OPINION | DAVID HESS
A catalyst for nuclear change
SMRs:
There is no technology development more important to the future of the nuclear industry than widescale deployment
of SMRs. Long promised, these designs do not represent a fad, they are completely integral to the future of nuclear energy and complementary to larger designs
David Hess, Senior VP DeepGeo
TICK AROUND IN THE NUCLEAR industry long enough and you are bound to become a cynic. Many join the industry as starry-eyed optimists and idealists, but over time – the looong timescale of nuclear policy and project developments – that spirit fades. Look at the big picture and ask yourself how much has really changed in the last 20
years? In many nuclear countries, and specifically Western ones, what you will see is a litany of premature plant closures and stalled new-build programmes. At conferences, the industry comforts itself with stories
of advanced technology messiahs, but where are they? Most seem to have got lost in the journey from paper to steel and concrete, or at best stuck at one government- funded demonstration unit. As for the newer reactor designs that have actually been constructed, overwhelmingly they
are evolutions of large light water reactor technologies. Overwhelmingly the construction performance and numbers built have been underwhelming. It is easy to become jaded and convinced that nothing will change in the nuclear industry, to become closed to the idea of it. But if enough folk get trapped in this fatalism then the industry will decay as surely as the radioactive isotopes it handles. Change is necessary, it is welcome, and of these potential changes none are more important to the future of nuclear than the development of SMRs. While the pathway to SMR deployment has been torturously long, the impacts stand to redefine the sector. Take a moment to reflect on what SMRs really represent.
©Alexy Kovynev “I don’t care how much it costs!” 14 | April 2024 |
www.neimagazine.com
We used to talk of nuclear technology developments primarily in terms of Gen IV reactors – molten salt, sodium- cooled fast spectrum, etc. Today, it is customary to at least start these conversations with a description of reactor size and potential applications. This simple change normalises nuclear and makes it understandable to a larger public, no longer solely the domain of scientists, engineers and nerds. There is an ongoing debate about whether SMRs will ever be able to compete with large reactor designs, whether economies of factory production, easier financing and standardisation will ever be able to compensate for lost economies of scale. While this debate is valid it is a mistake to think there is a single answer. The factors influencing nuclear economics and construction success are different country by country. They include things such as the established industrial base, labour costs, regulatory approach, market structure, and much more. What’s true in the USA is unlikely to be true in Europe and certainly won’t be true in South Korea or African countries. Of these, market factors will probably have the largest impact on whether SMRs or large reactors are more competitive and become the focus in the near term. This debate often misses something more fundamental. This is not an apples for apples comparison. SMRs promise to provide more than just grid-scale electricity. Their size and design allows them to be placed in new settings – next to industrial centres, in remote communities, on ships.
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