Extra big CANDU - AtkinsRéalis announces the Monark

[OVERKILL]

With the news of Bruce C, and of course the planned massive expansion of Ontario's nuclear capacity, pegged at 17GW by 2050 (Wesleyville, possibly Nanticoke, Bruce D...etc), everybody on the "home team" has been biting their nails hoping that SNC-Lavalin, who recently rebranded as AtkinsRéalis, would get their butts in gear and get a large-scale (gigawatt scale) CANDU on the table. The EC6, while an incredible design, isn't big enough for a grid the size of Ontario's when looking at the future capacity needed.

Bruce Power isn't married to building more CANDU's, despite operating 8 of them, which means the AP1000 and EPR are both in the running as potential designs. If a CANDU design was to be considered, there needed to be one that competed.

Unit schematic looks identical to the Gen III+ AECL design, the ACR-1000, which was a departure from the CANDU history of using unenriched uranium. That has been abandoned, this design appears to share the same civil works and HT system, but reverts to the Darlington/Bruce 480 fuel channel calandria, of which Ontario operates 12.

AtkinsRéalis is boldly advertising the unit as having a 95% capacity factor and a lifespan of 70 years, which means 35 years between mid-life refurbishments. Of course additional refurbishments are also possible, extending the lifespan to 105 years or more.

From their website:

The obvious advantage this design has is the commonality with the existing 18 CANDU units in Ontario, where we've already refurbished 5 and are in the process of refurbishing the rest. Anticipated operating life for the units at Bruce is now expected to be approaching 90 years. A new CANDU build would share the same supply chain already in place for the refurbishments, which means reduced supply cost, low risk, and an experienced workforce familiar with the technology.

We'll see how serious they are if we see the design submitted to the VDR, ideally before the others. With Westinghouse now being half owned by Cameco, I'm sure there will be pressure there as well for the choice of AP1000's.

 

[Brons2]

Does this still have the famous CANDU ability to run many different types of fuels?

It is good to see them thinking bigger on reactor lifetimes. It seems that folks who figure out costing models want to amoritize construction costs over every kilowatt hour that the reactor ever generates. One way to make the power cost look better is by stretching the lifetime of it.

 

[OVERKILL]

Does this still have the famous CANDU ability to run many different types of fuels?

Yes, being basically "Darlington+", it has all the uniquely CANDU features, which means it can run alternative fuel cycles such as DUPIC, MOX...etc. There is also this new thorium based fuel being worked on called ANEEL:
Clean Core Thorium Energy’s Advanced Nuclear Fuel Design Begins Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission Pre-Licensing Review — Clean Core Thorium Energy

It is good to see them thinking bigger on reactor lifetimes. It seems that folks who figure out costing models want to amoritize construction costs over every kilowatt hour that the reactor ever generates. One way to make the power cost look better is by stretching the lifetime of it.

Yep, my impression is that it's just an updated version of the Darlington design. The updated pressure tube alloy is allowing them to bump the time (conservative) between refurbs from 30 to 35 years, which is how we go from 60 years to 70 years. Of course Pickering B is already at 40 years and some of the Bruce units are approaching that as well, so there's a fudge factor in play as to when replacing the PT's is really necessary.

 

[mk378]

At some point it doesn't matter how long you amortize because you're paying basically all interest forever. In other words, money expected to be received 50 years from now isn't worth much in present terms.
A plant that cost half as much to build, even though it would only last half as long, would be more attractive to investors.

 

[OVERKILL]

At some point it doesn't matter how long you amortize because you're paying basically all interest forever. In other words, money expected to be received 50 years from now isn't worth much in present terms.
A plant that cost half as much to build, even though it would only last half as long, would be more attractive to investors.

Yes, this is typically why the amortization period is not 50 years, but you highlight a key issue with large infrastructure, not just nuclear, it's very difficult to get private money to invest in something that's 10's of billions of dollars, even if the payback is there, because you are looking at higher risk and long amortization. This was the logic behind the SMR push, reduce the CAPEX, and thus the risk, which will attract more private money.

A private company would never have built BC's Site C dam, or the Muskrat Falls project (both of which are public boondoggles), and any new hydro development in Quebec will be a public infrastructure project just like new nuclear in Ontario will be publicly funded if built through OPG and likely a hybrid approach with Bruce Power.

This is why Quebec was able to build one of the world's largest hydro-electric systems, the James Bay project, and how a single Canadian province built 20 nuclear reactors, in packs of 4. That's why we have the world's largest operating nuclear facility at Bruce. This is why France, who uses similar amounts of electricity to Texas, was able to build 70 reactors.

That said, the economics of large units is still superior, if you can get them built, which is why we see China, the UAE, the UK and France all going in on large units still.