POWER MARKET DEVELOPMENTS | SMALL MODULAR REACTORS There have been numerous suggestions by various
international organisations and by government and industry groups about how to overcome SMR licensing obstacles. Greater harmonisation or even standardisation of national regulations could be beneficial. One approach that has not received sufficient attention is
establishing a harmonised international regulatory system, specifically for SMRs, led by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), with support from and active participation of major national nuclear regulators around the world. This would speed up licensing in vendor and user countries. Such an initiative would not have ultimate licensing authority but it would be welcomed by the developers and vendors of new SMR designs as it could reduce the time and the resources needed to secure licensing worldwide. The approach would involve an IAEA-led mechanism to
Above: China’s HTR-PM, a pebble-bed modular high-temperature gas-cooled reactor demonstration power plant Photo credit: INET
V The economics of SMRs will also depend on the size of the market and the number of competitors trying to access it. While design diversification and competition among developers has its virtue (in bringing out the best technologies), it is an impediment to technology learning, cost reductions and market adoption. Without large market adoption of a specific design, production volumes may prove insufficient for mass production and to induce learning reductions. The costs of SMR projects will also depend on the time
required for licensing and implementation. While the estimated lead times from plant order to grid connection are generally about three years (almost halving that for large reactors), the uncertain timeframes associated with regulatory approval, licensing and stakeholder involvement to manage political and public opposition are unlikely to change until the enhanced safety features, performance in a system context in terms of energy security, and environmental benefits of SMRs are understood. Standardising regulation and licensing could reduce pre- construction lead times significantly. Uncertainty remains the major risk factor for private
sector sponsorship. Public climate policy that acknowledges and supports SMRs as ‘climate-benign’ technologies can mitigate these private investor risk concerns, whether the support is direct (government has an ownership stake) or indirectly (active policies).
A harmonised regulatory system One of the key challenges facing SMRs is the need to secure design and operating licences within a reasonable time and at acceptable cost, both in vendor and user countries. The licensing process for new reactor designs is typically slow and will likely be slower for new SMR designs, because regulators lack experience with these designs and because some of the new features may require time-consuming experimental evidence. Because of the small power capacity of SMRs, the
threshold for commercialisation will require securing orders for many reactors, so SMR vendors must secure licences from national regulators in many countries. National nuclear regulators have different national laws and approaches to licensing, leading to a time consuming and costly process that will delay deployment of even the most promising designs and may pose an insurmountable obstacle.
22 | April 2022 |
www.neimagazine.com
review and approve a new design. Once a new SMR design has been approved or endorsed by such an international regulatory mechanism and licensed by a national regulatory authority, it would be more easily licensable in other countries.
The initiative could be a first step towards a more
robust and empowered international regulatory and safety regime. It could pave the way to a mandatory international inspection regime, with responsibility and authority to review and endorse all new reactor designs, undertake periodic inspections of all operating reactors and publish findings to assure operators, governments and the public at large of the safety of nuclear power reactors worldwide. Such a stronger international regulatory regime would
complement, not substitute for, national safety and regulatory regimes, which would continue to have the primary responsibility. But it could give independent assurances to the public in any country or group of countries about the safety of the nuclear facilities in their own and neighbouring countries.
Spent fuel management For any nuclear energy system to be accepted by politicians, regulators and the public, the developers must be able to show that there is a credible strategy leading to safe radioactive waste disposal. For SMR designs based on current LWR technologies, the spent fuel may differ in detail (enrichment, dimensions, etc) but it can be managed as for existing large LWRs. For other SMR concepts, based on liquid metal or
gas cooled reactors, pebble bed reactors or molten salt reactors, there are no standardised methods at industrial scales for conditioning or packaging the spent fuel into a form suitable for disposal in a geological repository. Some of the SMR spent fuels have favourable characteristics, such as lower actinide concentrations or low thermal densities. In some cases, as for pebble bed fuel, the low thermal density is offset by the high specific volume of waste per unit of energy output. All these technical challenges can certainly be solved, although it is not clear that this will always be feasible on the optimistic timescales often suggested. The suitability of a geological repository for safe disposal of spent fuel is widely accepted and has been recently confirmed by analyses performed in the scope of studies in the European Union. There are broader strategic spent fuel management questions that must be addressed if SMRs are to be widely
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45
