Tech giants set to pay through the nose for nuclear power that's still years away Nuclear power contracts signed by hyperscalers show they're desperate for reliable "clean and green" energy sources to feed their ever-expanding datacenter footprints, however, investment bank Jefferies warns that these tech giants are likely to end up paying over the odds to get it. This week alone, Google and Amazon both …
"Yeah the fixed rate that will be paid for power from Hinkle Point C that people were complaining was too high... is now lower than current market rates"
How so? Wholesale day ahead is around £65-75 MWh over recent months, allowing for the indexation Hinkley will get £130 MW/h based on CPI index since the original rotten deal was struck (and that £130 will keep on being uplifted every year).
The UK energy "market" is thoroughly broken. Market forces don't dictate what the market does, government policy specifies everything, and the result is that we have amongst the highest energy prices in the world. And when Hinkley comes on stream it'll get higher.
@Like a badger
According to the Wikpedia:
"EDF has negotiated a guaranteed fixed price – a "strike price" – for electricity from Hinkley Point C under a government sanctioned Contract for difference (CfD). The price is £92.50/MWh (in 2012 prices),[38][100] which will be adjusted (linked to inflation – £128/MWh in 2022[104]) during the construction period and over the subsequent 35 years tariff period. The base strike price could fall to £89.50/MWh if a new plant at Sizewell is also approved.),".
Considering the fact that EDF is building that plant I could claim you got more than you deserve and have all the reasons to be happy about it.
I like the fact the French never gave up on nuclear power like the British.
So this: https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/uranium-resources/supply-of-uranium
is important to note, that even with a hugely engorged appetite, neither the reserve nor accessible uranium sources will interfere with us for at least a period 2.5 times longer than the fossil fuel period has.
We have some time to deal with in.
So the issue isn't science, resource or technology; it is business, investing, and grift.
To many, business and investing are just sub-topics in grifting.
Except every tonne of Uranium in used nuclear fuel still contains the equivalent of 1000 tonnes of oil. And that heap of UNF is building up in the US at around 2000t/year. None of the nine biggest Uranium mines even started producing before the 1970's.
And BTW all reactors breed. No PWR could run for 18month without the Pu it breeds internally.
The "Geologic disposal" plan for SNF (2x longer than the entire written history of civilisations across the globe) was always bats**t crazy and can be traced to President Carters decision to ban US reprocessing due to a)India acquiring the bomb without enrichment from reprocessing CANDU UNF b)The Three Mile Island incident. Carter had been involved in the clean up of the NRX (CANDU precursor) at Chalk River in '50's. BTW no CANDU has ever suffered a TMI or Chernobyl failure, yet the NRC still won't license them as they have a (slight) positive reactivity at 100% power.
That enormous fear of proliferation has been a gift to the oil and gas producers for decades.
Given that Uranium is extracted from uranium ore - i.e. certain rocks, why not wait until a uranium mine has become totally uneconomic, then store the waste from used uranium fuel in the deepest part of the mine? This solves the disposal problem by putting it back where it came from.
Genius plan.
Now, can you prove that patch of the planet has been (and will remain) stable for the next 10 000 years?
Because that's the sort of timescale those TRU's have half lives of.
BTW those pellets are still very hot. in the first 3 centuries that's due to the Cs and Sr (with 1/2 lives around the 30yr mark). By 2324 their level is down by 1024x and it's the Pu, Cm, Am and other TRU's you need to worry about. It's been estimated removing Cs and Sr would allow > 200x more UNF to be stored with the same amount of cooling capacity.
@katrinab
"Nuclear is apparently "renewable" even though once the uranium is gone, it is really gone"
Nuclear is renewable in political terms only and due to politics backing itself into a corner banning electricity production but subsidising monuments to the sky gods. Between ideology and reality, reality always wins. Cuba is having that problem too it seems
No. The term you're looking for is dispatachable.
You can set a time and date when you want that power to come online, and go offline.
NB some renewables are dispatachable. anything using geothermally heated water, or aerobic digestion are*.
The UK has roughly 1200 farms that meet the US "Mega farm" definitions for what they farm. That means at least a hectare of roof area for PV's and the livestock producing 1000s of litres of manure/day. The UK also has 1000s of old mines whose water is hot enough to drive heat pumps for the next 1000 years, which should be long enough to get fusion finally working.
NB some renewables are dispatachable. anything using geothermally heated water, or aerobic digestion are*.
Guessing you missed the * bit, but digestors are more gas generators than electricity generators, and also constrained by the regulatory penalties for methane.
The UK has roughly 1200 farms that meet the US "Mega farm" definitions for what they farm. That means at least a hectare of roof area for PV's and the livestock producing 1000s of litres of manure/day.
Most already are doing things to reduce their energy costs. But it's also an area where there's a combination of regulatory and lobbying pressure, ie the militant vegetables who want to ban livestock and meat, and force everyone to go vegetarian or eat bugs. A lot of the big farms already use solar and digestors, but sometimes using methane as heat rather than electricity. I think those are more demand reduction rather than providing dispatachable power. Plus from chatting with some farmers, there's much paperwork, especially around the definition of 'waste' and how that can be used or just recycled, ie the remains from digestion are still useful for fertiliser.
The UK also has 1000s of old mines whose water is hot enough to drive heat pumps for the next 1000 years, which should be long enough to get fusion finally working.
I think the problem is those can be 'novelty' designs that just fiddle around the edges when we need energy now, and lots of it. So the recent market notice from NESO should have been a wakeup call-
Peak demand of ~37GW, the highest since last winter
Outages of other units such as Sizewell B (1.2GW Nuclear), Damhead Creek (812WM CCGT)
Recent closure of Ratcliffe (2GW Coal)
So winter is only getting started, demand is often 50GW+ and there was a CMN at only 37GW.. Especially as interconnectors are limited, and not entirely reliable. But I think the biggest mistake was DECC's rigging the market with their 'levelised cost' model, and the CfD system. I think generation should be based on price/cost per GW, and firm GWh capability. That was intentionally rigged to favour wind and the cost models exclude their ability to deliver GWh, so that cost should be included. So the cost should include any stand-by capacity needed to actually deliver a dependable GWh. But obviously that makes wind entirely uneconomic, which is the sad reality. So the solution should be nuclear, but that's unpopular and is penalised by being excluded from low carbon subsidies.
Stuff like geothermal is interesting, but probably also uneconomic, much like Scotland's plan to use compressed air. Sure, mines could be used, but there'd be a raft of safety and cost issues of opening up old mines. Plus the problem of creating earthquakes as heat is removed and ground contracts. Which is ironic given most geothermal is fracking, yet the 'renewables' lobby glosses over that point. Plus in some locations like the Eden Project's geothermal, it also produces radioactive waste on account of Cornish granite.
So it's all a bit of a mess, especially given the capacity requirements to support 'Net Zero' ambitions. We need lots of new GW/GWh, current policy isn't delivering that.. And despite some signs of reality dawning, new nuclear has a long lead time.
@mevets
"Unreliables being oil, gas and coal?"
Cute to try and flip this somehow but in no way does it work. There is plenty oil, gas and coal and it is highly reliable and cheap to run. You might note that your entire civilised existence relies quite solidly upon such providing the fuel for most applications in your life.
"OG+C have reliably increased the cost of electricity,"
That is a solid level of delusion. Go on.
"and reliably decreased the availability of electricity."
And again this is funny for being absolutely wrong and polar opposite to reality, but go on.
"They aren't unreliable at all."
And so you do seem to know your comment is garbage but seem to have posted anyway. At least not as an AC as is the usual with this kind of troll.
Gosh, one must have to get up pretty early in the morning to pull one over your eyes.....
Unfortunately, the devastation wreaked by the fossil fuel industry counts towards their cost and reliability.
That is just from the climate damage. Toxicity, mordantly summarized at https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ adds further dimensions to the cost and availability aspects.
Total Cost of Ownership is a pretty well established concept.
Even aside from that, I live in a region which brilliantly decided in the 70s that the way forward was oil,coal,gas fired generation; where the neighbouring region went in big for hydro.
So we have a bit of experience with cost, reliability and availability of these failed technologies.
That is just from the climate damage.
What 'climate damage'? There have been a few attempts to make a causal link (ie legal ones) between fossil fuel use and climate damage, but few have gotten very far. Mainly because as many people know, correlation != causation.
wow.
Ok, so have an example of climate damage. Well, weather damage-
https://stopthesethings.com/2024/10/21/hurricane-havoc-twisters-wipeout-thousands-of-solar-panels-across-us/
The footage, shared by North Carolina-based power and gas company Duke Energy, showed the damage left behind in a field of Florida solar panels. In the video, taken Oct. 10 at the Lake Placid Solar Power Plant in Sylvan Shores, a clear path of destruction can be seen snaking through the middle of the field where the twister passed over.
Which demonstrates the power of nature (not CO2). Plus the way tornados can be extremely damaging, if you're in the path, but much less so if you're not. I've seen similar images of tornado tracks where houses one side of a street are pretty much untouched, the other, completely destroyed.
Given the IPCC and MSM predict more severe (or in MSM terms 'extreme') weather, why are we depending on, and wasting money on electricity generation that is so vulnerable to bad weather? See also battery fires that release clouds of toxic heavy metals that can also contaminate water sources and food production..
@mevets
"Unfortunately, the devastation wreaked by the fossil fuel industry counts towards their cost and reliability."
And your ENTIRE civilised life has been made possible by fossil fuels. Even after such costs fossil fuels have still been such an incredible benefit and gain to the whole freaking world. They are reliable (the stupidity of your previous comment) and they are very cheap, including the 'devastation' you mention.
"That is just from the climate damage"
If you are talking the latest religion we can skip that. If you mean pollution there have been huge strides in reducing such.
"Toxicity, mordantly summarized at https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ adds further dimensions to the cost and availability aspects."
Seems a little wet dreamy over the vastly toxic and polluting unreliables but lets assume the figures are correct. The balance of the equation would be lives saved + created in which fossil fuels outperforms unreliables by severe orders of magnitude. That is plainly visible thanks to us having our civilised way of life vs history.
"Even aside from that, I live in a region which brilliantly decided in the 70s that the way forward was oil,coal,gas fired generation; where the neighbouring region went in big for hydro."
Fantastic, I have nothing against hydro. I live in the UK so are you for destroying a load of land to create the required dams for hydro? Maybe drown some greenies because they really wouldnt like it. Hydro is great if you have the terrain for it. If it is an actual option.
"So we have a bit of experience with cost, reliability and availability of these failed technologies."
Yes. For one you dont spend your day from sparrow fart to dark standing in a field barely able to harvest enough for just about a subsistence lifestyle. Instead you have transport. Healthcare. Clothing. Access to foods from around the world. Heat, light and shelter on a scale never previously seen throughout history and a damn good lifespan to go with it.
Not brought to you by unreliables.
"The question is if they are gonna pay over the odds, or if they expect energy prices to continue to be screwed upwards by unreliables."
House! Codejunky Repetitive-Bullshit Buzzword Bingo is such fun.
And you know electricity prices are pegged to gas, right? Surely you must know that.
I'm sure you can provide a reliable source showing how electricity prices are 'pegged' to gas, rather than th convoluted mess that is the UK energy market?
Reality is pricing is roughly based on the most expensive generator, which was to subsidise wind. Priotising wind meant an increased dependency on gas to keep electricity flowing when the wind isn't blowing. Then despite the increased dependency on gas, the UK didn't invest in gas production and then sanctioned gas.
The obvious solution would be to increase gas production, remove subsidies, or reduce consumption by building generating capacity that isn't weather dependent like nuclear. This should be obvious given the direct correlation between 'renewables' investment and electricity prices. If 'renewables' really were cheap, then UK electricity prices should be amongst the lowest in the world, not the most expensive.
They run an auction every half-hour. People submit bids for various quantities of electricity. They sort the list in ascending order of price, run down the list until they have enough capacity to meet demand. Whatever the price of the most expensive successful bid is, that is the price everyone gets.
If you are a nuclear power station, you will likely submit a £0 bid because you know you are going to get more than that most of the time, and it is cheaper to give the electricity away for free than to turn the power station off. Similarly for wind. Gas can very easily and quickly be turned on or off, and it is definitely cheaper to turn it off than waste gas when you don't get the money to cover it.
Reality is pricing is roughly based on the most expensive generator, which was to subsidise wind.
Utterly false. Almost as if one is posting on a topic they no nothing about. Or are just parroting something from a pro-petrochem funded astro-turfing outfit. Hmm.
Utterly false. Almost as if one is posting on a topic they no nothing about.
Utterly predictable. Assuming you're the same anonym..uppet, you haven't answered how prices are 'pegged to gas'. If you knew about the topic, you would be able to explain this.
Or are just parroting something from a pro-petrochem funded astro-turfing outfit
Your head must get nice and crispy under all that tin foil. But a couple of things to support nuclear-
https://timera-energy.com/blog/first-capacity-market-notice-of-winter-2024-25-issued/
On Monday 14th October, the newly formed NESO issued the first Capacity Market Notice (CMN) of winter 2024/25, almost 2 years after the last CMN in November 2022...
... The price of these trades reached highs of 1030 £/MWh across 16:00-17:00 UTC. The impact of scarcity was also seen in wholesale markets where intraday weighted average prices peaked at ~677 £/MWh, and with intraday spreads reaching ~608 £/MWh.
And where was the wind? But also-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP1000
Nineteen more AP1000s are currently being planned, with 6 in India, 9 in Ukraine, 3 in Poland, and 1 in Bulgaria.
Obviously Ukraine is.. kinda on hold for now, but Saudi's also building Westinghouse APR reactors and the first 4 are (I think) now complete. And much completed faster and on budget, as compared to the UK and our decision to go with EDF. All the more ironic give the UK used to own Westinghouse until one G.Brown Esq flogged it off, possibly on the advice of his brother, who worked for EDF who were desperate to get orders for their EPR design.
And as for 'astroturfing', I'll take that and raise you-
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/10/18/the-energy-crisis-commission-is-just-another-green-blob-front/
These aren’t real organisations; they are ghosts summoned by the will of money and ideology in some nebulous physical form to do their malign work before fading away. Green organisations – ECF grantees – have long campaigned for higher energy prices, and long attempted to distort the public discussion about how and why prices are going up, despite their false promises that renewables will be cheaper.
And of course in an example of regulatory capture, Emma Pinchbeck is leaving 'Energy UK' to become the CEO of the Committee on Climate Change. The Green Blob is currently spinning hard for wind, despite the abject failure and impact on energy poverty, inflation and de-industrialisation. You will no doubt froth about 'big oil' again, but the basic argument is correct. The more we've 'invested' in 'renewables', the more expensive our electricty has become. But then you rather make Ben's point about the way the Blob attempts to distort discussion with lies.
Oops. Your mask came off.
Previously on El Reg..
You will no doubt froth about 'big oil' again, but the basic argument is correct
No mask. Unlike the funding behind the astroturfers mentioned in Ben Pile's article. Any idea who's bankrolling the 'European Climate Foundation'. They're remarkably coy about where the money comes from, but the ex-Bbc hack, Dick Black will happily trouser it..
Wrong.
I assume this is the peg-headed troll?
What is wrong? Westinghouse was bought by BNFL in 1999, and then sold off in 2005. Why G.Brown Esq decided to flog it off just as there were signs of a nuclear renaissance is a matter of conjecture. But EDF was (and still is) in financial trouble, and desperate to get orders for their EPR design. Westinghouse does now have a pretty good order book for their competing APR designs, and those seem to be being constructed far faster than EDF is managing.
Wrong. Again. You seem to have a problem with facts.
Sadly, you don't seem to have a problem with trolling. So it's wiki, but-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Electric_Company
Portions of their nuclear business were initially purchased by Siemens in 1998 before the remaining parts were purchased by British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) in 1999 and formed up as Westinghouse Electric. In 2005, BNFL sold the company to Toshiba.
You are the one who seems to have a problem with reality, and facts..
Toshiba in 2006.You implied EDF. In 2005.
No, it was sold by BNFL to Toshiba in 2005. Nowhere did I imply it was sold to EDF.. <edit> I guess you're confusing (or just trolling again) about the difference between sale announcement and deal closing. But it happened, and per wiki again-
The sale surprised many industry experts who questioned the wisdom of BNFL selling one of the world's largest producers of nuclear reactors shortly before the market for nuclear power was expected to grow substantially
But that was G.Brown Esq and Labour for you. He also suprised the world when he also decided to flog off UK gold reserves. And by announcing the decision, got a low price..
Facts matter.
To most people, yes. To you? You seem to have no idea what facts are.. But once again you're making Ben Pile's point about how dishonest the 'Green Blob' and its adherents are.
For those who want to explore this a bit further the "Electricity to gas price ratio" is explained here while why electricity prices are "pegged" to gas prices most of the time is explained here
3 further facts that people might like to consider.
The UK is only one of 2 countries in the world that have a wholly privatised gas distribution network.
It has storage capacity measured in days while other G7 nations have it in months which means they can ride out price spikes, and their market is probably structured to incentivise the operators to do so.
Gas is essentially a cost-plus pricing model. Customers are going to pay regardless of the price. So while centrica's profit margin might be capped the underlying gas price is not, and hence the absolute value of that profit is not. 5% of £1m is £50k. 5% of £1Bn is £50million. It's pretty obvious which one Centrica (or rather their ultimate owners) would rather have.
@John Smith 19
"For those who want to explore this a bit further the "Electricity to gas price ratio" is explained here while why electricity prices are "pegged" to gas prices most of the time is explained here"
Isnt that just 'pegged' to the most expensive deliverer in order to subsidize the terrible performance of unreliables? Gas only being expensive when a certain war kicked off and global demand for gas jumped. Aka if we didnt rig a system to subsidize unreliables it wouldnt have been such an issue? Plus we have gas in this country and choose not to extract it.
"It has storage capacity measured in days while other G7 nations have it in months which means they can ride out price spikes, and their market is probably structured to incentivise the operators to do so."
Ours is disincentivised to store gas. It takes decades to get a return but the gov has made it clear they are anti fossil fuel and intend to ban it out of use as much as possible. If the gov was to own gas storage and fill it up it would be a waste of money for the same reason. Until governments realise we need fossil fuels regardless of their wet dreams and ideologies, and gas is a requirement if we are to have unreliables on the grid, then not much will change.
What a good idea.
Oh wait it was owned by HMG, but sold off under in the 80's under Margaret Thatcher.
Anyone in the UK wondering how well that's worked out can look at how their gas bills have moved over the last 4 decades due to "Market efficiency."*
*Spoiler alert. They haven't gone down. Big fu***ng surprise.
@John Smith 19
"What a good idea."
How do you come to this idea? My comment points out the desperate need to remain on gas due to the unreliables ideology AND the insanity of trying to ban fossil fuels at the same time. Doesnt matter who owns the storage it makes no sense to make more. Government or private it is stupid insanity to build the needed storage because of the ideological nut jobs in charge.
"Oh wait it was owned by HMG, but sold off under in the 80's under Margaret Thatcher."
So what? The insanity is government ideological policy. The moronic stupidity would be building more storage while such ideology regardless of who owns it.
"Anyone in the UK wondering how well that's worked out can look at how their gas bills have moved over the last 4 decades due to "Market efficiency."*"
Its been pretty damn good except for when the gov makes moronic ideological decisions to push unreliables and phase out actual power generation. This is why our energy is so stupidly expensive.
"*Spoiler alert. They haven't gone down. Big fu***ng surprise."
Why would it? Government insane ideology distorts prices. Well done.
The UK produces a tiny fraction of the world's oil and gas, both < 1% of world supply. It ceased to be a net exporter of either about 10 years ago.
IOW UK production will make zero difference to the world price and UK customers will buy at the world price. Which sensible people would say puts paid to the whole "Energy security" BS of more UK oil and gas exploration/exploitation*
*BTW WTF is it that the UK is the best country in the world for tax breaks, grants and loans for O&G startups? Better than Saudi Arabia? The current govt could honour it's commitment to existing licenses (issued in the last days of Slippy Rishi's time in office) but end all such support. If a field is that good how come is it that HMG has to pick up the bill first? This is both a mature industry and mature companies, so why is it treated like some sort of startup business? Germanium transistors come to mind, with new companies (all startups) and a new product being made in new ways. Not basically dino-juice that's been pumped out of the ground since at least 1859 in the US.
@John Smith 19
"The UK produces a tiny fraction of the world's oil and gas, both < 1% of world supply. It ceased to be a net exporter of either about 10 years ago."
So? If you dislike this you must be on the side of fracking.
"IOW UK production will make zero difference to the world price and UK customers will buy at the world price."
Except surplus does bring local prices down.
"Which sensible people would say puts paid to the whole "Energy security" BS of more UK oil and gas exploration/exploitation*"
Except it doesnt as we choose to sell on the global market (and why not? That way we get the money). Also producing more than we export stays local and lowers prices.
Except it doesnt as we choose to sell on the global market (and why not? That way we get the money). Also producing more than we export stays local and lowers prices.
I think that's a regulatory/policy failure. Global price is really just a benchmark that helps speculators. So oil/gas prices have gone up due to tensions in the Middle East. If we're not buying gas from there, why should that affect price? Plus other insanity like the 'windfall taxes' that penalise gas production and disincentivise exploration and exploration, along of course with irrational fracking bans. It's crazy that energy policy has increased demand for gas, but at the same time we're penalising it. Energy costs rocket, inflation goes up, businesses go bust due to extortionate energy costs.. and the government seems suprised by the inevitable consequences of their decisions.
Does the phrase "Sold at the world market price" make any sense to you?
I think it's one of those 'but why?' questions. Why would the UK be quoted the same 'market price' as say, Patagonia when the costs are very different. Especially given the UK could be producing a lot more gas and 2-Tier Kier could actually do something and decouple UK energy costs from 'world market prices'. Set a FRAND price for UK consumption based on costs, then surplus could be sold at world market prices. It's rather bizaree when there isn't really any 'world market' anyway. If I go to my greengrocers and offer to pay 2p/kg for spuds because that's the 'world market price', they'll probably just chuck one at me.
@John Smith 19
"Economics isn't really your thing, is it?"
Why where are you struggling?
"Does the phrase "Sold at the world market price" make any sense to you?"
And what do you do with a surplus that cant export due to lack of capacity? Dont hurt yourself thinking about it.
@John Smith 19
"Apologies. This is a tech website. I expected a reasonable level of English comprehension as standard."
I gave up expecting such competency a long time ago. Such as you trying to explain your lack of comprehension.
"The word "ceased" is a synonym for the phrase "no longer." Does that make it clearer?"
To which I responded- "So? If you dislike this you must be on the side of fracking.". I am not sure how to make this much clearer as it was a direct response to you saying "It ceased to be a net exporter of either about 10 years ago.". Maybe get someone to read it to you.
Except that the money is mostly going to commercial companies who are competing with each other in the SMR field. That means they're each working on first of a kind prototypes, most are going to go bust because they won't have the resources, and those that succeed will find they can build a modest number of units which will then have very high unit costs.
SMR (or any other fission or fusion technology) simply isn't suited to commercial development. Risks are big, all the costs are in development, certification and specialised skills and parts, so government needs to intervene to ensure that there's common standards and that the overheads and fixed costs can be recovered across lots of similar plants. Absent that, all this money gets is a pile of vastly expensive dissimilar plant that will become a nuclear liability in future years.
China, I regret to say, is at least five if not ten years ahead of the West on SMR, simply because they've been able to use state sponsorship to deliver results, and they've not been bedevilled by startup businesses claiming they can magic up an SMR from an old washing up liquid bottle, a shoe box, and sticky backed plastic.
If they really truly want to buy product, why are they messing about with random startups instead of going to suppliers with a more established background?
At least some of the other people looking at SMRs have already been in the game of building small reactors and/or traditional nuclear facilities. Some of the newer startups look more like dreamers or vapourware with little prospect of product even if they find a backer.
The years away/startup combo for datacentre reads more like a cheap promise they don't truly plan to deliver. If they were wanting to actually have a pile of kit to run AI or whatever they'd surely be looking at closer timescales?
Whilst I'd agree that working with people who have actually built small reactors is the obvious option, those companies tend to be big listed entities that will be a lot more measured and realistic than the hopefuls.
BWXT, Fluor, Rolls Royce have the expertise and could do all of this easily, but aren't looking to splurge lots of speculative cash without some confidence that there's a viable return on investment at the end. With government and regulators the primary obstacles to SMR, it's in government's hands - do they want this or not? If they do they need to simplify the regulation and planning, and make energy policy accommodating. Or they can do what they're currently doing, of saying nice words but doing precisely nothing other than pushing wind and solar plants.
> BWXT, Fluor, Rolls Royce
One of those (BWXT) gave up developing an SMR, the second (Fluor) appears to be a construction/management company that partners with other SMR manufacturers, and the third (RR) is very busy building lots of nuclear reactors for new submarines using pressurised water technology and probably don't have the capacity to expand into SMRs at the same time.
BWXT's (formerly Babcock and Wilcox) Canadian subsidiary are working as a subcontractor to build components for Hitachi for the latter's SMR. Hitachi's first 300MW SMR is currently under construction near Toronto (next to the existing Darlington nuclear power plant) and is scheduled to start generating in 2029. An additional three 300 MW units are planned to go next to it, for a total of 1,200 MW.
Saskatchewan plan to build the same design in the mid-2030s, and there are plans for sales in Europe, including Sweden, Poland, and Estonia in the same time frame.
BWXT Canada seems to be a partner with Hitachi in all this. I don't know if the American branch of BWXT are involved in SMRs in any way.
As for Rolls Royce, they are currently pursuing sales for their 470 MW SMR, but government decision making in the UK is glacial, taking longer to decide on what SMR to favour than Canada is taking to think about the idea and then actually build one. Rolls Royce may therefore decide to give up on the market.
The UK plans to make a decision by the end of 2029 (the same year the Canadian plant starts up). They are currently looking at proposals from Hitachi (a clone of the Canadian plant), Holtec, NuScale Power, Rolls-Royce SMR and Westinghouse. Of those, the only one that actually has any under construction is Hitachi (in Canada).
The UK government have sunk £250M into Rolls' SMR project so you'd think they are a shoo-in for any contract. The only issue I see is that their 470MWe design is huge for an SMR and I'm unaware of the reasoning behind it. Surely they should have started smaller and scaled it up later?
The point of making the reactors smaller is to be able to assemble as much as possible in the factory rather than on site rather than having really large bits that have to be assembled on site. If the Rolls Royce SMR is transportable in assembled form then the larger generating capacity may be an advantage in terms of cost per MW.
There are significant economies of scale when it comes to the civil works - roads, sewers, transformers, switch yards, transmission lines, cooling water inlet and outlet channels, etc., which make larger plants more economic. This is in addition to being able to make better use of manpower when a number of units are co-located. Scattering small plants all over is very sub-optimal.
The really small SMRs seem to be a lot less successful in terms of actually getting bought by customers than the larger ones.
It also allows the units to be fuelled in the factory, possibly for life. This means the user doesn't have to play with the spicy rocks. Playing with spicy rocks is difficult
>The really small SMRs seem to be a lot less successful in terms of actually getting bought by customers than the larger ones.
I think their aim is to have new customers. There is only one customer for the big ones = the government. Or worse, the integral over all the different governments during the 20 years it takes to sell and build a full size plant.
Correct. OECD figures say FPP are basically $1-4/w
I think you'll find 470MW is the figure RR need to be to make the cost they are looking for hit the top end of that.
But let's be honest it's one of about 45 "PWR-lite" designs on the IAEA list.
IOW yet another highly expensive machine for making poor quality (lots of water droplets in the first stage of the turbine) steam that couldn't match FPP efficiency levels from the late 1950's, let alone the early 2020's.
Being hopeful… the UK government having procrastinated over (RR) funding and contracts, will when pushed decide to go with some overseas entity (most likely N.Amercian) on the grounds they have the expertise etc. etc., and well the UK only has itself to blame for being lazy etc.
Yeah but, it's likely that those subs are under National Security rules and you're not going to be able to just copy/paste their reactors to the civilian world because The Man still doesn't want anyone to know their abilities.
The Cold War may be dead, the paranoia isn't.
The thing is with reactors on subs and on aircraft carriers is that you have a large and skilled crew available 24/7 constantly monitoring and repairing the reactors, plus as much cooling water as you could ever need to keep them operating correctly.
A land-based SMR needs to be able to operate with fewer personnel (anyone running one of these will staff it as minimally as possible), operate in a range of temperatures (from deserts to arctic tundras) with limited water supplies (to varying degrees of course) and with probably longer maintenance and repair cycles (again to reduce cost).
So the designs probably aren't directly comparable - the military ones probably also use older tech as it's more developed/reliable than some of the newer stuff which may be more efficient or easier to maintain etc.
I think it depends how you define 'large'. So the example of the Astute again, where a crew of 100 are split between every system and service on the submarine. Which I guess is where the institutional knowledge from developers like RR comes in. Adding reactor crew to a submarine has to be a whole lot harder than it would be on shore.
Why don't you all f-fade away (talkin' 'bout my generation)
And don't try to d-dig what we all s-s-say (talkin' 'bout my generation)
I'm not trying to 'cause a b-big s-s-sensation (talkin' 'bout my generation)
I'm just talkin' 'bout my g-g-generation (talkin' 'bout my generation)
Unless they've built their facilities right next door or built a private grid then that's not how electricity works. All they have done is increase supply to match their increased demand. So it's an investment not a private power plant. Rooftop solar is direct. Building a power station is indirect supply
You do realise these big data centres have (usually multiple) dedicated feeds to them don't you? It's not like they dig up the pavement and tap into the domestic supply.
Each centre will have its own point to point links from wherever the bean counters decide best based on cost, reliability etc. That could be a switching centre on the public grid but if they have their own supply contracts in place yes it may very well be right back to the source.
Why not build the data centres next to a large hydro or geothermal generation system. They did that in the south of New Zealand for an aluminium smelter when New Zealand had no aluminium ore or any need to use large quantities of aluminium. What it did have was large quantities of cheap electricity generated by hydro power.
These data centres don't need to be located in the middle of a city, all the need is a high speed fibre link to the rest of the world. Geothermal generation in Iceland...
These data centres don't need to be located in the middle of a city, all the need is a high speed fibre link to the rest of the world. Geothermal generation in Iceland...
Some of it is the need for, or perception of latency. So for real-time apps like high frequency trading, datacentres need to be close to exchanges to reduce latency, so trades can be front-run and profits maximised. For AI, latency should be less of an issue given latency in fibre is around 4.7ms per 1,000km. But that basic fibre can be more of an issue. So Slough and other popular datacentre locations already have lots of fibre available so it's easier for datacentres to get capacity from multiple providers, along with diversity/resilience. More out of the way locations don't have that fibre availability and there's often no real incentive to dig to them.
Sure, Iceland might have geothermal, but it needs expensive submarine cables to connect it to the rest of the world. Which is also an interesting power related problem. Cable ships to install or maintain cables are expensive, specialised and scarce. There was a point where some cable ship operators faced going bust due to price pressures in telecomms, but then came the offshore wind boom and they got busy.. Very busy, to the point where their order books are now full till 2030 for new installations. This also impacts fault restoration given maintenance ships need to sail to location, locate break, yoink up the cable and repair it, which can take days.
Has no one bothered to mention to Google that Rolls Royce Submarines have been making small nuclear reactors for decades?
Why are Google effectively going for accompany with 8 years in the business as opposed to RR with 50 years experience
And RR are not the only company supplying these reactors to navies.
Rolls Royce solution.
Rolls Royce price.
In fact submarine SMR's are around 60MW(t). Their main job is driving large slow speed propellers s l o w l y. Electricity generation is a relatively small side project for them.
But (as others have mentioned) you can't just C&P the design due to security issues. RR has set up an SMR project but it looks more like a plan to hoover up any UK R&D funds with maybe a possible build. And there are about 45 other PWR-lite SMR's on the IAEA SMR list.
Incidently "Let's commercialise our submarine power plant tech (which the US Navy bankrolled the entire development of) was exactly Westinghouse's product plan in the late 1950's"
8 decades later RR comes up with this "brilliant" idea as well. Gosh, what innovation. What ingenuity. No really what gob-smacking audacity.
It's literally as if Ford had analysed their entire production process and designed a whole new factory using 21st century tech to build the Model T.
I'm not surprised at RR's behaviour. It's all they really know.
I'm just disappointed PWR's are a goldmine for concrete and rebar mfgs, who wlll do rather well but otherwise a bad expensive way to make poor quality steam that can only be used by built-to-order turbines (roughly 10x what a COTS turbine designed for modern temperatures and pressures costs).
8 decades later RR comes up with this "brilliant" idea as well. Gosh, what innovation. What ingenuity. No really what gob-smacking audacity.
Hmm..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windmill#Forerunners
Hero of Alexandria (Heron) in first-century Roman Egypt described what appears to be a wind-driven wheel to power a machine...
... Another early example of a wind-driven wheel was the prayer wheel, which is believed to have been first used in Tibet and China
And 2,000 years later, the 'renewables' lobby is still praying we keep throwing money at their antique technology, despite knowing that the Age of Sail gave way to the Age of Steam, precisely because we knew we couldn't rely on the vagueries of wind.
I'm not surprised at RR's behaviour. It's all they really know.
Yep. Company that makes turbines and compact reactors proposes a civil version of those reactors. Colour me.. not suprised, other than the time it's taken our clueless politicians to realise 'renewables' don't work and nuclear is a good thing.
And there are about 45 other PWR-lite SMR's on the IAEA SMR list.
Yep. And RR's is British, is working through the approvals process and could then build a pilot/demonstration reactor and start taking orders. Russia already has working SMRs, and Rosatom has a healthy order book from countries who've looked at the UK's self-inflicted energy crisis and realised 'renewables' are a very dumb and expensive idea, for all the reasons our ancestors knew. But the UK still seems determined to buy antique windmills from foreign producers, even though our ancestors knew wind was unreliable.
Those that ignore history are destined to become politicians, or 'renewables' lobbyists I guess.
We should not be proliferating nuclear power stations. We should not be paying wind farms to switch off their turbines. What the heck is wrong with everyone? Think of the future and what we're going to do with a load of nuclear waste, just to get a load of rehashed rubbish from AI searches.
Nuclear is not the reason wind farms get paid to stop generating. That is a grid issue. Same happens in Germany and they have no nuclear.
There are lots of things we can safely do with the waste but some group of perpetually uppity middle-class do-gooders always show up to make a fuss as they think they know best.
is a line that has been used for at least 25 years to explain why we shouldn't bother with Nuclear. If we'd just ignored you useless buggers back then and started building them, we'd be well over halfway in having them amortise their costs and could have power as clean as France.
The best time to start building solutions to your problems is decades ago, the second best time is now.
Six years is only too long term for Google if you assume Google will, in just six short years, have much lower demand for power in its datacenters. And if I were one of their shareholders, that'd make me terrified.
Six years is only too long term for Google if you assume Google will, in just six short years, have much lower demand for power in its datacenters. And if I were one of their shareholders, that'd make me terrified.
Yep, this is why the anti-nuclear spin is a little bizarre. The big brains at big tech with a collective value in the trillions have been looking at their energy costs, demand projections, supply uncertainties and are placing bets on nuclear.. Because that's the most rational decision. Even if some of the SMR proposals don't play out, they're plenty rich enough to just buy the winners. MS and AlphaGoo go nuclear.
It's also crazy looking at UK energy policy and subsidisation. I think RR got around £200m to develop their SMR, yet we're planning to waste £22bn trying to bury CO2 in the ground. If RR gets their SMR into production and service, there's a big market for selling those, that benefits UK Plc. Especially as RR's designs seem to offer a more useful lump of capacity than a lot of the competing designs.
>” If RR gets their SMR into production and service, there's a big market for selling those, that benefits UK Plc.”
Trouble is the Conservative mindset that pervades the UK establishment. If there is a “big” market then the market will invest and thus no need for government stimulation and intervention funding… The Tories were fairly obvious this was their mindset, Labour I suspect will use the “black hole in government finances” as an excuse as to why the government can’t drop a £22bn stimulus package onto RR and the embryonic UK SMR industry, so will by their action starve the UK industrial development, resulting in it being a world class failure compared to the well funded American and Chinese businesses….
No government, anywhere is dropping a £22 billion stimulus package on any manufacturer.
The tragedy is that PWR have given a group of materials that are accepted by nuclear regulators world wide which can sustain much higher operating temperatures if you dump water as a moderator/coolant.
A side note. When Zirconium was first developed for reactors it was in very short supply. Nuclear Zirconium (very low levels of Hf) like Zircaloy 4 is very expensive but it's non-nuclear version (grade 704) is available in plates about 10x the surface area of Z4 as well as rods and tubes. Non nuclear is much cheaper but still good to 1800c.
These could act as the structure of a reactor between the hot core (running at say 640c to keep below Zr recrystallisation temperature) and the SA508 walls at 350c (max long term limit found by the US Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor programme). The British AGR used 2 pass CO2 cooling to keep the outer walls (low alloy steel) substantially below the temperature of the mostly-graphite core structure. If graphite were used solely as a moderator, rather than as structure, it would not have to be formed into complex blocks. Indeed you could just just natural graphite that had been cleaned of high neutron absorbers, or which didn't have them to begin with (as some don't).
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