Atomic Insights

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

Nuclear Energy Insider SMR

Terrestrial Energy making progress towards commercializing Advanced Small Modular Reactor

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Simon Irish, CEO of Terrestrial Energy, provides progress report to SMR and Advanced Reactor Summit

Simon Irish, the Chief Executive of Terrestrial Energy, provided a project update to the 7th Annual SMR and Advanced Reactor Summit organized by Nuclear Energy Insider.

What Is Terrestrial Energy Doing To Move Its Design To Market?

His company is developing an Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSRTM). He noted that he had last provided information to the Nuclear Energy Insider (NEI) annual summit two years ago when the event occurred in Charlotte, North Carolina. During the period since that report, his company has been making steady progress towards commercialization.

Terrestrial Energy has a specific way of defining progress towards commercialization in the nuclear energy development enterprise.

If you are seeking to commercialize your reactor system, you have to take regulatory action. It is the defining act of commercializing any reactor system.

So we think we are able to put up our hand and say that we are seeking to commercialize our IMSR by taking the necessary regulatory action to support our deployment timetable, which is in the 2020s. We are seeking to be able to commission our first power plant for our first customers in the 2020s at sites in Canada and the United States.

Terrestrial Energy has entered into the first phase of the reactor regulatory process in Canada by deciding to submit its design for a vendor design review in February 2016. That process, which is scheduled to be completed 18 months after acceptance, is a voluntary step that developers can take to obtain “an overall assessment of the vendor’s nuclear power plant design against the most recent CNSC design requirements for new nuclear power plants in Canada.”

Terrestrial Energy USA has also notified the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission of its intention to submit a design certification application during fiscal year 2019.

The licensing activities are supported by a team of about 40 engineers and license specialists who are focused on completing the required product engineering and taking the necessary regulatory steps in a phased manner so that they can provide an increased level of certainty for their investors.

What Is Terrestrial Energy’s Business Case?

Irish emphasized that Terrestrial Energy is in business because it has determined that its advanced small modular reactor, the IMSR, is a “better way to generate heat compared to fossil fuel combustion.” Their product is not limited to generating electricity; electric power generation is only one of several different markets for the high quality, 700 ℃ heat that can be provided by the system’s tertiary salt loop. According to Irish’s presentation, it is possible for heat customers to be located up to several kilometers from the reactor.

Terrestrial Energy presentation slide describing target markets

Presumably, the cost of installing and operating piping and pumps required to move the salt through the system adds an affordably low cost to the heat supply effort. It should be obvious that the optimal distance between the heat supply and the heat consumer would be as short as possible after taking into consideration the safety and security needs of both the reactor plant and the heat customer.

According to Irish, an advantages for heat from an IMSR compared to heat from combustion is the reduction in emissions and combustion waste disposal. Both during his presentation and during the brief Q&A session that followed, Irish disclosed that one of the markets where participants have expressed the most interest is in petrochemicals.

Target Markets

A vast quantity of heat is consumed in refining petroleum and in extracting unconventional crude oil from reservoirs like Canadian oil sands or Colorado shale rock. A questioner who identified himself as a consultant who had focused primarily on oil and gas pointed to Royal Dutch Shell’s recent aborted effort to extract and process kerogen, which requires heating reservoir rocks to about 600 ℃ for three years. He asked Irish if the IMSR could be a cleaner and cheaper source of heat for this kind of unconventional extraction.

Irish: To answer your question fully requires an additional bit of analysis that I can’t really respond to, but what I will say is that it’s slightly ironic, if you are an environmentalist, that the closest industry in terms of needing the heat that we generate is the petrochemical industry, particularly in the context of providing great amounts of heat to cook fossil fuels out of non-traditional oil plays.

Irish also described hydrogen production as a key target market, noting how it is already a product that is consumed in large commercially interesting quantities in the process of upgrading inferior grades of crude oil to produce more useful products like gasoline and distillate fuels.

I think the jewel in the crown here, for coupling nuclear heat to industrial processes is coupling to hydrogen production. And we’ve done some work on coupling the heat from our integral molten salt reactor to a process that creates hydrogen. And the interesting thing about that is, even though natural gas in North America is one of the most competitive sources of BTUs in the world, we are pretty close to being cost competitive with steam methane reforming, which is the standard methodology today, with high temperature steam electrolysis driven by IMSR heat and power.

He noted how synthetic fuel production can also combine coal with hydrogen from water or natural gas to produce clean, domestic distillate fuels. If done in the traditional way with heat input from burning part of the carbon input, it is an emission-intensive process, but the IMSR heat would avoid a major source of emissions.

The petrochemical industry is not the only target market for vast quantities of heat or a combination of heat plus electricity. “Desalination,” Irish said, “is a very important sector for our technology.”

To conclude, we think our IMSR has the potential to reorder a $5 trillion market, global energy market, and be be truly disruptive against fossil fuels in that market over the next 30 years. The advanced small modular reactors are capable of serving many new customers. And this is the growth opportunity for the industry.

Note: A version of the above was first published on Forbes.com. It is republished here with permission.

Eminent domain and Virginia’s ban on uranium mining

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Coles Hill Entry

Coles Hill Since 1800

Despite the currently abysmal state of the market, Virginia Uranium Inc. (VUI), owner of the 119-million pound deposit at Coles Hill, continues legal efforts to overturn the ostensibly temporary moratorium on uranium mining in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The most recent step in the process for overturning the moratorium, first established in 1982 pending the creation of a regulatory regime, was a pre-trial hearing during the first week of October on a lawsuit in which VUI is charging that the rule violates the state’s constitution.

Specically, VUI’s legal team argued that the prohibition on extracting uranium amounts to a regulatory taking of private property without proper compensation.

But state Assistant Attorney General Duncan Pitchford asserted that eminent domain is allowed when needed to protect the public’s health and safety and that Virginia lawmakers ful lled their responsibilities by imposing the ban.

VUI asked Judge Chadwick Dotson to require that the government clarify its assertion that the legislature has determined that moratorium is needed to protect public health.

It’s worth noting that the legislature’s only recent action regarding the moratorium was to fail to vote on a bill that would have lifted it. The measure was proposed and actively discussed in a variety of public forums, but the bills were never brought to the floor.

After his 2013 election, Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) vowed to veto any legislation that lifted the ban. His four-year term ends in January 2018, just 15 months from now.

According to John Ohlendorf, one of the attorneys on the VUI team, VUI would like Judge Dotson to force the government to be specific about the supposed health risks associated with uranium processing and tails storage.

Ohlendorf agreed that an argument can be made that the Atomic Energy Act preempts state responsibility in judging whether those portions of uranium mining activity are being done safely.

Property Rights Protection

VUI attorneys may have a point. Via a 2012 ballot initiative, 75% of Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment that tightly limits the criteria by which governments can exercise their eminent domain.

The amendment also made it more clear that government restrictions that limit full property value qualify as takings that deserve compensation.

Ohlendorf told me that the Attorney General’s office apparently believes it preserved the status quo, a position that could be bolstered by the lack of related case law or precedent as the amendment is only four years old.

He and other members of the plaintiff team are looking forward to the opportunity to help the state better understand what the voters wanted when they passed the initiative on eminent domain.

The new statute allows its exercise only “where the property taken or damaged is for public use and, except for utilities or the elimination of a public nuisance, not where the primary use is for private gain, private benefit, private enterprise, increasing jobs, increasing tax revenue, or economic development; (ii) to define what is included in just compensation for such taking or damaging of property; and (iii) to prohibit the taking or damaging of more private property than is necessary for the public use.”

Uranium Politics Making News Again

Meanwhile, two challengers vying to represent the fifth district in the Virginia House of Delegates believe that uranium mining remains a issue for which continued support of the ban equals more votes.

Democrat Jane Dittmar is running a television and YouTube ad called “Doing,” with background text saying that Republican Tom Garrett supports uranium mining.

Her campaign staff said the support is a result of two $1,000 contributions, one in 2011 and one in 2012, made by VUI while Garrett occupied a seat in the commonwealth’s senate.

According to the Democrat, Garrett’s vote on HB179, the bill that established the Virginia Nuclear Energy Consortium and the Virginia Nuclear Energy Consortium Authority, proved he supports uranium mining.

Garrett’s campaign issued a strong denial, saying he never voted to lift the uranium mining ban. According to communications director Andrew Griffin, HB179 said nothing about removing the moratorium.

Bearing Drift, a conservative Virginia blog, noted and condemned Garrett’s decision to claim he opposes uranium mining. According to Shaun Kenny, the author of the piece, uranium “rocks.”

Virginia Company Sells to Uranium Miners

An editorial in the Richmond Times-Dispatch noted that a press release from Gov. McAuliffe took credit for a recent $300,000 sale by Ceramic Technology. That 32 year-old company sells ceramic coated fabrications initially developed for the coal mining industry.

The editor criticized the governor for claiming that Ceramic Technology’s sale was a direct result of the company’s participation in the Go Global with Coal & Energy Technology (GGCET) program. GGCET supported a sales trip to Canada, providing an opportunity for Ceramic Technology to pitch its valuable products to the gold and uranium mining industry.

Yet McAuliffe continues to oppose the development of the multi- billion dollar uranium deposit located less than 200 miles from Ceramic Technology’s Cedar Bluff fabrication facility.

Developing that deposit will require millions of dollars in equipment that could be supplied by Virginia’s experienced mining industry. Digging rocks out of the ground is a Virginia core competency.

As Ohlendorf said, uranium has been patiently waiting in the ground at Coles Hill for a long time. Until it has been mined, there will be continuing efforts to unlock its value.

Note: A version of the above was first published by Fuel Cycle Week. It is reposted here with permission.

Looking forward to Nuclear Energy Insider’s SMR Conference

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For the past 5 years, Nuclear Energy Insider has been holding annual gatherings focused on developments related to small modular reactors (SMR). From the outside, it can appear that little progress has been made during those years, but nuclear technology development is an endurance sport that rewards the patient and persistent. NuScale should be submitting […]