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Atomic Insights

Atomic energy technology, politics, and perceptions from a nuclear energy insider who served as a US nuclear submarine engineer officer

Business of atomic energy

Atomic Show #291 – Kalev Kallemets, Fermi Energia

February 24, 2021 By Rod Adams 1 Comment

Fermi Energia is an Estonian company whose mission is to provide its home country with an independent, clean, safe and affordable electricity production system by 2035. That system will be anchored by base supply from small modular nuclear reactors.

It is a lofty mission for a small company in a country whose land mass and population is roughly the size of the state of Maine and whose current electricity supply system is dependent on oil oil shale burning power plants with a small, rapidly varying portion of energy from wind turbines.

On the web page where Fermi Energia explains why it believes Estonia needs nuclear, there is a graph of its wind power generation as measured each hour during 2018 and an explanation for the mismatch between this pattern and electricity consumption.

Kalev Kallemets, born and raised in the Estonian countryside during its days as a Soviet satellite, has a keen understanding of his country’s history and its people. He has significant experience as a political leader and broad education in engineering and business.

He joined me for lively, informative and entertaining Atomic Show.

Kallemets has gathered a compact group of like-minded people; there are about a dozen members of the team. They working with numerous partners to create an fertile environment for new nuclear plant development, including a regulatory system and strong public interest and acceptance of nuclear energy.

They are leading with the benefits, but also helping people to understand the responsibilities that come with becoming a country whose power comes from atomic fission.

Fermi Energia is led by people who have a keen understanding of the value of nuclear energy and a realization that there are a wide range of technological capabilities under development. The four currently leading the evaluation process are GE-Hitachi’s BWRX-300, NuScale’s NuScale Power Module, Terrestrial Energy’s IMSR, and a high temperature gas reactor being developed by Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC).

The company knows that no matter which technological choice is made, the key to success will be the planning and development effort that must be invested to create effective projects with the kind of social license needed to support superior cost and schedule performance.

One measure of Fermi Energia’s early success is its recent social media-enabled fund raising round to provide the seed capital needed for the important planning stage. Kalev describes how the early goal for its Funderbeam campaign was doubled to €1 million after they obtained an early indication of interest in their development effort.

When that campaign was officially opened, it was completely subscribed in less than an hour. That indication of real, committed interest led the company to double its goal again before closing the finance round with what it considers to be an adequately strong balance sheet.

The successful financial raise has not changed the company’s frugal spending habits; the founders have a keen sense of corporate responsibility and personal ownership. They know they still have a long way to go before they are producing revenue from the products of the nuclear power systems they are planning to build.

During Atomic Show 291, Kalev talks about the Estonian energy supply situation, its relationships with its Baltic neighbors, the importance of Lithuanian and Poland, the still fresh memory of Soviet occupation, and the vision of a clean, safe, affordable, secure, and reliable power system anchored by modern atomic power stations.

As always, I encourage you to comment, ask questions, and engage in productive discussion. I think you will enjoy hearing Kalev talk about his company’s exciting efforts to produce a bright future for his country.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/AtomicShowFiles/atomic_20210222_291.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:42 — 58.2MB)

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Filed Under: Business of atomic energy, International nuclear, Podcast, Politics of Nuclear Energy

Atomic Show #278 – Micro-Modular Reactor (MMR) project partners USNC, GFP and OPG

June 21, 2020 By Rod Adams 14 Comments

Global First Power (GFP), Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC) and Ontario Power Generation (OPG) recently announced that they had formed a joint venture called Global First Power Limited Partnership. That venture will build, own and operate an installation called the Micro Modular Reactor (MMR™) at the Chalk River Laboratories site.

MMR™ nuclear plant

Mark Mitchell and Eric MGoey joined as guests on Atomic Show #278 to provide depth and background information about the technology and the project that was not included in the press release.

Mark is USNC’s director for the MMR project. Eric wears two hats, one at GFP and one at OPG. For GFP, he is the director of outreach and communications. For OPG, he is the director of remote power generation.

We talked about the project’s genesis and the joint venture’s mission of proving through doing that the system design can be licensed, manufactured, assembled and operated in a cost-competitive way.

Eric provided a brief overview about OPG. He explained that it is committed to providing clean, reliable power both to grid-connected customers and to customers in areas that are not connected to the grid. He described how OPG has a current charter to serve markets throughout Canada and into the United States, and how it hopes that the MMR project will open new markets to the company.

For this first of a kind project, the MMR is a 15 MWth, 5 MWe power system with essentially two main plants. The nuclear plant is a helium-cooled, fission reactor-heated system that circulates helium through a heat exchanger. The adjacent plant is a conventional steam plant that circulates water through a heat exchanger/boiler and a steam turbine/condenser.

Between the two plants is a molten salt heat storage system that acts to buffer heat supply and steam demand. It gets heated by helium that has passed through the reactor. Hot molten salt transfers heat to boil water, creating high pressure steam to turn the turbine.

This arrangement allows the supplied grid to rapidly respond to load changes while enabling operators and control systems to vary reactor power output in a more gradual and efficient manner.

The reactor heat source differs from other high temperature gas reactors. It uses the same Triso coated particle fuel often chosen for gas cooled reactors and some molten salt cooled systems. Instead of using a random graphite matrix material to produce fuel elements from Triso particles the MMR uses USNC’s patented Fully Ceramic Microencapsulated (FCM) fuel.

That innovation replaces random graphite with densely packed silicon carbide (SiC) as the matrix used to produce fuel elements. According to corporate literature on this feature, FCM fuels can retain fission products without failures at temperatures approaching 2000 C.

MMRs are designed to operate for 20 years between fuel system replacements.

While we talked a bit about the technological specifics, most of my conversation with Mark and Eric revolved around business considerations, the importance of developing manufacturing competence, the importance of effective cost controls and the importance of transparent engagement with regulators and potential customers.

Your participation in the comment thread is always welcome. If questions arise that need more details, I will seek assistance from the show guests.

I hope you enjoy listening.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/AtomicShowFiles/atomic_20200618_278.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:09 — 46.1MB)

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Filed Under: Advanced Atomic Technologies, Atomic Entrepreneurs, Business of atomic energy, Gas Cooled Reactors, New Nuclear, Podcast, Small Nuclear Power Plants, Smaller reactors

Atomic Show #275 – Managing advanced nuclear development during pandemic

May 12, 2020 By Rod Adams 10 Comments

Managing any business is hard work, especially during a global pandemic with stay-at-home orders in place. It requires creativity and flexibility along with some amount of prior preparation. On May 11, 2020, I gathered a group of representatives from several start-up companies that are developing advanced nuclear technologies to talk about how they are making […]

Filed Under: Advanced Atomic Technologies, Atomic Entrepreneurs, Business of atomic energy, Podcast

Atomic Show #272 – Karnfull Energi

April 18, 2020 By Rod Adams 4 Comments

Karnfull Energi is a young company that is successfully proving that nuclear energy is more popular than politicians believe. They have created the world’s first 100% nuclear energy offering. Customers have responded with their wallets, showing they are willing to pay a modest premium for higher quality electricity. People are shopping at Karfull’s online store. […]

Filed Under: Business of atomic energy, Podcast

Atomic Show #271 – Improving Nuclear Cost and Schedule Performance

April 15, 2020 By Rod Adams 5 Comments

One of the most persistent arguments against the rapid deployment of nuclear energy is that projects are too expensive and take too long to complete. Based on the performance of the few nuclear plants that have begun construction in the West during this century, it’s hard to disagree. But there is solid evidence from projects […]

Filed Under: Business of atomic energy, Economics, Podcast

Investing in atomic fission to make world a better place

February 25, 2020 By Rod Adams 17 Comments

An increasing number of major corporations and famous individual investors have announced plans to make their money work harder to address environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals. These plans are not about philanthropic giving. The individuals and organizations believe that careful targeting of their money can produce both financial and social returns. By investing in […]

Filed Under: Advanced Atomic Technologies, Alternative energy, Business of atomic energy

Atomic Show #265 – Atomic Optimism. Under-appreciated opportunities in sight.

February 19, 2019 By Rod Adams 7 Comments

On Sunday, Feb 17, I realized that I was feeling extraordinarily good about the future of atomic energy, the future of clean energy production, and the future prosperity of the world that my grandchildren are going to inhabit. I immediately composed and sent an invitation to some atomic colleagues to join me in a conversation. […]

Filed Under: Business of atomic energy, Podcast, Politics of Nuclear Energy

Turning nuclear into a fuel dominated business

October 28, 2018 By Rod Adams 66 Comments

Under our current energy paradigm, nuclear power has the reputation of needing enormous up-front capital investments. Once those investments have been made and the plants are complete, the payoff is that they have low recurring fuel costs. Just the opposite is said of simple cycle natural gas fired combustion turbines. They require a small capital […]

Filed Under: Adams Engines, Advanced Atomic Technologies, Business of atomic energy, Economics, Gas Cooled Reactors, Graphite Moderated Reactors, Pebble Bed Reactors, Smaller reactors

With immediate and profound changes, U.S. nuclear power can become an unexpected but welcome low carbon wedge

July 9, 2018 By Rod Adams 91 Comments

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon, University of San Diego, and Harvard recently published a useful call to action titled U.S. nuclear power: The vanishing low-carbon wedge. For pro-nuclear observers and debaters, their conclusion may seem quite depressing. It should be a source of profound concern for all who care about climate change that, for entirely predictable […]

Filed Under: Advanced Atomic Technologies, Business of atomic energy, Economics

Atomic Show #262 – New thinking about nuclear energy

February 12, 2018 By Rod Adams 7 Comments

It’s time – or way past time – to think and talk about nuclear energy in new ways, recognizing the importance of the topic for the future health and prosperity of humanity. This show includes 5 forward leaning thought leaders in atomic energy. All of them are optimistic about nuclear’s future, often driven by their […]

Filed Under: Advanced Atomic Technologies, Atomic Entrepreneurs, Business of atomic energy, Podcast

Will the U.S cold wave help solve OPEC’s oil inventory hangover?

January 5, 2018 By Rod Adams 23 Comments

Since 2014, investor-focused publications have used terms like ‘awash in oil’, ‘oil glut’ and even ‘world is “drowning” in oil’ to describe the world’s stockpile of already extracted and stored inventory of crude oil. Similar phrases have also been occasionally used to describe inventories of various refined products like gasoline, distillate fuel oil, and kerosene. […]

Filed Under: Atomic politics, Business of atomic energy, Fossil fuel competition

Logical Basis For Sec. Rick Perry’s Resiliency Pricing Rule.

October 30, 2017 By Rod Adams 18 Comments

The intense conversation Energy Secretary Rick Perry purposely initiated with his Sept. 29 letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission continues to occupy the attention of specialists. The direction was concise: implement pricing rules that protect electricity generators that meet certain requirements from being pushed into early retirement. The marching orders came with an aggressive but […]

Filed Under: Atomic politics, Business of atomic energy, Economics, Politics of Nuclear Energy

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