Nuclear power |
Energy is targeting 2026 as the commissioning date for its first power plants to come on line, which would seem a very tall order. “By providing clean, on-site baseload electricity and heat to industrial partners, Last Energy’s PWR-20 micro nuclear power plant fills a critical gap for heavy energy users as they seek a reliable solution for rapid decarbonisation”, the company believes.
Rather than requiring government financing for new nuclear development, Last Energy says it is leveraging private capital looking to invest in clean energy and infrastructure projects. “Our vision is to create a new model for what’s possible with nuclear development at scale, and you’re seeing it quickly come to life through these partnerships,” says Last Energy CEO, ‘Titans of Nuclear’ podcaster and tech entrepreneur, Bret Kugelmass. “For too long, nuclear has been too big, too costly, and failed to create a product that meets customer demand. From the outset, we started with studying our customer’s energy requirements, and we designed our power plant, and our entire business model, around delivering them what they need.”
pellets at <4.95% enrichment, with 3 month planned refuelling outage every 72 months). The result is “a very simple reactor design’, says Last Energy, with very short estimated lead times, 24 months from FID to completion, project costs below $100 million, on-site construction work duration three months.
Last Energy says it is not planning to use new fuels, new reactor designs, new physics or material sciences. Instead, it is focused on “standard PWR technology” – albeit considerably scaled down – with forced circulation primary cooling and standard full length “off the shelf” fuel (standard UO2
The PWR-20 power plant would employ air cooling, minimising water requirements. The plant consists of two primary structures: subterranean nuclear island; and above ground balance of plant.
Last Energy plans to contract out fabrication of its power plant modules to a company in Texas with experience in the oil and gas sector, and has built what it calls a “mechanical prototype
(non-operational)” – essentially a mock-up – of the nuclear island.
“Because we are fully factory fabricated, we can begin building our power plant modules in parallel with the licensing process”, the company says, “employing industry standard components from existing supply chains.”
As mentioned, Last Energy proposes to use standard PWR fuel and components already in use in nuclear power plants around the world. But in miniaturising and modularising its SMR design, Last Energy says it has developed a “number of proprietary design elements, from passive heat removal systems to fully modularised structural components”, however, its “core expertise and differentiation comes in the integration of these design elements into a manufacturable and replicable product that can be mass produced.” Last Energy says the PWR-20 uses multi-layer defence in depth passive safety features “to allow control in normal operations and fault scenarios, to prevent fault progression and provide heat removal and containment.”
To achieve this, “a small number of simple passive safety features are used – avoiding the need for complex engineered systems to maintain a safe state for the plant.” Due to the small size, “engineered systems (such as containment) can be sized to withstand the most catastrophic event - which would be cost prohibitive for larger reactors.” Also “due to the small size of the reactor, the lower radionuclide inventory within, and the simple passive safety features, the worst case offsite dose is well within tolerable regulatory limits”, the company claims.
Last Energy says it is looking forward to seeing more details of the SMR competition to be organised by Great British Nuclear, a recently launched body tasked with driving the delivery of new nuclear power – and welcomes government support for SMRs – but emphasises that its “product and business model enable it to deliver using 100% private financing. We have not sought government grants in the development of the underlying technology, or subsidies in its deployment.”
How all this works out in practice remains to be seen of course.
BWRX-300 gathers momentum Meanwhile, the GEH BWRX-300 seems to be making steady progress, a recent important step being the announcement that GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, TVA, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and Synthos Green Energy (SGE) of Poland are teaming up to advance its “global deployment” and under a technical collaboration agreement will invest in the development of a BWRX-300 standard design applicable in a range of jurisdictions and in detailed design of key components. GEH anticipates a total investment of around $400 million to arrive at the standard design and each contributor has agreed to fund a portion of GEH’s overall cost.
Site preparation is now underway for a BWRX- 300 at OPG’s Darlington New Nuclear Project site in Clarington, Ontario, with construction expected to be complete by the end of 2028. This is on track to be the first grid-scale SMR in North America.
GEH says it has achieved a significant pre-licensing milestone in Canada with the completion of phases one and two of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s Vendor Design Review process, the first SMR technology to have completed two phases of the VDR process.
It also reports that SaskPower has selected the BWRX-300 for potential deployment in Saskatchewan in the mid-2030s.
In the USA, TVA is preparing a construction permit application for a BWRX-300 at the Clinch River Site near Oak Ridge, Tennessee and looking at other sites.
ORLEN Synthos Green Energy (OSGE), a JV between SGE and PKN Orlen, and partners have started a BWRX-300 pre-licensing process in Poland.
Fermi Energia has announced selection of selected the BWRX-300 for potential deployment in Estonia.
All in all, in can be said that the BWRX-300 seems to be gathering momentum worldwide.
Above: BWRX-300 visualisation (source: GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy) 28 | April 2023|
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