Feb 03 2010

Nuclear Power: Is Smaller More Beautiful?

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

One of the biggest stories to come out of this week's announcement of the Department of Energy's new budget was its support for nuclear power plant--including $36 billion in new loan guarantees.

But one of the most overlooked stories was DOE's proposed support for small modular reactors in the $195 million "Reactor Concepts Research, Development and Demonstration" program. According to The Energy Daily, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu "appears to have won a tussle with the White House Office of Management and Budget," which "last year had sought to bar DOE work in that area."

In December, a senior DOE official told a Senate committee that small nuclear reactors--typically a tenth the size of most commercial reactors operating today--may prove more cost-effective for many applications and pose fewer proliferation risks. Their modular designs may be suitable for mass production, lowering costs and improving reliability. Some are even designed to be installed underground, reducing the threat of terrorist attack.

A fierce race to develop small commercial reactors is underway globally."Technical and manufacturing innovations make [small reactors] a potential game-changer for the global clean energy market," said Christofer Mowry, president and CEO of Babcock & Wilcox Modular Nuclear Energy, which is developing a 125 MW reactor of its own.

Like their big brethran, most small reactors under development today create heat through uranium fission, which is used to create steam that drives a turbine to generate electricity.

But because of their small size, they should be easier to manufacture and more suitable for remote locations or industrial uses. Many designers claim they are inherently safe as well, incapable of runaway chain reactions and melt-downs. And many proponents project that they could generate clean power for as little as 6 to 9 cents per kilowatt hour, a fraction of the cost of solar power.

One of the centers of research on small reactors is Sandia National Laboratory. Its proposed design will generate between 100 MW and 300 MW of power, and has a relatively simple cooling system based on liquid sodium. It should operate for several decades without refueling, and cost only $250 million per unit.

Meanwhile, design concepts developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory are being commercialized by Santa Fe-based Hyperion Power Generation, Inc. In November, it unveiled its design for a power module, or "fission battery," that generates 25 MW of power, enough to serve about 20,000 typical homes. Hyperion calls it a "safe, self-contained, simple-to-operate" design that is "small enough to be manufactured en masse and transported in its entirety via ship, truck, or rail."

Corvallis-based NuScale Power, commercializing DOE-funded research at Oregon State University, also says it has developed a small nuclear power system that is "safe, modular and scalable." Its 45 MW water-cooled reactors could be combined in clusters to produce as much power as a conventional reactor but with much less construction time. The company hopes to submit a design to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for certification this year. The company is backed by CMEA Ventures, based in San Francisco.

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