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2006 Nuclear Issues v28 12 |
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Written by Nuclear Issues
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Friday, 01 December 2006 |
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First orders for AP1000
Westinghouse has a commitment from China to
supply the first four of its third generation power reactor, AP1000.
Negotiations are said to have taken 22 months but at last the State
Nuclear Power Technology Company has agreed to take four reactors along
with major technology transfer. The nuclear part of the deal will cost
about $5 billion and the balance of plant a further $3 billion.
The plants are to be supplied to the China National Nuclear Power
Company for two reactors on a site at Sammen in Zhejiang province and
to China Guangdong Nuclear Power Company for two units at Yangjiang in
Guangdong province. Building is due to start early in 2007 with the
first units expected to be operating by 2013.
The AP1000 is one of the reactor designs to have received approval from
the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It consists basically of a
standard 1100 MWe pressurized water reactor but uses passive systems to
provide safety backup by natural means. This has resulted in a massive
simplification of the plant with for example a large tank of water in
the roof of the building supplying emergency cooling by gravity and a
flow of air circulating naturally around the containment to remove
residual heat.
Areva of France was offering the alternative of an evolutionary design
which uses high integrity pumps and valves to supply emergency cooling
for a massive 1600 MWe European Pressurized Water Reactor (EPR) similar
to that being built in Finland. They lost out on this bid but are still
hopeful of selling two of these reactors for another site in China.
Until the beginning of 2006 Westinghouse was owned by British Nuclear
Fuels plc (BNFL) but then it was decided to sell this valuable company
to the Japanese. What a lost prospect with the potential to sell tens
or even hundreds of AP1000’s with supporting fuel cycle services.
Even Australia to go nuclear
Australia has for year been very antagonistic about the nuclear power
industry and only reluctantly allowed some of its vast resources of
uranium to be developed and sold on the world market. But now a
bipartisan Standing Committee of the House of Representative has
published a 732-page report entitled Australia’s Uranium: Greenhouse
Friendly Fuel for an Energy Hungry World. It agreed to remove all
impediments to the further development of Australia’s uranium
resources. All the present restrictions on uranium explorations and
mining are considered to be “illogical, inconsistent and anti
competitive.” The Chairman of the Committee, Geoff Prosser, said that
“Australia is uniquely placed to make a significant contribution to
emissions reductions through the expanded production and supply of
uranium.” And he added that “Australia should throw the world a climate
lifeline through the expanded production and export of this
greenhouse-friendly fuel” since renewables and energy efficiency “alone
have no prospect whatsoever of meeting rapidly-growing demands for
energy and abating greenhouse gas emissions to the degree required.” He
added that: “As a matter of justice, Australia should not deny
countries who wish to use nuclear power in a reasonable manner the
benefits from doing so.” In line with this the parliament’s Joint
Standing Committee on Treaties cleared the bilateral treaty with China
two days later so enabling uranium sales to proceed. While the world
has not been particularly embarrassed by Australian restrictions on
export in the past it will now welcome the country assuming its proper
role as one of – if not the – major supplier of uranium. At present,
although Australia has the largest proven reserves of uranium, it has
allowed Canada to assume the dominant role in production.
But more exciting than the emergence of Australia’s uranium industry is
the prospect of using nuclear power itself. Many years ago there was
talk of building a plant on federal land in the west but this was
eventually overcome by a wave of public hostility. Now a task force
commissioned by Prime Minister, John Howard, has reached a preliminary
finding that Australia could have a power reactor in operation in as
little as ten years – though recognising the likelihood of strong
opposition it says that 15 years is more probable – and could
potentially have up to 25 nuclear power plants in operation by 2050,
supplying one third of the country’s electricity.
The task force also supports moves to increase uranium mining and
export. Being level headed, it does not support the idea that added
value could be achieved if conversion and enrichment of uranium were to
be carried out in Australia but it suggests that impediment to such
business should be removed.
History of polonium
Polonium was discovered sometime ago by Marie Curie back in 1898 when
she and her husband Pierre were making early discoveries of
radioactivity. It occurs naturally as part of the uranium decay chain
and was initially known as radium-F. Later it was recognised as a new
metallic element which was named after Marie’s country of birth, Poland.
Polonium-210 is unusual because it emits a high energy – 5.4 MeV – alpha particle and very little else.
The alpha particle is relatively large being effectively a nucleus of a
helium atom. It means that it is absorbed within a centimetre of most
materials and does a lot of damage in the process. But because, unlike
other alpha emitters, it does not produce more penetrating beta or
gamma emission which is easier to detect.
It has a relatively short half life of 138 days. That means it
decreases in activity by half in 138 days. But while it is active it
can do a lot of harm if it gets inside a human being. The maximum
allowable body burden is only 1 100 becquerels (1 100 atoms
disintegrating per cubic centimetre per second) or 0.03 microcuries.
The maximum permissible airborne concentration is around 7 500 Bq/m3 or
2 x 10-11 microcurries/cm3. It has been estimated that ten times the
safe amount was administered to Alexander Litvinenko.
When carefully handled by experts it has several uses. It has been used
for anti static devices in paper making and also as a thermal source in
satellite thermoelectric power supplies. It is also used with beryllium
to provide a useful source of neutrons. But because of its relatively
short half life it would need refreshing quite frequently.
As well as occurring naturally it can be made by bombarding bismuth with neutrons in a nuclear reactor.
Practically every country has a suitable research reactor – except
Britain which for some reason has closed them all down, but that’s
another story. Purchased normally the dose administered to Litvinenko
would have cost a great deal, but it is not inconceivable that somebody
could introduce a silicon capsule containing bismuth into a reactor
clandestinely. If administered in a drink or with food much of the
polonium would go straight through the body but some could have got
into the spleen or bone marrow.
We are not into politics or murder plots, but we thought you might be interested in the relatively long history of polonium.
Energy shortages
The warning in last month’s Nuclear Issues of energy shortages by 2015
has been confirmed in a report by the international consulting group
Logica CMG of 21st November which declares that the UK energy gap is
much larger, much closer and more expensive than reported. In just four
years time, 2010, the gap could potentially be five per cent. This
could require energy intensive industries to shut down operations at
peak usage periods with an immediate cost to businesses of £7.9 billion
a year. By 2015, the impact on GDP could be £108 billion a year, or
£3,700 a year for every working adult in the country. With a warmer
climate it also claims that power cuts are now just as likley in summer
as in winter.
Logica point out that this is (or rather it ought to be) a major issue
as potential solutions like nuclear power simply can’t be built in time
to close the gap. The Government cannot continue with its hands-off
approach and maintain that this is solely a matter for the power
industry It should raise questions over the future of the existing
nuclear plant. British Energy should be required – it is still under
the nominal control of the DTI – to devote more attention and
expenditure on reducing unplanned outages which have cut the present
ouput and to concentrate a greater effort on extending the operation
life of all the AGR stations.
The early closure of the older Magnox reactors could also be
questioned. The costs of keeping their 2.284 GW in operation beyond
2010 would certainly be less than the £7.9 billion a year cost to
business of electricity shortage.
Oh! get a move on
We thought constructions of the International Thermonuclear
Experimental Reactor (ITER) had already started. But no; an
implementing agreement has just been signed in Paris between China,
India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, the US and the European Union.
Agreement was reached a year-and-a-half ago to construct ITER at
Cadarache in France with the European Union bearing half of the cost,
now put at $12.8 billion. The newly formed Interim ITER Council can now
start operation – “on a provisional basis” – pending entry into force
of the agreement which is expected in 2007.
This is the trouble with a major international project.
When we announced the decision on the site in July 2005 the project had
already slipped two years due to a silly argument between Japan and the
European Union.
And the project had been scaled down from 1500 MW thermal and a pulse
length of 1000 seconds as proposed by Paul-Henri Rebut (the builder of
JET in the UK) to 500 MW thermal and a pulse length of 400 seconds.
Construction is not now due to start until mid-2008 for operation
between 2016 and 2040. It is difficult to see how anybody can maintain
enthusiasm for something when most of us are not likely to be around to
see it.
Construction of a demo power plant is even further away in 2021 with operation starting around 2032.
Two new, two oldish
The Bulgarian National Electric Company (NEK) has decided to order two
new 1000 MWe reactors from Russia for its site at Belene but at the
same time is bowing to European Union pressure to close two more 440
MWe units at Kozloduy-3&4. Kozloduy-1&2 have already been
closed.
Work at the Belene site was started in 1980 but stopped in 1991
ostensibly because of a lack of funds but also because the country’s
nuclear power programme was coming under severe international
criticism. Now for a year or two NEK has been examining plans to
complete Belene but it had two options. One was to use existing
equipment which had already been supplied and complete an updated
version of the old V-320 type reactor. But the second preferred option
was to build a new third generation designs, a variant of A92 with VVER
V-466 pressurized water reactors, now being offered by the Russians. As
well as being larger this design offers significant improvements in
safety margins with a double containment and fourtrain safety systems,
a better construction and licensing schedule and 60 years lifetime
compared with 40. The cost of the new project will be about $5.1
billion. The project will be important for Atomstroyexport having been
won against strong competition from the Skoda Alliance in the Czech
republic. Also involved in the latest bid will be a Franco-German
consortium of Areva NP and Siemens providing modern instrumentation and
control.
While this all sounds fine, the Bulgarian government has ordered the
closure of two units at Kozloduy-3&4 each of the V-320 design. This
will help Bulgarian membership of the European Union but is not
strictly speaking necessary. Following an extensive upgrading
programme, which included replacement of control systems, the reactors
had received the blessing of both the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) and the World Association of Nuclear Operators. It is
true that both these organizations had been very critical of Kozloduy
in the past but Bulgaria has made tremendous progress in recent years
both in the standard of safety and regulation. These two plants would
only reach 30 years life in 2008 and 2010 and are said to be generating
electricity at EUR 2 cents per kWh.
Four reactors closed
Sizewll A 1&2 and Dungeness A 1&2 were to be closed down at the
end of the year. This means that we are loosing 870 MWe of perfectly
good electricity generating capacity – equivalent to at least 1750
large wind generators – with no prospect of any alternative nuclear
capacity for at least ten years. The plants have operated very
successfully for 40 to 41 years and it is said that one of the reasons
for closing them down is lack of reprocessing capacity at Sellafield.
This is ridiculous. There are plenty of ways in which it could have
been handled possibly with a little modification in the Thermal Oxide
Reprocessing Plant. Alternatively the French could have arranged
something at La Hague or Marcoule.
The plants have been operated by BNFL’s British Nuclear Group under
contract to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority – the organization
dedicated to pulling down our nuclear plants but with apparently little
interest in building new reactors. The end of 2008 has been fixed for
closing down the next Magnox reactors at Oldbury, another 600 MWe of
good operating capacity – equivalent to at least 1200 large wind
turbines – to go before any prospect of having new nuclear capacity
available.
We have known about this pending loss of nuclear plant for many years
and some of us have been warning about the failure to provide any
alternative. But nothing has been done and now it is really to late.
A white elephant?
A press release from the Department of Trade and Industry on 18th
December in the names of the Secretary of State Alistair Darling and
the Environment Secretary David Miliband announced Government approval
for two offshore wind farms to be built in the Thames Estuary – the
London Array and Thanet. When completed it claimed that the London
Array will be the biggest in the world! Together the two schemes will
comprise a total capacity of 1.3 GWe. This, it is claimed, will be
available for about 20 to 30 percent of time compared with about 80
percent of time for the 870 MWe of nuclear capacity disconnected at the
end of the year (see Four closed down). So about 260 to 390 MWe to
replace 696 MWe, if we are lucky.
As with all announcements of wind power schemes, the output is always
described in terms of the number of households that it is claimed can
be supplied. In this case it is said that the two schemes will generate
enough electricity to “power a third of London’s three million
households when fully operational.” This form of words is presumably to
give the impression that a large number of people are getting a
substantial direct benefit from the wind power scheme. This is far from
the case.
The electricity generated will not go directly to the 1 million
households but into the National Grid where even on the optimistic
assumption of the DTI the output of the two windfarms when fully
operational will only amount to 1.22 percent of the present UK
electricity generation, and will only be available, optimistically, for
the 20-30 percent of the time that the wind is blowing at optimum speed.
On a figure for the average household consumption previously used by
the DTI of 5MWh per household per year, 1 million households would
consume 5 000 GWh of electricity per year. On this basis the assumption
is that these wind farms will operate at an average load factor of 44
percent. This is about twice the load factors achieved for land based
windfarm in the UK and well in excess of the figure achieved by the, so
far, small capacity of offshore windfarms in the UK which can be
estimated to be somewhere between 20 and 30 percent.
This relatively trivial electricity output will only be achieved at a
quite disproportionate cost. Wind farms are subsidised through the
Renewables Obligation and also by an exemption from the Climate Change
Levy. Under the Obligation all electricity generators are required to
supply a certain and growing proportion of their supply from those
renewable energies subsidised through the Obligation – wind, biomass,
solar, wave and tidal. This proportion set at 3 percent on 2002/3 will
increase to 15.4 percent by 2015/16 To meet the Obligation generators
are required either to present enough Renewable Obligation Certificates
or to make an equivalent payment into an Ofgem buyout fund which is
then distributed to the holders of the ROC. In 2005/06 these payments
amounted to £10.21 per ROC. The buy-out price for ROCs is set by Ofgem
and for 2005/6 this was £32.33 per MWh. ROCs are also traded by
auction; the price varies from month to month but in October 2006 the
average was £39.84, down from the peak of £52.07 in July 2004. The
traded prices for ROC’s are higher than the buyout price since holders
of the certificates are entitled to a share of the payments distributed
through OFGEM. According to the National Audit Office these costs,
which will ultimately be met by the consumer, amount to a 2 percent
levy on domestic electricity bills.
The costs of the subsidy will increase as the requirement under the
Obligation increases. It has been estimated that if this policy is
maintained the additional cost to electricity consumers for electricity
from the renewable energies will amount to up to £1 billion a year by
2010. Electricity from wind, at present at about 22 percent of the
Obligation renewables, is only 0.7 percent of total UK supply. The
wisdom of pursuing these developments at such a high cost should be
questioned.
Interest in fast reactors
The French Commissariat a l’Energie Atomic (CEA) has decided to proceed
with a fourth generation of sodium cooled fast reactor. A prototype
plant is to be built by 2012 and in parallel work will proceed on a
gas-cooled fast reactor. These plants are planned to be ready for
commercial deployment in France and for export after 2035-2040.
The design of the first plant will be based on Phenix and Superphenix –
a line which was halted with the unfortunate premature closure of
Superphenix for political reasons. The new prototype will possibly be
built at Marcoule. It is expected to be about 800 MWe and to cost
around EUR 1.5 billion.
And Russia too; a new fast research reactor is to be built by about
2015 to replace the Russian veteran BOR-60. It will be a 100 MW sodium
cooled fast reactor but will have the capability for testing major
elements of the lead-bismuth and gas cooled reactors as well. It will
also test fully the use of mixed uranium-plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel.
The Russian Institute of Atomic Reactors (RIAR) has been operating the
BOR-60 fast research reactor at Dimitrovgrad about 1300 km southeast of
Moscow since 1969. It has also developed at a pilot scale an onsite
closed fuel cycle using pyrochemical reprocessing and will continue
this development work.
Russia already has a successful 600 MWe fast reactor operating at
Beloyarsk and is constructing a second 800 MWe fast reactor at the same
site.
The future is nuclear
At the turn of the year it is appropriate to consider the future; a
future which looks increasingly bleak with forecasts of global warming
and peak oil – both associated with energy use and both driven by the
inexorable increase in world population. Yet different assessments from
very different standpoints point to a growing consensus that the future
is nuclear.
Following the Stern report, James Lovelock in a lecture to the
Institution of Chemical Engineers on 28th November, has gone further to
warn that the dire effects of global warming may, by now, be almost
unstoppable.
In this he raised the alarming possibility that an economic downturn,
as has been suggested by Stern, or efforts to cut fossil fuel use
could, by reducing the emission of man-made atmospheric pollution
whereby aerosol particles reduce the incoming solar radiation, actually
lead to an increase in temperature “We are damned if we continue to
burn fossil fuels and damned if we stop too suddenly.” Lovelock also
went further than the IPCC to consider a temperature rise of up to 8oC
which could make large parts of the world uninhabitable. If this were
the case he has been quoted as saying “A hot earth couldn’t support
much over 500 million.” In this event over 90 percent of the world’s
population, 6 billion at present and still growing, would be eliminated
“We have to understand that the catastrophe threatened by global
heating is far worse than any war, famine, or plague in living memory;
worse even than global nuclear war.” All we can hope for is that
technological fixes can buy time – but not to continue on the path of
business as usual. “It would be as unwise to rely on them as a cure as
for someone threatened with kidney failure to assume that dialysis
would allow life to go on as before.
But who would refuse dialysis if death was the alternative?” Lovelock
then condemns present environmental attitudes. “Environmentalism is an
urban belief that encompasses a wide spread longing for a more natural
way of life but has little understanding of the natural world and which
has an irrational fear of almost anything scientific.” This leads the
environmentalists to seek to adopt almost any alternative energy scheme
that seems natural and not based on science or technology. Some of
these, such as biofuels are positively dangerous and if adopted on a
large scale would “hasten disaster” “Others such as wind energy are
inefficient and expensive.” The green concepts of renewable energy are
too little and too late. For Lovelock, if we are to secure a well
planned and sustainable retreat from the polluted and degraded world of
today we must make “maximum use of environmentally friendly nuclear
fission energy. We are an urban civilisation and to survive the severe
climate change soon due we need to secure supplies of food water and
electricity.
” The world cannot continue to burn fossil fuels. There is no safe
alternative to nuclear energy “Modern civilisation is energy intensive
and we cannot turn it off without crashing." |
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Last Updated ( Monday, 19 March 2007 )
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