The ‘nuclear renaissance’ envisioned a decade ago has stalled to the point of near fantasy. While there are Chinese programs that keep open the promise of ‘traditional’ large nuclear power plant projects, constructing such plants does not seem viable in current economic and energy market conditions.
With (relatively) rapid changes in electricity markets (efficiency driving flattening of demand in developed nations even amid economic growth; extremely low natural gas prices; rapid growth in renewables with ever lowering prices), investing $15B or so for adding 1-2GW of capacity a decade or more into the future is an extremely uncertain proposition. A proposition worsened by seemingly ever-increasing price stickers for such power plants.
Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) have been ‘on the horizon’ for a long time with the promise of addressing this uncertain proposition by offering a path for incremental additions into the power system, providing a path for incremental and potentially low-cost meeting of community power requirements.
Recent news suggests that the SMR promise might actually be on the path to becoming.
Nuscale has contracted BWXT for the detailed engineering designs for its 60MW SMR.
The system is targeted for meeting a Utah Power contracted requirement for 12 units (a 720MW facility) for operations to begin in 2026.
The target levelized cost of electricity (LCOE): $65/mWh.
That price — if it can be met — is significantly lower than that of any large-nuclear power plant being developed in the developed world (such as Vogtle and Hinckley).
At $65/mWh, if achieve, the Nuscale SMR would provide a credible alternative and/or partner with renewable energy systems. While pure mWh prices for renewable energy systems are plunging and now often well below $65 mWh, when storage and other investments required to provide assured power are included, the NuScale price will be quite competitive in many markets.
Now, the NuScale SMR
- Still is in design;
- Is only projected to be $65 mWh and that price might not survive the system’s encounter with reality; and,
- Will, in the best scenario, only start deploying in the second half of the next decade and likely can’t have a major impact in the power sector until well into the 2030s.
With all that in mind, the NuScale announcements about their SMR suggest the value of focusing on moving toward a “clean power” (electricity) system rather than being locked into a renewables only future. The priority is to have reliable, affordable (if not low price), extremely low carbon electricity. If nuclear power can safely meet a portion of that requirement, it should be embraced.
2 responses so far ↓
1 John Egan // Dec 6, 2018 at 1:53 pm
If I recall, we had reached a modus vivendi where I accepted the continuation of current nuclear and you accepted the continuation of coal-fired transitioning to gas.
Didn’t last long, did it?
Not to mention the “Neanderthal” comment, eh?
Well, in case you haven’t noticed, people in France (Home of the Paris Climate Accords) are too keen on Macron’s decarbonization taxes.
As I have said many times before, green initiatives which drive working people to the economic wall will also drive them into the clutches of right populism.
I may be Neanderthal, but I have been right on target on this one.
PS – Long-term nuclear waste storage remains unsolved. Although the physical storage issues are increasingly addressed, the political storage issues are not. Few countries on earth have had even 100 years of political stability – let alone thousands. Nuclear advocates have zero ability to assure that dangerous nuclear waste will remain politically safe in the future.
2 John Egan // Dec 7, 2018 at 8:00 am
One of the primary downfalls of progressivism is its poor stewardship of public funds – or in the case of utilities poor oversight of cost s which are passed on to the public.
California High Speed Rail is a black hole for transportation dollars that could be far better spent on transit – meanwhile transit systems are slashing routes and rural Californians have few public transportation options.
The Big Dig in Boston robbed other essential transportation needs in Massachusetts of funds for year and will continue to do so in order to pay off its bonds. Yeah, the greenway is nice, but a lot of collapsing bridges on local roads could have been built for the $12 billion in overruns.
Same goes for nukes. Over and over again, nuclear projects have had obscene cost overruns that end up coming out of the pockets of utility customers. The most famous of these was the WPPSS bankruptcy due to never-completed nuclear facilities. (I’ve visited the surreal Satsop plant.)
In a similar vein, when per-pupil costs for public school systems exceed $20,000 the tax burdens for all but the most affluent school districts become onerous, regardless of how much federal or state reallocation takes place. It becomes a shell game.
In all of the above cases, when expenses skyrocket and – ultimately – fall upon the public, the public’s support for public engagement evaporates. Thus, you have privatization of transportation as in Indiana, abandonment of municipal utilities and state utility oversight, and the attempts to privatize Bonneville.
One of the reasons nuclear is so expensive is that so many components – from design to operation to security – require a level of redundancy that only become affordable at scale. And not even then. Small-scale nuclear holds far too many risks – risks an informed public will not be willing to accept.