Saskatchewan government announces support for micro reactor

[OVERKILL]

Saskatchewan government announces microreactor funding : New Nuclear - World Nuclear News (world-nuclear-news.org)

As I'm sure some might recall, Cameco, the Canadian uranium giant, now owns half of Westinghouse, with the other half owned by Brookfield. Cameco is also one of the biggest employers in Saskatchewan, so it's not surprising that the province is now supporting the Westinghouse eVinci microreactor, which is designed to produce 5MWe and 13MW of high-temp heat. Basically, CHP, which is currently dominated by gas plants.

More details in the linked article, but it will be interesting to see how development pans-out. Government support is more certain than that of private investors, the results we recently saw play-out with NuScale who is now floundering, trying to secure a new site for their first build, along with a new finance partner. They are also being sued by investors.

 

[Snagglefoot]

The good people of Saskatchewan will support this if the University of Saskatchewan shows some support.

 

[Al]

Great concept

 

[Brons2]

For the uninitiated like myself:

https://www.westinghousenuclear.com/energy-systems/evinci-microreactor

They have also applied for US NRC approval:

eVinci

www.nrc.gov

 

[BrianF]

Ive been intrigued to see how this plays out. A couple years back our province had some memorandum of cooperation with Ontario to look at the feasibility.... if I recall.

 

[Brons2]

From the Westinghouse site:
"Completely emissions-free baseload power for 8+ years."

Ok, so it needs to be refueled after 8 years? How does this happen? Ship it back to the manufacturer? Or is the cost model an op-ex and you lease the reactor, after which time the fuel is depleted they ship you another?

In either case what would be the downtime involved? Theoretically it seems that there are no irradiated external connections so it should be simple plumbing/electrical?

 

[b_b]

the idea has floated around for a while, there just hasn't been much interest for investment. I don't know if the operating cost are above what the market can handle or what.

 

[Brons2]

the idea has floated around for a while, there just hasn't been much interest for investment. I don't know if the operating cost are above what the market can handle or what.

ATMO:

Sure, they were working on this stuff in the very early days of nuclear power, but it wasn't cost effective in the days of 25 cent gasoline and was dropped. Nor was it safe enough, witness the SL-1 accident at the Idaho National Labatory in 1961.

Fast forward 60 years and fossil fuel extraction is no longer as easy except in a few locations that are not necessarily politcally friendly, de-carbonization is desired by the political establishment, and reactor safety is much better understood, now it makes more sense to pursue small reactors. Hopefully if small modular reactors can reach an economy of scale, there will be cost reductions, futher advantaging this concept against fossil fuel extraction.

Cost reductions at scale and modularization was never really achieved with larger reactors so the construction and operation has always been relatively expensive compared to what it could be. Again, IMO. Hopefully we can make the new trend in small reactors really work at scale.

 

[OVERKILL]

From the Westinghouse site:
"Completely emissions-free baseload power for 8+ years."

Ok, so it needs to be refueled after 8 years? How does this happen? Ship it back to the manufacturer? Or is the cost model an op-ex and you lease the reactor, after which time the fuel is depleted they ship you another?

In either case what would be the downtime involved? Theoretically it seems that there are no irradiated external connections so it should be simple plumbing/electrical?

Probably uses HALEU to get that kind of fuel life, but I haven't looked into it, it wasn't on my radar since it wasn't being pursued in Canada until now.

 

[OVERKILL]

Ive been intrigued to see how this plays out. A couple years back our province had some memorandum of cooperation with Ontario to look at the feasibility.... if I recall.

Yeah, that's for the BWRX-300, which we are building at Darlington B.

 

[Brons2]

Probably uses HALEU to get that kind of fuel life, but I haven't looked into it, it wasn't on my radar since it wasn't being pursued in Canada until now.

Westinghouse site states that it's TRISO fuel, whatever that is. I know nothing about either but find nucear fascinating in general.

 

[OVERKILL]

Westinghouse site states that it's TRISO fuel, whatever that is. I know nothing about either but find nucear fascinating in general.

Ahhhh, OK, those are "fuel balls", which have been around for about 70 years, originally developed for high temperature gas reactors:
The Allure of TRISO Nuclear Fuel Explained (powermag.com)

That makes sense, given that this design is leaning toward providing high temp process heat.

 

[doitmyself]

Overkill, thank you for keeping us up to date on these fascinating energy developments. How does Bill Gates mini-reactor project compare to the work discussed in this thread? Last year it had a set back due to it's reliance on now unavailable uranium fuel from Russia.

Natrium™ Reactor and Integrated Energy Storage - TerraPower

The Natrium™ technology features a cost-competitive sodium fast reactor combined with a molten salt energy storage system.

www.terrapower.com

 

[OVERKILL]

Overkill, thank you for keeping us up to date on these fascinating energy developments. How does Bill Gates mini-reactor project compare to the work discussed in this thread? Last year it had a set back due to it's reliance on now unavailable uranium fuel from Russia.

Natrium™ Reactor and Integrated Energy Storage - TerraPower

The Natrium™ technology features a cost-competitive sodium fast reactor combined with a molten salt energy storage system.

www.terrapower.com

Anything that uses enriched fuel (so, anything not CANDU) is impacted by that shortage, since Russia provides a considerable chunk of the world's enrichment capacity. France is ramping up their enrichment apparently, not sure what the US is doing, since they've mostly outsourced it at this point. Your neighbour to the north, despite having the world's richest uranium deposits, has no enrichment capacity. We've never needed it, and, the last time that Cameco made an application to pursue enrichment, both the US and Russia shot the request down.

The TerraPower design hasn't applied to be constructed here in Canada, so I've not been following it all that closely.

 

[mk378]

Ok, so it needs to be refueled after 8 years? How does this happen? Ship it back to the manufacturer?

It will not be refueled in the field. The complete spent reactor assembly would be set aside for a few years to allow the most highly radioactive waste products to decay, then shipped to a facility for reconditioning or disposal. That shipping part is always a pipe dream as it has proven almost impossible to get permission to ship spent fuel (aka high level waste) across a country.

 

[OVERKILL]

It will not be refueled in the field. The complete spent reactor assembly would be set aside for a few years to allow the most highly radioactive waste products to decay, then shipped to a facility for reconditioning or disposal. That shipping part is always a pipe dream as it has proven almost impossible to get permission to ship spent fuel (aka high level waste) across a country.

Yes, moving SNF continues to be an obstacle and one that needs to be addressed before any design that leverages this philosophy is constructed. If a module can be removed and stored onsite, like SNF is currently handled, that's far more viable.

 

[Skippy722]

“Above-ground installation requires minimum ground disruption with less than a 2-acre footprint“

Can I declare my house, which sits on 2+ acres, as a “decentralized remote” application?

 

[mk378]

is the cost model an op-ex and you lease the reactor,

Of course, they don't want the spent reactors back. What little of Westinghouse's proposal is available publicly (most of it has been filed with NRC under "proprietary" seal) hems and haws that at some point in the future a third party might offer to take them. As it stands now that third party will almost certainly be the government, funded by taxpayers.

If regulators approve this thing, the manufacturer needs to be required to take back spent reactors at no additional charge-- the cost being baked into the purchase or lease price. Otherwise they are going to end up scattered all over remote sites; likely abandoned with no security.

 

[IndyIan]

Of course, they don't want the spent reactors back. What little of Westinghouse's proposal is available publicly (most of it has been filed with NRC under "proprietary" seal) hems and haws that at some point in the future a third party might offer to take them.

If regulators approve this thing, the manufacturer needs to be required to take back spent reactors at no additional charge-- the cost being baked into the purchase or lease price. Otherwise they are going to end up scattered all over remote sites; likely abandoned with no security.

It's a good point, these will be most cost effective in very remote areas, like communities and mines in Alaska and northern Canada, where stuff just tends to get dumped on the other side of the hill after its usefulness is gone....
Probably the ultimate design would be to have them site refuelable a couple times before its scrapped, so you just need a few guys and the fuel in some plane crash proof containment, then they fly home with the spent fuel.

 

[OVERKILL]

Of course, they don't want the spent reactors back. What little of Westinghouse's proposal is available publicly (most of it has been filed with NRC under "proprietary" seal) hems and haws that at some point in the future a third party might offer to take them. As it stands now that third party will almost certainly be the government, funded by taxpayers.

If regulators approve this thing, the manufacturer needs to be required to take back spent reactors at no additional charge-- the cost being baked into the purchase or lease price. Otherwise they are going to end up scattered all over remote sites; likely abandoned with no security.

Given this is Canada, federal regulation already stipulates that end of life costs are collected during operation. There is already ~$20 billion invested in a fund (that grows yearly) that will pay for DGR construction for end of life waste management as well as decommissioning. IIRC, similar schemes are in place in the US, with each site having it own decom fund that Holtec has been tapping into for their decommissioning work, which has proven to be quite lucrative.