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2010 Nuclear Issues Vol 33-34 No12-1 |
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Written by Nuclear Issues
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Thursday, 30 December 2010 |
US tackles 35 te of plute
The French company Areva is preparing to start a training program for Americans in manufacturing and using mixed uranium/plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel. It is part of their contract the US Department of Energy to supply a MOX fabrication facility for 35 te of military plutonium under an arms reduction agreement with Russia. The MOX will be used in a number of US commercial power plants. The MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF), on which construction started in August 2007, is about half built at the Savannah River site near Aiken, South Carolina. It is said to be one of the largest construction projects in the in southeast US.Also involved is the American civil engineering company, Shaw Environmental & Infrastructure Inc.
Some 93 MFFF staff members, including operators, technicians, and management personnel, will receive hands-on training at Areva’s Melox plant in the south of France and at La Hague high level waste recycling facility in the northwest. Several propriety Areva processes are involved including the delicate job of plutonium dissolution and purification and all the steps involved in MOX production. The training was due to start immediately so that staff would be available for the MFFF site to supervise the startup in mid-2013 to 2015.
Under the weapons plutonium disposition agreement in which both Russia andAmerica undertook to dispose of 35 te, it was initially planned for the US to dispose of some material directly but this was soon seen as difficult and a waste of the energy potential of plutonium so now the intention is to useMOX fuel in a number of commercial light water reactors. The Russians, on the other hand have one 600 MWe fast reactor in service and another 800 MWe plant half built, so they have opted to use the fuel in these reactors.
Once the 35 te has been used we hope to see some US utility operators using the MOX route with some of the many tonnes of plutonium that they have held in spent fuel storage. They will need to put it through a reprocessing plant first but France will be willing to help with that. So shouldBritain if theDecommissionAgency has not started to pull down Sellafield.
What about our 100 te of plute
WhileAmerica is getting on with the task of dealing with 35 te of plutonium we are sitting on 100 te of separated plutonium. And all we can do is pat ourselves on the back for having built a new storage facility at Sellafield to time and budget. But the best place to “store” plutonium is back in a reactor where it is protected by fierce radiation and where it produces a lot more energy. We have one pressurized water reactor which is suitable. We also have several advanced gas cooled reactors (AGRs) which can accept MOX recycle fuel. It may not be as efficient but it was demonstrated in 1980-81 on the last run of the Windscale AGR before we started pulling it down. Then it was cheaper to dig up some fresh uranium and enrich it. But now the cost of uranium is up about ten times and so is the cost of enrichment.
There is enough plutonium to fuel two large reactors for their entire 60 year life expectancy.
We do not even have to build aMOX fabrication plant.We have one. They were having some difficulty getting it working to capacity but now the French company Areva is helping out and it is beginning to look as if it is fine.
We used to talk about saving the plutonium for use in fast reactors but now we have closed down the only onewe had and nobody is talking about building another formany years.
The government policy is long term storage of plutonium in Fort Knox type facilities. They try not to talk about it.Well we are going to keep on talking about it.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Agency, while quite happy to talk about sending back plutonium from the reprocessing of Japanese used fuel as MOX for use in their reactors, has adopted an attitude against reprocessing saying that they intend to pull down the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP) as soon as they have completed current contracts for overseas customers. What nonsense. There are thousands of tons of used fuel waiting to be reprocessed in America. The French will certainly be offering to help with the capacity they have at La Hague.
In fact the French are our best hope. As well as taking over the MOX fabrication plant they are also involved in the operating company at Sellafield and they have taken over British Energy which operates Sizewell B and the AGR plants. But they are not obliged to adopt a more sensible policy than if the British authorities. They can let us stew in our own stupidity.
Swiss to coordinate planning for new plants
Three Swiss utilities,Axpo,Alpiq and BKW, have announced plans to join forces in their bid to plan and build new nuclear power plant to replace first generation plant which are nearing the end of their life.Axpo has an application to replace the two pressurized water reactors which are the oldest plants operating in Switzerland at Beznau; BKWhas applied to replace the boiling water reactor at Muhleberg; andAlpiq wants to replace the Gosgen boiling water reactor. The Swiss Nuclear Safety Inspectorate has evaluated all three site and confirmed on 15 November 2010 that as far as safety goes they are suited for new nuclear power plants.
The Swiss Cantons and other institutions are being consulted and it is hoped that the process can be wrapped up with a referendum before 2013. It is hoped that by working together they will speed up the political process and the group is looking at a final decision on sites and plants by mid-2012.
Axpo chief executive officer, Heinz Karrer, said that they hoped to keep Swiss electricity supply virtually free from CO2 emission. It comes mainly from nuclear power and hydroelectric with a little bit from new renewable.
Third reprocessing plant in India
The Indian PrimeMinister,Mammohan Singh, has opened a new reprocessing plant at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre at Tarapur in the northwest of the country. It has a capacity to handle 100 te of used fuel a year. India has been operating two smaller reprocessing plants for many year but the new facility is seen as an important facility in India’s ambitious plans to complete the nuclear fuel cycle. It will extract plutonium from the used fuel from the country’s natural uranium, heavy water reactors, to meet the needs of fast reactor fuel.
This is the second stage of the fuel cycle and will provide breeder reactors which will convert thorium into uranium-233, a very fissionable isotope. India has only modest resources of uranium but plenty of thorium so they have always intended to develop this novel cycle. The fast reactor needs more plutonium than the more familiar recycle of mixed uranium/plutonium (MOX) fuel but it consumes it as well as unused uranium from the used nuclear fuel.
Since 1964 when India exploded its first nuclear devise they have not received any help from the rest of the world but none less have developed complete nuclear capability themselves. Now they are getting ready to show the world that the thorium cycle works and is a highly efficient source of energy.
Rediscovering reprocessing
Recent news reports have made much of an announcement from China that it has developed a process to recover uranium from used nuclear fuel, with claims that this will that dramatically extend China’s utilisation of uranium so that it will no longer have to seek imports but will have sufficient fuel for some thousand years. The excitement that this seems to have generated is that this counters the assertions, now being made by those opposed to nuclear development, that world uranium resources are insufficient to sustain the anticipated growth in world demand, so that nuclear power has no long term future and that the only solution to the nuclear ‘waste’ problem is to bury used fuel.
The technology of reprocessing uranium, initially to recover plutonium for nuclear weapons was however developed independently in the 1950’s, using solvent extraction processes, by USA, Russia, France and the UK , and later by India and presumably also by China. A reprocessing plant has since been built by Japan for its civil nuclear power programme so that it no longer has to send its used uranium fuel to France or the UK. Plutonium recovered by reprocessing is already being used on an increasing scale as MOX (mixed oxide) fuel in existing reactors in a number of countries.
No technical details are available on the Chinese announcement which leaves open the intriguing possibility that this might be a real advance in reprocessing technology which would transform the prospects for nuclear power, producing fuel for the fast reactors under development which could utilise all of the spent including the actinides leaving only a small amount of fission product poisons as waste.
TheWNN reports that India has also announced the completion of a new reprocessing plant at Tarapur with a capacity of 100 tonnes day to produce plutonium and uranium for fast reactors. Afurther new reprocessing plant is also to be built at Kalpakkam to separate wastes from potential fuels. These new plants are an addition to India’s existing reprocessing capacity also at Tarapur and Kalpakkam and at Trombay.
New alternative reprocessing technologies which avoid the separation of pure plutonium are already being proposed, and studied (in other countries, not the UK) for the new Generation 4 reactors which could eventually be brought into service. Under these circumstances a possible closure of the Sellafield reprocessing and MOX plants by the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency (into whose hands they have now fallen) would seem to be very short sighted. It also exposes the nonsense of NDA plans to spend many millions prospecting for and then constructing an underground facility to bury used nuclear fuel.
Recent information is that this underground storage, which may become available by 2040, would initially be used for the so-called ‘legacy waste’ left over from the early weapons programme. It is now expected that storage for the spent fuel from the new build reactors will not become available until 2130. By that date – in 120 years time – burying spent fuel would be out of the question; fast reactor technology would surely be reusing all fissile materials.
Stating the obvious
The UK government has published draft proposals on how operators of new nuclear power plants will have to make secure financial provision for decommissioning without using funds from the taxpayer, in line with the government’s policy that there should be no subsidy for new nuclear. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said new nuclear operators will be required by law to put money aside “from day one” to pay for the eventual decommissioning costs and their full share of waste disposal.
Well all the proposals for new nuclear plants include the provision for waste from day one. The problem is what happens to this fund if government gets its hands upon it.Many millions of pounds have disappeared into a black hole at the treasury in the past. Operators will need to make sure that they keep their hands on the waste fund and do not let government see it as a handy way of reducing debt.
The draft proposals – called the Funded Decommissioning Programme Guidance – set out how operators will be required to meet their obligation to have decommissioning plans and secure funds in place before constructing a new nuclear plant. But unfortunately the document is almost completely silent on waste recycle. The Nuclear Decommissioning Agency dismisses this and reprocessing as not being part of government policy.What a pity that this opportunity was not taken for a change in policy or at least recognition of the vast amount of energy that can be derived from recycle of MOX fuel and the reduction of waste to mainly short lived fission products.
The European union discover fast reactor
An initiative was recently launched by the European Commission, European research organisations to look at the development of a fast reactor. Formed under the Sustainable Nuclear Energy Technology Platform (SNETP) which puts in place a technology roadmap for European nuclear energy to the year 2050, ESNII is intended to speed up progress towards a prototype sodium-cooled fast reactor by around 2020.
But wait. Did we not have prototype fast reactors in Britain and France? In France they even had a commercial sized fast reactor.
Well this initiative will also look to a longer-term alternative of either lead-cooled or gas-cooled demonstration reactors by 2025. It cites the year 2040 as an overall target for fast neutron reactor deployment.
Fast neutron reactor technology has the potential to multiply by a factor of up to 100 the energy output from a given amount of uranium compared with Generation II and III reactors. The ESNII roadmap consists of four projects: French sodium-based fast reactor prototype Astrid; the Belgian-ledMyrrha reactor; a lead-cooled fast reactor demonstrator Alfred, and; the gas-cooled fast reactor project Allegro, a joint project between the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.
The power we need
When wind power enthusiasts talk about the latest wind farm they invariably say that they can supply so many thousand homes. But domestic use only account for about one third of the electricity we need to support our way of life. Industrial use accounts for another third and transport and service industry for the rest. So in general you can cut the number of people satisfied by a wind farm by at least a factor of three.
In practice it is more because the demand that must be met is that on a cold winter evening which is about twice as much as on a warm summer day. Then the grid likes to have a reserve of capacity available. At present they try to maintain about 20% reserve.
With the brief periods of shut down for fuelling a nuclear plant it can be scheduled for a period of low demand. But no such luck with the long period when the wind is not blowing at the right speed.
Putting some figures into the situation – which can be quite difficult to find – we see that the total supply for the UK is just under 400 000 GWh a year. The population is about 60 million so each individual on average needs about 6.67 MWh a year. That would be a continuous supply of 0.76 kWh so one large wind turbine, at 20% load factor, might supply 526 people except that it would not because of the variability of the wind preventing it from having a supply when it was needed.
A welcome attitude
Lord Marland, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the DECC (appointed in May 2010), gave a positive account of the future for nuclear power when replying to the debate in the House of Lords on the Draft National Policy Statement for Nuclear Power Generation (13th January). The Government, he said, had given the go-ahead for eight new nuclear stations and was working flat out to ensure we can get something by 2018. “We have just given the go-ahead for eight new nuclear sites, and we should be leaping to our feet and jumping for joy. Everywhere I go, I find that people in this House and throughout the country have changed their view and now think that new nuclear is what it is all about.”
All eight stations could be in operation by 2025 with a capacity of some 10-14 GWe. There would be further expansion; future electricity demand could be two to three times the present output by 2050. “We must endeavour to have more than eight sites.” There would however be no subsidy; the nuclear power industry had become well established over a very long period of time.This was an opportunity for the industry to “come and get it.”
While the rate of expansion of the power programme was seen mainly as resting with the industry a more direct approach is being taken over the use ofMOX fuel to utilise the present UK stock of plutonium – the biggest in the world. Lord Marland said he had already commissioned a cost-benefit analysis of a new MOX plant and had sent a “write round” to the Cabinet. The matter should be resolved by the first half of this year. The plutonium should be seen as an asset not a liability. “It is madness to have it sitting there if we can make it a non-cost exercise.”
It is interesting that Lord Marland also welcomed a reference by Lord Broers to the possibility that new hybrid technologies combining fusion with fission could provide a practical solution in a shorter timescale than for pure fusion alone. This technology is being promoted by Tokamak Solutions at Culham laboratory.
Redpoint energy
These proposals have been studied by Redpoint Energy whose report The Analysis of Policy Options was commissioned by the DECC and published by them as a part of their Consultancy on Electricity Market Reform.
The Redpoint paper is both complex and confusing, particularly when taken with Huhne's contradictory assertions. In Table 11 the date of the first nuclear stations becoming operational is advanced to 2019 under Contracts for Differences and Carbon Price Support, but other options give later dates up to 2024. This earlier date seems based on the assumption that there will be a subsidy for offshore wind of £170/MWh falling to £100/MWh by 2020 and a subsidy for nuclear at around £70/MWh. But Huhne has repeatedly insisted that nuclear power, as an established technology, will not receive any subsidy. This seems to undermine the basis of the Redpoint 2019 figure.
There is further complication in that under CfD if the generator's prices are above the index price (as will always be the case for wind) it would be paid the difference. If (as could be the case for nuclear) the generator's prices are below the index price it would have to pay the difference. Inefficiencies or poor maintenance for wind would not be penalised whereas any reductions in cost achieved by nuclear operators would require them to pay back more to the Government agency. Possible short-term support while the nuclear plant is being built and perhaps for a few years thereafter might be followed by payments back to the Government over a longer period.
Huhne has also declared that the RO system of subsidy will remain in force until at least 2017/18. Any changes to be introduced under the new proposals might not come into effect until perhaps 2020-2040, until when the business as usual Baseline assumptions would remain in force. Electricity companies might well decide their new investments would be more profitable and are better safeguarded by building wind rather than nuclear. CfD could be a disincentive for nuclear.
The source of these problems is the commitment to 29% of electricity generation from renewables by 2020, rising to 35% by 2030. The simple solution would be to extend the term renewables to include all forms of low carbon generation including nuclear. Until that is done the security of our electricity system will remain at risk despite ever-increasing costs to the consumers.
The Redpoint analysis also uses some very strange assumptions which, they say, are taken from the DECC. On a more realistic basis the whole conclusions of the report would be have to be altered.
Economic life
The economic life of new nuclear stations is taken as 30 years. This is a uniquely low figure. It is generally accepted that the lifetime of new stations is at least 50 years or even longer. The lifetime assumed will directly affect the estimates of nuclear cost. On the other hand the lifetime of wind farms is put at 20 years. This could be an optimistic assumption for offshore wind, subject to stormy conditions and a saline environment, for which there is as yet insufficient evidence.
Fossil fuel prices
The price of gas is assumed to rise from 60p/therm to 75p/therm by 2030. Unless there is a large increase in output of shale gas, which is as yet unclear, gas prices are expected to follow the increase in the oil price. By 2030 we could be importing the greater part of our gas at much higher prices.
The coal price is even seen as falling from $110 per tonne to $80 per tonne by 2030.
Electricity demand
In the central assumption future electricity demand to 2030 is almost stationary barely rising from the 2010 figure. Yet the DECC paper suggests the contrary – “even as we improve energy efficiency demand for electricity may need to double by 2050.” This would certainly be the case with the early introduction of electric vehicles, which are already now being developed. Severe shortages of electricity can then be expected if future plans are based on the lower rate of increase.
Technological maturity
Nuclear power is classified as an “emerging” technology up to 2015, to progress to an “established” technology by 2020 before becoming a “mature” technology by 2030. On the other hand offshore wind is already considered as an “established” technology by 2010-2015 and a “mature” technology in 2020.
This is quite contrary to statements by the DECC ministers who maintain that subsidies to wind are justified as it was still an emerging technology whereas nuclear power as an established technology needed no subsidy.
Even more surprising wave and tidal flow, and also coal with CCS, are seen as “emerging” technologies becoming “established” technologies in 2030. This is wishful thinking in the extreme.
Redpoint also seems to have doubts. It points out that under the new proposals the carbon intensity electricity system may well be above that required to meet the UK carbon reduction targets unless there is a greater investment in nuclear power. It also accepts that there could be more cost effective ways of achieving the renewable targets. It is unfortunate that these variants are not explored. Fiddling with different methods of subsidising expensive and inefficient wind turbines will not solve the problem of meeting future electricity demand and meeting the targets to reduce carbon emissions. This can only be secured by an immediate and substantial expansion of nuclear power capacity.
Malaysia want two
The latest country to announce plans for nuclear power is Malaysia. The Energy Minister Peter Chin has said that they are considering two units of around 1000 MWe. They envisage calling for tenders by 2016 and operation of the first unit in 2021 and the second in 2022.
At present Malaysia is heavily dependent on gas and coal for production of electricity and there is therefore a wish to reduce reliance on fossil fuel.Amongst other things nuclear power is believed to reduce maintenance costs.
A Forum for Nuclear Cooperation in Asia is expected to help with early planning and consistent implementation.
At present Malaysia has a 1 MW research reactor. |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 22 June 2011 )
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