Small Reactors & a Nuclear Vacation

Download the mp3 File Here

Listen online here

I am about to head out on a little adventure that I’ll tell you more about in a few minutes. My bags are packed and I need to be out the door in 55 minutes.

We may be seeing the early beginnings of a fundamental shift in the commercial nuclear industry away from the one-size-fits-all approach where bigger is better. In the last few weeks there have been some interesting developments associated with small reactors and at the same time more large reactor projects are being put on hold.

About two weeks ago I told you about the announcement by B&W that they have designed a small modular reactor called the mPower reactor that will be factory built and shipped by rail to assembly sites. There are several other companies and partnerships developing a variety of small reactor designs: the Chinese and South Africans are working on Pebble Bed Modular Reactors; GE Hitachi is working on the Prism reactor, and start-ups Hyperion and NuScale have their own small reactor designs well underway. Even Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates is getting into the action; his investment company Intellectual Ventures is working on the “Traveling Wave” reactor. Apparently the NRC has acknowledged the need; they have requested public comment on whether or not the government should change the licensing fee structure for small reactors. Under the present fee structure it can cost literally hundreds of millions of dollars to get a new design through the licensing process for a single new reactor. That high fee is a huge impediment to innovation and new designs. You can read my letter to the NRC here.

To my second point, two or three weeks ago the US Dept of Energy announced which companies will get loan guarantees for the first wave of new reactors under the 2005 Energy Policy Act. The companies are NRG Energy, SCANA, Southern Company, and UniStar Nuclear Energy (a partnership between Constellation and Areva). Those reactor construction projects are moving ahead. In fact, a friend at Southern Company told me they will be “moving dirt” this month at the site of the new Vogtle reactors in Georgia. At the same time, several other North American projects have been put on hold including Exelon’s Victoria project in Texas, AmerenUE’s second unit at Callaway, and Ontario announced they are curtailing their new nuclear plans for now.

With the current vintage of large reactor offerings, the high initial capital cost poses a significant challenge for even very large companies. Small reactors on he other hand will carry a much lower price tag. This is one reason these small modular reactors offer so much promise. They will enable companies and investors to buy nuclear generating capacity in smaller bites, and to scale up gradually as their needs dictate. In addition, many of the construction bottlenecks that exist with large reactors do not carry over to small reactors. The plant components are smaller and can be manufactured in more places. In fact, some of the small reactor designs do not have high operating pressures because they use coolants other than water. In these cases, new reactors will not need forged reactor vessels like those required for light water reactors.

A Nuclear Vacation?

So what I am going to be doing for the next week? Surprisingly it has a lot to do with small reactors. I am on my way to the west coast to spend four days aboard the nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis! I’ll be joining the ship in San Diego on July 6 and will spend four days steaming north to Bremerton, Washington. This will be a new experience for me and I am really looking forward to it. While working in the Merchant Marine I traveled around the world on oil-fueled cargo ships, and I spent five years operating a submarine nuclear reactor plant for the Navy, but I have never been to sea on a nuclear-powered surface ship. The USS John C. Stennis is powered by two nuclear reactors that are large by mobile reactor standards, but would qualify as “small reactors” in the commercial nuclear world. I’ll be living, eating, sleeping and experiencing life aboard an aircraft carrier with ~ 5,000 of my new best friends all within a few hundred feet (or perhaps even a few feet) of two operating nuclear reactors.

Yes, this is how nuclear geeks spend their vacations! I will be blogging and hopefully I will have an opportunity to record a podcast or two while at sea. Stay tuned for more!

Peace!

John

Small Reactor Licensing - A Letter to the NRC

The NRC is considering a change to their fee structure for small reactors, and invited public comment. Here is a copy of the letter I sent.

Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff



Subject: Comments on the Proposed Changes to Licensing Fees for Small Reactors

To Whom It May Concern:

I graduated from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy with a Bachelors Degree in Marine Engineering with a concentration in Nuclear Engineering. I have more than 20 years of experience operating nuclear reactors for the US Navy and in the commercial power industry. I was Engineering Office of the Watch and Plant Engineer qualified at the S3G nuclear prototype, and I have held Senior Reactor Operator Licenses at the Turkey Point and Indian Point nuclear plants. Having operated both small and large reactors, I can speak from personal experience that small reactors can be designed, built, and operated with equal certainty and safety as large power reactors. In fact, small reactors have many advantages over large reactors that can be used to increase safety margins if the designer so chooses. Examples include natural circulation, air-cooled decay heat removal, and enhanced security features. From my informed point of view there is no technical basis for concern that small reactors pose excessive risk to public health and safety.



The USA desperately needs new clean, cost-effective, carbon-free energy sources to power our economy and replace our aging energy infrastructure. Because of the extraordinarily high cost and intermittent operation, renewable sources can not accomplish this task alone. We need small nuclear reactors to provide industry and investors with a new lower cost, scalable option for adding nuclear generating capacity to our nation’s power grid. In addition, small reactors could provide process heat in a number of applications in which large reactors are not practical. With that in mind, I support restructuring licensing fees to significantly reduce or eliminate the cost for small reactors for five reasons:

1. Licensing fees are so high that they are an impediment to investment and innovation.


2. The current fee structure is unfairly biased towards multi-billion dollar nuclear plants with huge power outputs.


3. The current fee structure is biased against nuclear energy in general. For example, designers and manufacturers of solar, wind, and renewable power plants are not required to pay such high licensing fees nor do they reimburse the government for costs associated with routine regulation and oversight.


4. Nuclear energy has become a critical part of our national economy and should receive equal treatment in our regulatory framework. Other industries such as the airline industry, the food industry, and the automobile industry are not subject to the same fees and are not required to reimburse the Federal Government for regulatory costs.


5. Small reactors can be built using factory-based modular construction techniques. Deploying of a fleet of small modular reactors would invigorate our nation’s manufacturing industry and would provide thousands of jobs in regions of the nation that have been hardest hit by the recent economic events and the transfer of manufacturing jobs to other parts of the world. Our licensing framework should be revised to encourage investment in small reactors and in doing so promote job growth.

Our nation has outgrown the reactor licensing framework of the past. It is time to level the playing field for nuclear energy. This requires us to rethink our entire reactor licensing and regulation fee structure. The fees associated with licensing small reactors are a great place to start! Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this important topic!

Sincerely,

John Wheeler

Producer, “This Week in Nuclear” Podcast

Could small modular nuclear reactors be the "Game Changing Technology" in the fight to reduce carbon emissions? (Podcast Episode #70)

In this video podcast I discuss the role of the social media in the unrest in Iran. I also speculate about how the B&W mPower reactor and other small modular reactors might be a key to reducing CO2 emissions.

Watch the video below. Download the video clip here.



MIT Energy Initiative

Twitter

B&W's mPower Reactor

Coal2Nuclear

And you thought nuclear engineering & science was all about energy? Guess Again! (Podcast Episode #69)

While at the American Nuclear Society Annual Conference last week I had the opportunity to speak with several students about their interests and fields of study. The broad range of responses is insightful and serves to illustrate that commercial energy generation is just one of many career options related to nuclear engineering, science, and technology.

The students also help dispel the myth that nuclear careers are only for technical specialists. The industry needs people who focus on business, communications, government affairs and many other non-technical disciplines!

Watch the video and you'll see what I mean!

Will Exelon Job Cuts Derail Long Term Workforce Planning Strategies?

This past Monday an Exelon representative at the ANS Annual Conference in Atlanta provided a compelling description of efforts they have underway to attract and retain nuclear talent. Three days later the company announced they will eliminate 500 jobs, including 400 from their corporate staff. It raises eyebrows because the company is viewed by others in the industry as already "lean" and very effective at corporate oversight of their nuclear operations.




John Rowe, Chairman and CEO of Exelon"]

Having been through several reorganizations in three different nuclear companies, I certainly understand the need to periodically reassess and adjust the structure and size of an organization. On the other hand, I can't help but wonder how the layoffs will be viewed by the company's workforce development partners and by potential new employees who may be considering careers with one of the industry's largest employers.

Fortunately, there are plenty of opportunities out there for displaced Exelon employees. A quick look at just one job posting board revealed more than 50 openings.

The company also stated they intend to reduce pay and freeze executive salaries to yield a savings of $350 Million next year which is about 3.5% of their operating and maintenance budget.

While Chairman and CEO John Rowe blamed the economic slowdown on the need to cut jobs, it's tough not to consider how the cost-cutting might be related to Exelon's attempt at a hostile takeover of NRG Energy.

Addition 6/26/2009 - Sources at Exelon stated that the layoffs announced earlier in the week would be focused in corporate suppport functions and would not affect nuclear technical functional areas.