to delays which means more costs, the potential for cost blowouts goes on and on. Big-bang custom software project billion-dollar blowouts have nothing on nuclear reactor delays and blowouts.
So instead of hand-building a custom 3600MW reactor on site, the idea is to mass-produce smaller reactors, so you can plonk 12 of these mass-produced, identical, needing only quality-control-type testing/certification that any mass-produced but complex machine is, down on the same site to create your 3600MW plant. And since you have 12 of them, they can be independantly controlled, maintained, refueled/replaced without taking down the entire 3500MW reactor. They can also be expanded or decommissioned more gradually. Add another 300MW reactor if want to make the site provide more power, take them out one-by-one to decommission them. Build smaller sites so you don't need a single 3600MW plant. Able to ship them to remote sites (e.g. Shetlands, Fiji, middle of Amazon) to establish smaller, local power infrastructure without having to run submarine/overland transmission infrastructure, etc.
If you are going to go nuclear for low-emissions power (as opposed to solar/wind/hydro/geothermal etc.) then SMRs seem a better way to do it.
210 Million Pounds are a tiny amount of money compared to what is wasted on r0tten bankers, illegal wars and dangerous medical schemes.
Also, just adapting a uboat reactor to civilian use will cost more than 210 millions. All of the technology must be tested, certified, reviewed and at least one protoype must be run for three years or so.
Developing a new car model costs several billion euros these days. Based on evolving a previous car model. The safety and political implications of a rott3n car model are much smaller than a r0tt3n reactor model.
Due to the strategic nature of energy supply and the lack of national methane supplies in many European nations, governments must step in and provide the necessary funding and organization, Airbus-style. The alternative is to be dependent on foreign powers who might be friendly or not. Some of these powers can point dangerous weapons and armies of soldiers at you, all while supplying critical methane.
Kinda problematic, isn't it ?
The Nuclear Medicine speciality (uses isoposeotopes) wanted to claim the new imaging technology from the Radiology Departments to expand their influence.
Training is very different and does not include a lot of crossectional anatomy for Nuc Med. It didn't fly.
Another element as above was not scaring the horses
DoI : dual trained
Was once explaining to a visiting American how the NMR lab in the chemistry dept was being moved and renamed the MRI lab. To 'I quote' avoid the 'N' word.
He seemed very confused about why we were mentioning the 'N' word. I was even more confused about why he was confused.
This was many years ago before twitter......
A Holywood AIdDevelopment Field Office and Special Security Service Agency proposes the building of one of them at Kinnegar for both Ulster and United Irishman needs and desires.
Perfectly positioned, already securely provisioned, level green/brown field site with excellent existing practically next door national and international shipping and flight connections and a home workforce of titanic reputation in many cases little more than just an almighty stone’s throw away.
The Rolls-Royce consortium could do an awful lot worse ..... and most probably will, for there can only be the one as a pioneering leader.
"titanic reputation"
That hardly inspires confidence. Ask Leonard Dicaprio.
Using a workforce with a titanic reputation to build nukes is a great idea. What could possibly go wrong?
ISTR the titanic reputation of the workforce at De Lorean didn't have a happy ending either. With or without the flux capacitors.
The present future opportunity to build and install SMRs worldwide, with living active experience of a titanic reputation in terrible times and yet still able to enable the vanquishing of explosive Troubles readily available and natively installed in the local skilled workforce since before their birth, is something to be cherished and celebrated ..... and don't forget to remember it is quite natural too, being a vital integral part of universally known Irish and Navvy [Navigator] DNA.
Don't you know, they would tell you they are responsible for the building of America and a long list of other countries too ...... :-) but take the full truth of that with a pinch of salt for they do have a justified reputation which is great to experience of providing absolutely fabulous fabless craic also.
However, nevertheless, notwithstanding the idle banter here, AC, raising all manner of phantom red flags to inflame and excite opposition and competition, the proposal still stands as a viable proposition for business exploration and certainly unanimous cross-party NI Assembly political and Invest NI support.
Currently any civil nuclear new build is, as a matter of government policy, to be constructed on an existing nuclear licenced site (e.g. Wylfa). Since one idea behind factory built SMRs was that they can be shipped ready fuelled (which has been proposed in the past for civil and military cores) then the factory will require a Site Licence. I can't see that happening. For Site Licencing details see https://www.onr.org.uk/licensing.htm.
As to the practicality of producing SMRs that will actually meet ONR requirements - there is no size based approach to reactor safety - a 300 MW(e) SMR will not necessarily be 1/10 the size and complexity of a 3000 MW(e) EPR. And the submarine reactors are not actually operating at full capacity in inshore waters.
There is a public aversion to living next to a nuclear power station, so district heating, or tomato growing, is not really going to work. The SMR sites shown in the centre of Legoland towns is a bit of a pipe dream.
By the way, the UK is not worse at building reactors. EdF is a French state controlled entity which has yet to finish the first of a kind EPR at Flammanville. The UK detailed design of the EPR for HPC means it has to be built to different (i.e UK) standards. The construction of HPC is continuing on schedule, but fuel load keeps going back as Flammanville recedes. Okiluoto has just gone critical (and look at the delays and legal actions on that). The recent French government intervention in the EdF finances, and EdF's attention becoming focused on EPR2 might will have an impact on Flammanville schedule.
I'd suggest Barrow in Furness since they must already have some of the skills, would be happy to get some development funding, right betwixt Sellafield and Heysham, cheap, and could be put in the "levelling up" box.
Could have the management fully remote in London where they can suck up the cash without any danger of them breaking anything.
Plenty of various RR reactors in Derbyshire (inc sub ones), and lots of radioactive waste too - tend to find out about these in press reports of planning issues e.g. lots of planning disputes when developers want to build homes near the old RR low level radioactive waste site in Crich made for interesting reading in the Derbyshire "press"*.
* Where press === news web sites
So are these yet more dirty, Toxic, cost overrunning, impossible to afford to clean up and liable to mess up the environment Magnox type nuclear weapons producing material reactors?
Why are we not building Compact Thorium Salt Water Reactors which are clean to run, have idiot proof fail safe modes to shutdown and burn old waste product that leaves inert safe to dispose of when its exhausted. The chinese stole all the designs of reactors, so theres no issue with IP, (on the established, you steal my designs, we steal yours) (tit4tat)
UK.gov are staffed by idiots. who cannot plan for longer than to the next by-election.
The latest snake oil by American Oligarchs. Totally fully safe, no problem. If you believe one Oligarch who never bothered to get a proper scientific education. Or any other professional education. He is not even a certified accountant.
Here is the protip: Nuclear fission fuel of ANY type will have something called NachZerfallsWärme of about 10% of operational fission power for days. Then for weeks something like 1%.
So a 3000MWth reactor will have a cooling need of 300MWth for several hours after emergency shutdown. thats 300 000 000 Watts of power. You better have a nice water flow for cooling. The big problem of the Japanese was that they could not repair or replace the cooling. So they had nasty stuff such as core melting and hydrogen generation, plus a nice hydrogen explosion. Whoever has an education can imagine that and reactors usually have redundant water flows.
Having said that, I am a proponent of nuclear power for economic, strategic and environmental reasons. But don't let yourself be fooled into the idea that there exist totally idiotproof reactors. Read up on Rickover to get the details of proper reactor operations.
"The big problem of the Japanese was that they could not repair or replace the cooling."
Jim Al-kahlili did a special on Fukushima and it seems that a major problem turned out to be human. Go figure. The operators were under the impression that they couldn't leave the passive cooling system on for an extended period of time and were cycling it on and off. When the backup power finally failed, the system was in the off position and they didn't know because they had never tested it. Plan D failed when they didn't know that a valve would divert emergency cooling water pumped in from fire engines to the base of the cooling towers rather than into the reactor. Again, never tested. The reactors scrammed when the earthquake hit and the worst peak in reactor temperature had passed, when the tsunami hit, they were managing decay heat at that point. The people problem was compounded by fundamental design flaws in the site layout. The backup generators and battery system were placed below grade and subject to flood damage. Not very bright as tsunamis are not unheard of in Japan.
There is a simple metric: people killed per TWh of power generated.
Nuclear comes out at the best source, because ALL energy sources kill people and nuclear reactors are highly redundant. A single oil rig explosion has killed as many as in Chernobyl. Now add up ALL oil rig explosions. Add the Iraq war for oil.
Add up all the people who fall off roofs installing solar cells. Add the people who die of the toxic fumes from coal that makes the solar cells in China.
Or add up all the radioactive dust emitted by coal power. Check how many people are killed by that.
Put one of these in the Drax power station and stop burning fake renewables, biomass and wood chip. Because these are so small, it is possible to put more than one in a power plant, which is also good from a service perspective, because you can shut one down at a time without losing all the power. So these can go into the newly closed down sites such as Wylfa and Hunterston. This is a good quick, zero CO2, renewable, sustainable, safe way to produce low cost electricity, reduce CO2, solve climate change and create UK jobs. Next step export them to replace coal and gas power stations in Africa and Asia. Good to put them in existing nuclear, biomass, coal, gas power stations because you do not need to build new expensive transmission lines.
Nuclear is not zero CO2. Neither is wind or solar. Both need ENORMOUS input of coal to produce the concrete, steel and the cells themselves. And the elements to make the cells.
It is called EROI - energy return on investment.
EROI = EnergyProduced / (EnergyForMachine + EnergySpentForFuel)
Nuclear EROI is at 80, solar cells at 10, windmills at 20.
Even hydropower emits CO2, because dams or "bathtubs in the sea" need voracious amounts of concrete and steel to build. Concrete and steel are made from large amounts of coal. The coal can NOT be replaced in a large scale for the time being.
Here is an attempt at designing a Bathtub to store the fluctuating German wind+solar power for just one month:
https://fgw.ddnss.de/StromSpeicher.html
It would require the concrete production of all of Germany for one year, but it might nevertheless make sense to build it, as it is highly efficient compared to hydrogen storage.
Hydrogen storage loses something like 60% of power in the storage+retrieval cycle. Water storage loses just 10%.
Hi here in France we have some large areas near to Nantes and Rennes that are not too good for farming, have good transport routes, and the availability of highly competent technical people. We have one of the largest shipbuilding ports in Europe here and best yet get good grants for setting up a business. It should also be of note that land here is far cheaper than many other countries in Europe. You would be welcome to come here with people that also are ok in not only French but English, and Spanish. Further, being in Europe and not on a little island separate from the EU accessing parts and staff is so much easier than from England.
There should be founded some sort of Nuclear Airbus, in order to pool the competence and capital of Britain, France, Spain, Sweden, Czech Republic, Italy and so on. Germany is at this point not willing to do nuclear, as the Maoist Dreamers are still in control. We need a cold winter with Methane cuts to change this.
The Nuclear Airbus could be a great programme for industrial rejuvenation, great jobs and strategic security. It might even make sense to mine Uranium in Czech mountains and in Bulgaria. All controlled by competent medical experts to ensure safety for all people inside and near the mines.
We also do not need the EU or the Euro currency to make this happen. Banks can perform the moneychanging, it is part of their core business.
Sure, let's multiply one lawsuit by 10 and hire an office block full of lawyers at an average of £500/hr each to answer all of the suits. Don't forget that there will be protests against the pylons that will have to go in to move the power from each plant, so more lawsuits. People that will put their cell phone to their head for 14hours/day will scream bloody murder about their health if there are high tension lines near their home or work. One child born with a defect will generate yet another lawsuit that may be cheaper to settle than litigate.
While nuclear power plants aren't cheap to construct, there is a huge amount of money that has to go into all of the lawsuits, planning, land corridors for power lines, inspections, rework, delays, etc that aren't the plant itself. These costs don't vary that much with the size of the plant. The power lines are bigger, but the pylon price doesn't scale at the same rate. The land stays the same, stuff like that.
I agree with the concept of not putting all of ones eggs in one basket, but it's not a law. There is no economy of scale building nuclear plants in a factory vs on-site. There just isn't enough volume to make the case. They are sort of constructed off-site anyway and assembled at the location unless something needs to be fitted custom. If something like a LFTR plant becomes reality, those lend themselves to off-site modular construction.
And another thing, what B-Ark advertising executive came up with the idea of shipping a reactor fully fueled? Any sane engineer would want to have the reactor installed at its location and fully tested before going hot. The safety protocols are much simpler without the fuel in-situ. It also means that pressure, electrical and sensor checks can be more completely tested after installation to catch any damage that occurred during shipment. Mass would also be an issue. When in California on one visit I came across a shipment of spent fuel being moved from the San Onofre power plant. The casket was cradled on a 192-wheel trailer with 2 trucks pulling and one pushing. They had stopped for the day as they only moved at night due to traffic issues. I have a 5 photo panorama of the rig. This was just fuel rods packed up safe and sound. The rest of a PWR doesn't seem like it would be moveable by road in one piece. This would infer that every small site would have to have a road system that could accommodate extremely heavy and oversize loads with no bridges. The trailer in California would not fit under standard bridges and the weight would be too much to go over many.
The Russians have constructed and now operate a reactor on a barge. It now runs somewhere in the highest North.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademik_Lomonosov
The concept would be perfect for Britain, too. Manufacture the barges in one factory/shipyard and then tow into the 'target' harbour.
The Russians also successfully operate a fast neutron, sodium cooled reactor. It could one day be used to burn all the 'waste' U238.
We can definitely learn a trick or two from the east vikings.
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