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By KATHIANN
M. KOWALSKI — ENERGY NEWS NETWORK
October 25, 2023
As the U.S. ends a Russian monopoly
on next-gen nuclear fuel, small reactors face new questions
Even as the US opens its first new enrichment plant in
70 years—ending Russia’s monopoly over a
critical fuel cycle—questions persist about the economics of new nuclear.
As an Ohio uranium enrichment plant opened this month,
yet another study questioned whether nuclear power from small modular
reactors can compete with other types of electricity generation.
Centrus Energy’s new plant in Piketon produces high-assay,
low-enriched uranium, or HALEU. The fuel will contain between 5% and
20% fissile uranium, or U-235, which is the range needed for various
types of small modular reactors, or SMRs. The current fleet of large
nuclear reactors uses fuel with up to 5% U-235. At present, the only
commercial supplier is Tenex, a subsidiary of Russian state-owned
company Rosatom.
Large nuclear plants have had problems competing with other types of
electricity generation in recent years. Ohio’s House Bill 6 would have
mandated ratepayer spending of more than $1 billion to subsidize the
894-megawatt Davis-Besse plant and 3,758-megawatt Perry plant in Ohio,
for example. Lawmakers repealed that law’s nuclear subsidies after
alleged corruption came to light.
Now the question is whether small modular reactors designed to produce
up to 300 MW of electricity can compete better.
Huge gigawatt-scale nuclear plants can have economies of scale because
their power output grows faster than increases in capital and
operating expenditures.
“However, the extensive customization of many of the currently
deployed reactors undercuts much of that economy,” said William Madia,
a nuclear chemist and emeritus professor at Stanford University who is
now a member of Centrus’ board of directors.
The lack of a standard design also makes it harder for large reactors
to get replacement parts when needed. “Things like large-scale
forgings are in short supply globally,” Madia noted.
In contrast, small modular reactors can be built in indoor factories
and then sent to where they’ll be used. That avoids site-by-site
mobilization costs, as well as weather problems that might interrupt
construction.
“But the real driver is standardized design,” Madia said. So
eventually, production can take place on assembly lines. And that
should produce its own economies.
All in all, “the capital cost for SMRs is much lower than GW-scale
machines,” Madia said. Also, if the choice is between lower-cost
modular reactors and huge ones, “many, many more utilities can afford
a few billion dollars on their balance sheets. Very few can handle
$10-plus billion.”
FACING COMPETITION
No small modular reactors are operating commercially in the United
States yet.
“Right now, if you’re looking to spend money on bringing new
generation online, you have tech that you know works with wind and
solar and storage,” said Neil Waggoner, federal deputy director for
energy campaigns at the Sierra Club.
An analysis published this month by the journal Energy estimated the
levelized cost of electricity, or LCOE, for different types of small
modular reactors. The LCOE basically reflects the average costs for
producing a unit of power over the course of a generation source’s
lifetime.
Small modular reactors “seem to be non-competitive when compared to
current costs for generating electricity from renewable energy
sources,” the Energy study found.
Comparing intermittent resources like wind and solar to “dispatchable
resources with small land footprints is a flawed exercise,” said Diane
Hughes, vice president of marketing and communications for NuScale
Power. Nuclear energy from small reactors requires little new
transmission infrastructure, she added. So, “the cost per plant is
comprehensive in a way that one solar array or wind farm is not.”
Yet the Energy study found renewables would still be more competitive
even with added system integration costs that would roughly double the
levelized cost of electricity.
“These costs can stem from batteries, but there are also many other
means of flexibility that can be used,” said Jens Weibezahn, one of
the study’s corresponding authors and an economist at the Copenhagen
Business School’s School of Energy Infrastructure.
Weibezahn’s group got similar results when they compared the projected
market value for energy from small modular reactors with the weighted
market value for renewable electricity at the time of generation.
Costs for dealing with radioactive waste “will add a significant
additional economic burden” on nuclear technologies, he added.
A March 2023 study by Colorado State University researchers suggested
the economics for SMRs wouldn’t be dramatically better than those for
large reactors. The researchers also found the levelized costs of
electricity for different types of small modular reactors would be
substantially higher than that for natural gas power plants without
carbon capture.
However, “natural gas plants release tremendous amounts of greenhouse
gases which engender societal and environmental costs,” said the paper
in Applied Energy. Adding in carbon capture increased the estimated
levelized cost of energy for the natural gas plants to the general
range for the small modular reactors.
Commercial methane-fired power plants with carbon capture are not yet
running at scale. The American Petroleum Association has objected to
proposed rules that might effectively require such equipment.
How things will shake out in the future is unclear, said Jason Quinn,
who heads the sustainability laboratory at Colorado State University
and is the corresponding author for the March study. But, he added,
“typically decisions are driven on economics, and current SMR
estimates show them not to be a commercially viable solution as
compared to other technologies.”
SMRS COMING TO OHIO
For now, initial production at the Centrus HALEU plant will meet a
commitment to the Department of Energy. Centrus expects the plant will
employ up to 500 direct employees when it moves to full-scale
commercial production, said Larry Cutlip, vice president for field
operations. Supporting industries will provide work for another 1,000
to 1,300 people. And all those workers could stimulate economic
activity for roughly eight times as many jobs, he added.
Centrus already plans to supply HALEU fuel to TerraPower and Oklo,
Inc. Each company has its own individual SMR design and is working
with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission toward having the designs
certified.
Oklo, backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, plans to build two
sodium-cooled fast reactors in Piketon near the Centrus’s HALEU
production plant. Each of the SMRs could supply up to 15 MW of
electricity and more than 25 MW of clean heating, said spokesperson
Bonita Chester.
Plans call for the SMRs to supply some carbon-free electricity for the
Centrus facility. Other possible customers for electricity include
commercial, industrial or municipal entities.
“As for the clean heating output, we envisage potential industrial
partners and applications for district heating systems,” Chester said.
The ability to sell or otherwise use the heat as well as electricity
could potentially lower the average costs.
“We are committed to ensuring that our electricity and heating output
remain competitive with other forms of energy generation,” Chester
added. “Our technology benefits from simplified design and
cost-effective materials, making it an economically effective option.”
NuScale plans to deploy a dozen 77-megawatt small modular
reactors in Ohio and another dozen in Pennsylvania for Standard
Power data center projects by 2029.
Those pressurized water reactors can use low-enriched uranium and
won’t need HALEU, Hughes noted.
Deputy
Secretary of Energy David Turk expects HALEU and small nuclear
reactors that rely on it will be competitive.
“People appreciate the importance of
baseload power, and I think that will be even more important as we
further decarbonize the electricity economy,” Turk said. That will
appropriately include more wind and solar energy, “but it’s good to
have that baseload power to make it all work in the end.”
Electricity from SMRs will be “a real source of energy security and
energy resilience,” Turk added. “You need diversification, but you
need to have a variety of different inputs going into the system.”
“Nuclear
certainly can provide baseload, but it does this at a cost
significantly higher than an integrated renewables-based system,”
Weibezahn said.
A bigger question may be whether there
will be enough carbon-free electricity.
The
Department of Energy estimates the United States will need to triple nuclear
energy production to about 300 GW by 2050. That growth will be
driven by advanced nuclear technologies, much of which will use
HALEU.
“If we
want to meet our climate goals and meaningfully reduce carbon
emissions, we need all sources of clean energy, including wind,
solar and nuclear energy,” said Jess Gehin, associate lab director
for nuclear science and technology at Idaho National Laboratory.
“Current projections show that we cannot meet our climate goals
without nuclear energy.”
Kathi is the author of 25 books and more than 600 articles, and
writes often on science and policy issues. In addition to her
journalism career, Kathi is an alumna of Harvard Law School and has
spent 15 years practicing law. She is a member of the Society of
Environmental Journalists and the National Association of Science
Writers. Kathi covers the state of Ohio.
This article first
appeared on Energy
News Network and is republished here under a Creative Commons
license.
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