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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

Economics

Atomic Show #271 – Improving Nuclear Cost and Schedule Performance

April 15, 2020 By Rod Adams 5 Comments

Great Blue Heron
Patiently watching. Perhaps waiting for promised performance improvements.

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 completed in other countries that shows that poor cost and schedule performance is not an inherent feature of nuclear power plant construction projects.

For this episode of the Atomic Show, I gathered three of the world’s leading experts on the topic of nuclear power plant cost and schedule performance and paths to improvement.

Jessica Lovering is the lead author of a frequently cited Energy Policy paper titled Historical construction costs of global nuclear power reactors. She is completing a PhD thesis at Carnegie Mellon focusing on economics of micro reactors, which she defines as less than 10 MWe.

Kirsty Gogan and Eric Ingersoll are Managing Directors at a UK consulting firm called Lucid Catalyst. In late 2018, they authored a report for the Energy Technologies Institute titled Nuclear Cost Drivers. As part of the research conducted for that report, their team interviewed the project managers for 33 recently completed nuclear projects.

They’ve since participated in international industry working groups focused on identifying and implementing improvements using lessons learned from several industries that produce products with size, complexity and oversight that is similar to those associated with nuclear projects.

These experts share valuable accumulated information and have numerous suggestions for improvement that have a sound basis for leading to better results in the future.

Please have a listen. As always, your comments and suggestions are welcome.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/AtomicShowFiles/atomic_20200414_271.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:06:26 — 76.2MB)

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Filed Under: Business of atomic energy, Economics, Podcast

Turning nuclear into a fuel dominated business

October 28, 2018 By Rod Adams 66 Comments

Cross section of TRISO fuel particle
TRISO particle – 1 mm diameter

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 investment that can be paid off even if the plant only operates a few hundred hours per year. They don’t have an optimized fuel efficiency and they burn a fuel that can be quite expensive during the hours when the “peakers” need to run.

Those peakers are responsive and are becoming more interesting to power producers with the continued growth In variable renewable energy sources like wind and solar.

Just thinking out loud here, but what if it was possible to build really simple, much lower cost nuclear plants on the condition that they have a safety case that is built around a fuel design that is several times more pricey than conventional commercial nuclear fuel?

For more than 50 years, scientists and engineers have been working on coated particle fuels where tiny particles of fissile material in various chemical forms is surrounded by tightly adherent and durable layers of material capable of withstanding very high temperatures without releasing fission products.

In the space program, incredibly powerful and energy dense reactors have been designed and tested using coated particle fuels, but for commercial power generation, the usual path is to create large low power density reactors that are considered to be “inherently safe” because they don’t need any active cooling systems to prevent the core temperatures from exceeding the much more generous limits allowed by high temperature fuel.

Unfortunately, the development of reactors using coated particle fuels has been held back by a couple of technical choices. One has been that the reactors have been seen as a modest improvement in conventional reactors that still need to have most of the expensive equipment of a steam plant power conversion system.

Using that heat engine choice, designers must include heat exchangers that are functionally equivalent to the high cost steam generators in pressurized water reactors. Since they need heat exchangers, they naturally look toward high gas pressures in the primary coolant loop in order to increase heat transfer rates.

That path leads to systems with capital costs that are not much different from conventional nuclear plants with the added burden of using fuel that is quite a bit more expensive, especially in the early years before the manufacturing lines become cost efficient.

General Atomics achieved initial marketing success with a line of GW class high temperature reactors (HTRs) in the late 1960s and early 1970s by emphasizing that their systems were somewhat simpler and used more conventional steam turbines than the lower temperature light water reactors. They inked about 10 contracts, but none of the plants were ever built.

X-energy, URENCO and HTR-PM all are pursuing updated versions of similar designs. They are not radically reconsidering the paradigm.

It’s possible to dig back into nuclear history and find that the HTRE (high temperature reactor experiment) used modified jet engines that sucked in atmospheric air, heated it in a modestly high temperature reactor (far lower temps than coated particle fuels enable today) and exhausted that air through a turbine and jet expansion system.

The capital cost of equipment for such an air breathing system today would be quite low, but there would likely be a problem with creating and emitting Ar-41 as well as the possibility that fuel manufacturing defects might allow some small quantity of fission products to be discharged. Regulatory hurdles prevent that path from being developed anytime soon.

With a modest increase in complexity and capital equipment, a mechanically identical system could use nitrogen gas separated from air. Because the gas isn’t air, it would need a closed system where a low pressure, moderate temperature heat exchanger performs the function of returning turbine exhaust back to atmospheric conditions for injection into the compressor.

This ultimately simple Brayton Cycle gas turbine would use fuel that might cost several times more per unit of heavy metal than conventional nuclear plants, but its initial investment should approach the cost of the combustion turbines that would be the heart of the system. Sure, there are costs associated with the piping systems, but those would likely be on a similar order of magnitude as the fossil fuel system pipes that would not be needed.

With dramatically lower capital costs and higher fuel costs, the total system cost allotment would be a complete departure from the conventional nuclear paradigm. No longer would equipment suppliers and financial providers be able to capture 50-75% of the total revenues, with personnel costs capturing 30-40% and the fuel supplier pulling up the rear with 5-20% of the revenue. Instead, financial costs could be far lower. Equipment costs would drop dramatically. Personnel costs per unit of output would fall.

The obvious result is that the fuel suppliers, the people who produce the fuel that is so capable that it is the safety case and safety boundary, would gain the lion’s share of revenue from product sales.

That situation has proven itself in the energy market. Customers and other stakeholders don’t necessarily like the fact that fuels people walk off with most of the money, but it has meant that fuel suppliers have adequate capital to both invest in new technologies and adequate incentives to promote the benefits of high energy use.

There is a massive amount of capital in the hydrocarbon fuel business. There is also a great deal of intellectual capital, some of which is scientific and technical, but some of which is business development and marketing.

In the early days of nuclear energy, the hydrocarbon giants dipped their toes in the business. They couldn’t figure out how to make as much money in nuclear as they were used to making, so they quickly exited.

Perhaps this early Sunday morning essay will help stimulate them to reconsider their decision to abandon the business without figuring out how to make it a fuels business that could answer a lot of their future challenges.

Note: I have more details about the paradigm shift described above, but I think I’ll hold them closely for now.

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

Why can’t existing nuclear plants make money in today’s electricity markets?

July 25, 2018 By Rod Adams 42 Comments

What does it mean when nuclear plant owners tell people that their plants are struggling to make money in competitive markets as currently structured? They are attempting to more precisely state what is often misleadingly dismissed by journalists as “nuclear plants cannot compete.” The more commonly used statement gives the impression that nuclear plants produce […]

Filed Under: Alternative energy, Atomic politics, Economics

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 fission technology is a terrible candidate for a “do not resuscitate” order. Antinuclear groups MUST not be granted right to put one in place

April 10, 2018 By Rod Adams 50 Comments

I’m going to beg forgiveness and literary license for the following extended, potentially inappropriate, and perhaps too personal metaphor. For several weeks, I’ve been struggling with finding my “voice” in dealing with current events related to the U.S. electricity production system. As part of my healing process, I went on a several day long reading […]

Filed Under: Atomic Advocacy, Economics, Fossil fuel competition

Is America’s vaunted electricity supply system on course for rocks and shoals?

April 2, 2018 By Rod Adams 41 Comments

Late last week, while many observers were focused on a long weekend of religious celebrations with friends and families, there were several announcements made in the slowly developing crisis in the American electricity supply system. Operators of a number of several large power plants with the ability to produce electricity night and day, wind or […]

Filed Under: Economics, Fossil fuel competition, Grid resilience

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

FERC Proposal Supporting Coal And Nuclear Prompts Howls From Gas, Wind, Solar, Antinuclear

October 26, 2017 By Rod Adams 15 Comments

If his goal was to stimulate a conversation with a rapid approach to concluding action, Energy Secretary Rick Perry has scored a victory with his recently proposed Grid Resiliency Pricing Rule. During the past couple of weeks, the insular world of energy policy wonks has talked of little else, numerous congressional hearings have been held […]

Filed Under: Atomic politics, Business of atomic energy, Economics

Can Gas Turbines Using Nuclear Fuel Change The Energy Game?

August 31, 2017 By Rod Adams 51 Comments

It’s time to change energy game by adapting the well-proven, flexible and reliable combined cycle to be able to use nuclear fuel. That will match the best available heat conversion system with a low cost, emission-free heat source.

Filed Under: Advanced Atomic Technologies, Army Nuclear Program, Economics, Gas Cooled Reactors, New Nuclear, Small Nuclear Power Plants

Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association and Marcellus Shale Coalition join antinuclear “citizens group”

April 13, 2017 By Rod Adams

The Beaver Valley (PA) Times has published an important article titled Group forms to oppose bailout of struggling nuclear power industry. That article needs to be read and retained by those of us who believe that existing nuclear plants are important pillars of the U.S. electricity supply network that is often called “the grid.” The […]

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

Bipartisan pro-nuclear love fest at Senate EPW hearing

March 9, 2017 By Rod Adams

Yesterday, on International Women’s Day, the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) committee held a hearing that provided both visible and audible proof that times are changing in the political and public acceptance of nuclear energy. The committee organized the hearing in order to gather information and invited stakeholder feedback related to the recently reintroduced […]

Filed Under: Advanced Atomic Technologies, Atomic politics, Economics, Politics of Nuclear Energy

One Toshiba Lesson – Organizations With Venerable Corporate Names Can Be Risky Acquisitions

February 25, 2017 By Rod Adams

There are numerous reasons why Toshiba, formerly an enormous and successful Japanese electronics manufacturer, is struggling to survive. One of the lessons available to be learned – once again – is caveat emptor (buyer beware). After a series of purchases and deals that gradually took Toshiba a long way from its core competencies, the company […]

Filed Under: Business of atomic energy, AP1000 saga, Economics

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