TRANSPORTATION | SMRs
SMRs and the transport challenge
Some of the key issues that must be addressed for the successful roll-out of SMR technology concern transport. Deployment of some reactor designs will need completely new rules that cover their transport to site, their fuels and ultimate disposal. Could this be a deal breaker for novel small reactor designs?
WITH AROUND 80 DESIGNS of small modular and advanced reactors on the drawing board there is clearly an abundance of creativity across the nuclear industry. That could spark a new nuclear era, bringing all the benefits of low-carbon, energy dense and dispatchable resource to diverse new markets and applications. Some of the SMR designs that are being proposed are generational types of existing power station reactors. However, a lot of the designs are newer technologies, for example molten salt reactor technology or heat pipe reactors. The problem is that for these newer technologies and the types of fuels that are going to be used in them, the regulatory framework is simply not in place.
Simon Chaplin, transport specialist at the World Nuclear
Transport Institute (WNTI) outlines some of the issues: “If you’re transporting the fuel for some of the reactors being proposed, this is high assay, low enriched uranium [HALEU]. That’s higher than the enrichment for which the majority of packaging has been designed for, so the regulatory authorities will be need to look at new packaging and then developing the regulations that surround that.” Another area of regulatory concern is transportation not just of fuel, but of fully fuelled turn-key reactors. “We may
have SMRs where they’re transported without fuel involved, which won’t be difficult because there’s no nuclear element to it. It’s just something which is transported, constructed, and then the fuel will be taken to the site where it’s used. This approach would be operated in the same way that they do now with conventional large-scale nuclear power stations.” He cites the Akademik Lomonosov floating nuclear power plant. ”That’s classed as an SMR but really that’s using established technology in that it’s based on PWRs so it’s technology that’s been around for a number of years,” says Chaplin. However, he adds: “Some SMRs will be constructed in a yard or a factory where the fuel will be loaded at the same time that it’s constructed or shortly after, maybe in that location or in a secondary location. At that point it will need to be transported with fuel which may be HALEU fuel or maybe more conventional fuel but the challenge we will have is that at the moment, if you’re transporting, say, new fuel to go in a power station there are specific types of packaging. If you now have fuel inside the reactor, then are regulatory issues associated with classifying the reactor as a fuel package or as a reactor in operation?”
Above: The Akademik Lomonosov floating nuclear power plant is classed as an SMR but is based on conventional reactor technology Source: Rosatom
28 | November 2023 |
www.neimagazine.com
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 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53
