What will be the economic purpose of modular reactors?

[BenKlesc]

TL;DR Summary

A debate on what modular reactors will be used for in the future.

I'm been having a debate with a few of my colleagues about what we are witnessing with NuScale.

A coworker of mine told me that the United States is never going to build a light water reactor ever again, and that Vogtle will be the last one. That is a pretty bold statement to make. He told me that modular reactors could have the ability to replace all existing nuclear plants. His reasoning was that the energy market in America has been flat for 30 or more years, and there is no economic need to build BWR's and PWR's.

My question is, how does a reactor like NuScale fit into the current energy market and economy? In other words, how will it be used? Some general question would be, would a modular reactor farm require less manpower to operate which means less jobs?

Another question you could ask. Right now the largest modular reactors in the United States are 77MW. That means you would need around 30 modular reactors to equal the power of a modern LWR power plant. How do we plan to replace our current plants when they expire in this century?

 

[anorlunda]

The future of any generating source is a function of demand, competition, and the risks that investors are willing to take.

Even public utilities are financed by private bond sales. Therefore, the investment must compete with other kinds of investments that are available. I can put my retirement money into Amazon stock, or into NuScale.

Weighing heavily on the minds of potential investors is whether the rules of the game will be constant or changing over the lifetime of the plant. To judge that, they look at the attitude of the public and of politicians. What would you say about the likelihood of anti-solar legislation compared to anti-nuclear legislation?

Of course, government can always tip the playing field via subsidies, rules, and threats. But the amount of interference in the market is limited by the political need to keep power affordable. If people's power bills get higher than their housing costs, they will start looking for someone to blame and to fire from their jobs.

So if I was part of your debate group, I would focus entirely on the social/political side of the problem and ignore technical details. It would matter a lot if NuScale was deemed "green". It matters little how many jobs would be created at each plant.

Of course, this is an engineering forum and engineers thrill at debating technology, but that doesn't necessarily make it relevant to the outcome.

 

[BenKlesc]

The future of any generating source is a function of demand, competition, and the risks that investors are willing to take.

Even public utilities are financed by private bond sales. Therefore, the investment must compete with other kinds of investments that are available. I can put my retirement money into Amazon stock, or into NuScale.

Weighing heavily on the minds of potential investors is whether the rules of the game will be constant or changing over the lifetime of the plant. To judge that, they look at the attitude of the public and of politicians. What would you say about the likelihood of anti-solar legislation compared to anti-nuclear legislation?

Of course, government can always tip the playing field via subsidies, rules, and threats. But the amount of interference in the market is limited by the political need to keep power affordable. If people's power bills get higher than their housing costs, they will start looking for someone to blame and to fire from their jobs.

So if I was part of your debate group, I would focus entirely on the social/political side of the problem and ignore technical details. It would matter a lot if NuScale was deemed "green". It matters little how many jobs would be created at each plant.

Of course, this is an engineering forum and engineers thrill at debating technology, but that doesn't necessarily make it relevant to the outcome.

Great explanation. I have not heard too much from the company owners themselves on what their vision for the future of modular products can be. Maybe the best case scenario, what are they being made for?

That is a great point because the technology is there and engineers like myself love talking about the technology and possibilities, but yes politics and law very much dictate what their future purpose will be and that is so intriguing and annoying at the same time to me.

Is it true though that Vogtle will be the last LWR/PWR ever made? The technology and understanding is there, but it is also a matter of economic policy and environmental policy that will dictate the future. I wish I had an answer to that, but I believe we are in the middle of a huge transition for nuclear technology. I really wonder if generation IV for example is going to come to the United States like it has in China.

In the 1950's there was very much a lot of vision about what the future would bring and what it would look like. I have not seen too many predictions today on what the future will look like. As someone entering the industry in the year 2020 I very much wish I had a grasp and understanding of what the future holds.

The reality is that all of the current reactors are going to expire in the next 50 years. Will modular reactors replace all of our energy needs? Is it technologically possible for NuScale to do that?

 

[russ_watters]

His reasoning was that the energy market in America has been flat for 30 or more years, and there is no economic need to build BWR's and PWR's.

Do you know what exactly he means when he says the energy market has been flat? Because the way I look at it, there have been radical shifts in the energy landscape over that time, driven directly by economics (or by policy using economics as a steering wheel). Specifically, natural gas, coal, and wind have radically changed their fractions of our power mix. That's caused mainly by subsidies promoting wind, penalties on coal and technology (fracking) making natural gas cheaper.

Usually, the argument for modular or (or one of the arguments against large nuclear) I see is that nuclear plants are "expensive" and "take a long time to build". But it's a fallacious/meaningless argument because it doesn't account for how much electricity they produce. If, for example, a modular reactor costs $1 Billion and a large reactor $5 B, that doesn't actually mean the larger reactor is more expensive. If it produces 10x as much power, that means it's cheaper.

 

[BenKlesc]

Do you know what exactly he means when he says the energy market has been flat?

He basically said that energy demands are simply not there to justify building the type of behemoth plants like Vogtle again. In other words, the energy demand is not there. When almost all of these plants and reactors were built we were experiencing an oil crisis which made gas and oil extremely expensive. Today natural gas is getting cheaper by the year.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that we will never build a light water reactor in the United States again. I don't see how we could not after the remaining 100 reactors expire in the next 50 years. Does the nuclear industry believe that modular can replace all of them? I have a hard time believing that. It would be cheaper to build boiling reactors with longterm costs.

 

[Keith_McClary]

Not remote northern communities and mines, according to this.

As of 2018, there were 24 remote mining projects that could be candidates for SMR deployment within the next decade. Currently, these projects use diesel generators with a total installed capacity of 617 MW. For remote communities, we calculated a fossil fuel (primarily diesel) generation capacity of 506 MW. But many of these communities had demands that were too low for even the smallest-output SMR under review at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

 

[anorlunda]

It is still fraught with danger for investors. We can learn from the story of billionaire Boone Pickens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Boone_Pickens#Alternative_energy

In June 2007, Pickens announced the intention to build the world's largest wind farm by installing large wind turbines in parts of four Texas Panhandle counties. The project would produce up to four gigawatts of electricity. Pickens' https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mesa_Power_LP&action=edit&redlink=1 will undertake the construction. If completed, the farm would generate more than five times the 735 megawatts produced at the present largest such farm near Abilene, according to Susan Williams Sloan, spokesman for the American Wind Energy Association.
...
On May 15, 2008, Pickens' Mesa Power announced that it had placed a first order for 667 1.5-megawatt turbines from General Electric.
...
On December 15, 2010, Nathanael Baker, in an article for www.theenergycollective.com, wrote that Pickens has scrapped plans for wind farms and will instead focus exclusively on natural gas. According to the article, on December 10, 2010, MSNBC reported that "Pickens said low natural gas prices have made utility companies view wind power as too expensive."

It is much easier to lose a fortune in speculative energy projects than it is to earn a modest profit. There is a reason why the power industry is among the most conservative on Earth. To them, the single most important word with respect to technology is proven. They are happy to finance research and pilot projects to prove new technology. But they are also happy to wait 25 years to make a judgement on whether to move beyond the pilot project phase.

 

[BenKlesc]

That all makes sense, because I don't believe they are being built as a replacement to the plants that are already built right now. It sounds like they will be used in remote locations for small amounts of power like on construction sites or mining. You would have to build over 4,000 of them to replace our current power capacity of our 96 reactors in the United States. I would be extremely disappointed if we never built another light water reactor plant again. I heard United Kingdom has some future projects planned. You would just need to secure the subsidies.

 

[russ_watters]

In other words, the energy demand is not there.

Well, our electricity demand is down only about 2% from 10 years ago, but our coal fraction is down about 25% of total generation (more than 100,000 MW). In other words, we needed to replace almost 25% of our generation with something else, over the past 10 years. That's a big demand for new power plants.

But if we snip that part out and make a little edit:

He basically said that energy demands [snip, edit: economics] are simply not there to justify building the type of behemoth plants like Vogtle again. [snip] When almost all of these plants and reactors were built we were experiencing an oil crisis which made gas and oil extremely expensive. Today natural gas is getting cheaper by the year.

That makes a lot more sense. Cheap natural gas (combined with the political climate...) almost certainly limited the demand/business case for new nuclear plants.

The political climate, or how much we actually care about climate change is a big variable, and there is an elephant looming: our nuclear plants are old and will need to start being replaced soon. When we shut down coal plants and switched to natural gas, we could plausibly say we were helping reduce climate impact, but when we shut down nuclear plants and switch to natural gas, we can't say that.

Not to be too political, but I expect not a lot to change over the next 10 years on this path, but then we'll have to have a real "come to Jesus" moment as solar maxes-out, nuclear plants start shutting down more frequently, and emissions start rising again.

 

[Astronuc]

My question is, how does a reactor like NuScale fit into the current energy market and economy? In other words, how will it be used? Some general question would be, would a modular reactor farm require less manpower to operate which means less jobs?

NuScale is probably the furthest along of the modular reactor developers, and there are plans for a demonstration plant (maybe two modules). The idea is to have a reduced Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ), so a smaller foot print. In addition, the goal is to build the plant with much equipment, so lower upfront capital cost. Each module is brought in individually, so one could start up before the other arrive, so power generation and revenue starts while the other modules are being constructed.

Another question you could ask. Right now the largest modular reactors in the United States are 77MW. That means you would need around 30 modular reactors to equal the power of a modern LWR power plant. How do we plan to replace our current plants when they expire in this century?

The 77 MW is actually 77MWe (gross) for one module. The plant design calls for up to 12 modules, or 924 MWe, which is about the capacity of a Westinghouse 3-loop plant (157 assembly core) like Farley or North Anna.

The NuScale reactor system is a PWR based on standard PWR fuel in a 17 x 17 configuration, each assembly 2 meters (~ 6 ft.) in length; up to 24-month refueling cycle with fuel enriched at less than 5 percent. Current 17x17 fuel has a core height of 3.66 m (12 ft) or 4.27 m (14 ft). The fuel is slightly longer to accommodate a plenum in the fuel rod, some gap to grow, and the upper and lower nozzles, which interface with the core support structure, and the top nozzle allows for the refueling machine to interface with the assembly for insertion and retrieval.

https://www.nuscalepower.com/technology/technology-overview

 

[BenKlesc]

NuScale is probably the furthest along of the modular reactor developers, and there are plans for a demonstration plant (maybe two modules). The idea is to have a reduced Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ), so a smaller foot print. In addition, the goal is to build the plant with much equipment, so lower upfront capital cost. Each module is brought in individually, so one could start up before the other arrive, so power generation and revenue starts while the other modules are being constructed.

The 77 MW is actually 77MWe (gross) for one module. The plant design calls for up to 12 modules, or 924 MWe, which is about the capacity of a Westinghouse 3-loop plant (157 assembly core) like Farley or North Anna.

So they will be or can be used in a power plant scenario for utilities? That would be very interesting to see and I hope it happens. Maybe they could be used around existing nuke plants after the original reactors are expired? To put into perspective, the man I talked to who said America will never build another AP1000 was a former employee of NuScale.

Modular reactors seem to require less manpower to operate, where as a current nuclear plant has a 30-40 man operating rooms. They also seem to have less moving parts which means less maintenance and/or servicing which means less jobs in the field? I wonder if they could really replace the AP1000 economy.

I'm not convinced yet but I hope I am proved wrong.

 

[Astronuc]

So they will be or can be used in a power plant scenario for utilities? That would be very interesting to see and I hope it happens. Maybe they could be used around existing nuke plants after the original reactors are expired? To put into perspective, the man I talked to who said America will never build another AP1000 was a former employee of NuScale.

The idea behind a modular reactor is the select the right size of plant. Two units would be 154 MWe (gross), which might work for a small town or city, or one could opt for a central station with 12 units, or more than 920 MWe (gross), which what a moderate size plant puts out. Many of the earliest reactors were small plants (50 -200 MWe) built on single unit sites. Then utilities started building 500 MWe units and eventually large units of 900 - 1300 MWe, often with 2, 3 or 4 reactors on a site; at least, that was the plan during the 1970s before the infamous TMI accident.

When the AP1000 was rolled out, the design was not complete, and it seems changes were made on the fly, which resulted in cost increases. In the US, two utilities chose to build AP1000 units at existing sites, Summer and Vogtle, which should have made it much easier. Construction of the two Summer units was suspended, and the utility, SCANA, was more or less forced into a merger with Dominion Energy.
https://news.dominionenergy.com/2019-01-02-Dominion-Energy-Combines-With-SCANA-Corporation

Southern Company pressed on with two units at Vogtle, which are behind the original schedule with cost overrun. Cost overruns at Vogtle and the cancellation of Summer (and other issues) led to Westinghouse's bankruptcy in 2017.

China finished out the AP1000.
https://www.powermag.com/worlds-first-ap1000-nuclear-reactor-reaches-full-power/

Modular reactors seem to require less manpower to operate, where as a current nuclear plant has a 30-40 man operating rooms. They also seem to have less moving parts which means less maintenance and/or servicing which means less jobs in the field? I wonder if they could really replace the AP1000 economy.

With regard to staffing power plants, of course utilities, like any business, wants to minimize costs, so a reduced staff is desirable. A set of 12 units of NuScale's modular design is close to the AP1000, but falls short by about 100 MWe, or one could build 2 sets of 8.

The idea behind 12 units is that one unit is taken down for refueling (each month or two depending on cycle lengths) while the other 11 continue operation, and thus a high capacity factor is obtained. However, this assumes no major technical challenges, such as a primary heat exchanger (steam generator), or other major component, malfunctioning or otherwise failing.