Right-Sizing Nuclear Power

Right-Sizing Nuclear Power

September 18, 2009

Ken Silverstein
EnergyBiz Insider
Editor-in-Chief

The regulatory and financial maze surrounding the construction of new nuclear plants might be circumvented if some developers are able to commercialize smaller, less controversial reactors. Such efficient units could be built and shipped at a fraction of the time and money than the much bigger base-load facilities.

The focus is now on right-sized reactors that are typically between 100 megawatts and 300 megawatts. They would be mostly marketed to developing nations where the transmission grids cannot handle the larger, 1,000-3,000 megawatt systems. And while the concept may sound appealing, researchers must still prove that idea is doable. Once the projects are shown to be feasible, developers can then take the various components of the smaller facilities and use them to form base-load plants.

"This small reactor ... could supply energy to remote areas and developing countries at lower costs and with a manufacturing turnaround period of two years as opposed to seven for its larger relatives," says Tom Sanders, who has been working with Sandia National Laboratory on this project. "It could also be a more practical means to implement nuclear base-load capacity comparable to natural gas-fired generating stations and with more manageable financial demands than a conventional power plant."

The right-sized reactor is expected to operate at high efficiencies and to have certain built-in advantages, ultimately giving it a respectable return on investment. Such units, for example, generally come with a nuclear waste storage containment device. The facilities could also be used to create drinkable water supplies in those countries where such a resource is in short supply.

According to the Sandia lab, these smaller reactors would be factory built and mass-assembled, with potential production of 50 a year. They would all have the exact same design, allowing for easier licensing and deployment than large-scale facilities. Mass production will keep the costs down to between $250 million and $500 million per unit.

Babcock & Wilcox, which is producing its own reactor, says that the first ones could come on line in 2018. Both B&W and Sandia say that such units would be cost effective to not just build but to also operate. Construction time would take about half the time it takes to build a base-load facility while the actual cost of the power would be the rough equivalent of a similar-size natural-gas peaking unit at 5 cents per kilowatt hour.

In the case of Sandia, the right-sized reactors would generate their own fuel as they operate. They are designed to have an extended operational life and would only need to be refueled a few times during its projected 60-year lifespan. At the same time, the reactor system would have no need for fuel handling, all of which helps to alleviate proliferation concerns. Conventional nuclear power plants in the U.S. have their reactors refueled once every 18 to 24 months.

Immediate Objectives

The right-sized reactor's genesis comes from the high cost of cement and steel -- the raw materials that go into power plant construction -- along with the developing world's need to provide electricity to its citizens. If their economies expand, they would then be able to enhance the capacity of the smaller units. China, for example, is using American know-how to build a 195-megawatt plant.

In a journal published by the Massachusetts's Institute of Technology, Professor Andrew Kadak says that small reactors make the most sense for poor countries that can't afford to finance $10 billion to $14 billion plants and which do not have the transmission capacity to distribute power from large-scale plants. Such facilities, however, are less attractive to richer countries that have the financial wherewithal to build those systems that would service broad swaths of the countryside.

"In the United States, it's a harder sell," says Kadak, in the MIT journal.

But the momentum may be shifting. Utilities such as Dominion Resources, Exelon Corp. and Entergy Corp. have taken the preliminary steps to build new nuclear facilities. Altogether, there are 17 licensing applications now with federal regulators.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, energy demand in this country is expected to increase by 23 percent by 2030. And during this time period, power generators will be under increasing pressure to limit their greenhouse gas emissions. Those dynamics would tend to favor nuclear production, which has increased its average capacity factor from about 70 percent in the 1970s to 90 percent today.

The wisdom in starting small is that those units incorporate the same underlying technologies as the base-load plants. But they are much easier to site. Companies such as B&W, Westinghouse and NuScale are developing smaller, light water reactors that are prevalent in the United States -- units that have been proven safe, reliable and productive and which have already passed regulatory muster. In all cases, the reactors could be scaled up as the needs of a society would grow.

"When we started looking at the best way to match up Babcock & Wilcox's nuclear manufacturing, engineering and licensing expertise with the emerging needs of the commercial nuclear renaissance, it was clear that we could lead the scalable, modular reactor field," says Brandon Bethards, chief executive officer of the Lynchburg, Vir.-based manufacturer.

At home, the challenges to increasing nuclear capacity are both political and financial. But the national labs along with private developers are working hard to develop the next-generation of nuclear facilities as well as the smaller, right-sized units that can efficiently provide power to less-developed nations. If those nascent technologies can be proven in the field, they could later be expanded and used on a much bigger scale.