The Future of Energy: Rolls-Royce SMR Industry Talk

[Music] hello everybody and welcome to this designer key event uh thank thank you everyone for signing up uh fantastic event we've got here today uh with rolls-royce smr so this event is hosted by myself anthony buckley on behalf of the imicky derby nottingham young members panel we have tom sampson with us today who's the ceo of the newly established rolls-royce smr business tom it's great to have you here and we look forward to understanding a bit more about how the rolls-royce smr and this technology can have a great contribution towards the net zero goal of the uk so just before i hand over to tom i'm going to play a short video which just sets the scene really of what rolls-royce smr is trying to achieve the uk target for net zero carbon emissions by 2050 is ambitious to achieve this we need more clean electricity to power a future that enables us to develop to grow to prosper our target to decarbonize cannot be met by intermittent renewables alone the challenge is on us all we must act now [Music] at rolls-royce we have the answer the rolls-royce smr is a low-cost clean energy solution made in the uk for industrial utility and energy customers a factory-built nuclear power plant transported to site as modules and assembled in a specially designed on-site factory radically reducing construction activity creating a fully integrated nuclear power plant and an architecturally beautiful structure [Music] the rolls-royce smr is scalable versatile and innovative it can be deployed across a variety of applications creating new opportunities to meet a range of clean energy needs capable of operating at availability levels of 95 24 hours a day seven days a week for 60 years a twin smr can also provide 100 availability of clean electricity for customers who need an always-on solution this unique n plus one configuration not only ensures access to clean energy all day every day but will also produce large volumes of surplus clean power which can be used for other off-grid solutions such as hydrogen production synthetic aviation fuels and desalination the rolls-royce smr uses proven and commercially available products allowing it to deliver a competitive low-cost solution creating delivery certainty reducing risk and building investor confidence and creating jobs lots of jobs the challenge is on us all we must act now for all our futures we are rolls royce our smr is powering a clean energy future we are pioneering the power that matters so i guess it's now for me to hand over to you tom thank you thank you very much i was really pleased when you asked me to come along and speak to the imeki members today um about 32 years ago i was involved in the young generation network at imeke i was on the power industries a board at imeke when i worked in gcl storm in traffic park back we were designing combined cycle power plants so again involved in designing power plants back then a member of the imeke and so i was really really quite pleased to be invited to come along i used to have to organize speakers for these types of events back in the in the 90s and i'm just reflecting as well 1990 was 32 years ago if i was speaking to somebody like me and as a young young engineer they'd have started their career in 1958 to be comparable to get to 1990 so i feel slightly bit of a dinosaur so bear with me as a as i try and keep up with the all the youngsters on on this on this call um but it's great to be here and it's also really timely given that we've just launched rolls-royce smr limited in the last few weeks a culmination of lots of effort over the last uh 18 months as we've delivered phase one of our program with our consortium partners and then moved from that into a newly established legal entity called rolls-royce smr limited with rolls-royce still the majority shareholder but we brought in new capital from new investors who are going to join us on this journey as shareholders in rolls-royce smr limited and allowing us to then access the grant funding that will then give us equivalent of 490 million pounds to take the technology forward through the next the next phase of the program we brought in alongside rolls-royce b f resources and as well as them who are a financial investor um and as well as bnf resources we've also brought in excellent generation and that that excellent for i mean most of you will probably have heard of them they're a us utility they're the largest commercial operator of nuclear assets uh globally and they achieve what is recognized as some of the highest performance standards in operating nuclear assets so having them as a shareholder is a real badge of honor for from our design and from our technology perspective they had the option to invest in any smr technology globally and they chose to invest in rolls-royce smr because they believe that's a technology that will get delivered and taken forward not just in the uk but globally and it's also timely that we're having this conversation uh at the uh shortly after cop 26 and i think for me cop 26 was really an indication that nuclear is seen now firmly as part of this solution there are always skeptics out there there's always people who have have a vocal voice in relation to nuclear and its challenges but i think the the discourse has changed people realize now the scale of climate change ahead of us and the challenge in getting to net zero and beyond and those who've thought about this and understand the scale of that challenge now recognize that nuclear needs to be part of the solution and i think there was lots of people from the young generation network in the nuclear industry up at cop26 in the blue zone talking about nuclear and bringing nuclear to life in a way that i thought was really quite inspirational as well and i think that that that for me has been a turning point in looking at how we how we bring nuclear forward and a great a great time for us then to be talking about a completely different way of making nuclear uh happen with our rolls-royce smr now i'm going to share with you today a little bit about how we're how we're planning to make that happen so yeah i'll give you a little bit of an introduction as to who rolls royce smart limited are but this is not something that we've we're starting from uh afresh you know our team in rolls-royce smr limited that have transferred over into that business now have got a long long history of working with nuclear technology from rolls royce's uh deep knowledge from the submarine part of our business in providing the nuclear reaction technology for the propulsion of the of the nuclear navy fleet and so that heritage in nuclear design and nuclear manufacturing people that have designed and developed the pco the engineering teams that have designed the reactor technologies in the submarine fleet are built into the the organizational capabilities that we've got within rolls-royce smr limited and i think that's a really important starting point given that we are now trying to take this technology to market that pedigree that heritage that experience really differentiates us in the smr world and it's something that we are really really proud of and intend and tend to build on and and we do need to move at pace with nuclear energy if you look back at the last 25 years or so nuclear hasn't been as as as widely deployed as it should have been for a variety of factors some of the global incidents that have taken place some of it related to the challenges of going large and what that meant in terms of deliverability of some of these larger more complex programs but as you can see from the the the carbon footprint across europe now the challenges of getting to a net zero economy um is really hard you can see the countries that are already there are countries that have either got a massive potential of hydro but also nuclear sweden france have got combinations of nuclear plus other other forms of clean energy and the ones that are most uh developed and deployed nuclear today are the ones that have got the cleanest grids and also brings to life that but once we in the uk have got you know the benefits of being an island in terms of the ability to access large volumes of offshore renewable wind energy that isn't the case across lots of europe and then particularly in central europe where they haven't got any offshore wind and their ability to access onshore wind and solar is limited and their ability to access gas as a form of base load uh with carbon capture is also limited so nuclear we're seeing is becoming a much more um viable solution in many countries that are now trying to work out how do they get to net zero by by 2050 and how do they decarbonize their grades from 2030 onwards so that's that's a really positive signal for us that demand is is global and is is quite unprecedented um and this is more than just traditional grid connected power plants which is what you maybe normally associate when you clear our technology can be collaborated and connected with other applications to help decarbonize some of them more harder to to clean up sectors particularly around transport so we can produce hydrogen we can produce synthetic aviation fuels we can produce kind of power for for helping clean up the transport sector but do it at a vast scale and importantly what we shouldn't forget is on a cost competitive basis uh the uk economy for example has had the benefit of uh oil and gas reserves for many many decades we need to think about the cost competitiveness of how we produce these future clean fuels and we believe the cost competitiveness of a baseload smr plant in that respect is very compelling however you look at the future projections of energy consumption under all the scenarios basically we're going to need more electricity either on the grid or off the grid to produce these clean products and in all scenarios that electricity demand is going to be going to be higher and plus the fact that we're already planning to decommission and take off the grid many of the emitting forms of energy that we use today and in the uk alone and elsewhere for that matter most of the nuclear fleet that was built 40 50 years ago is going to reach the end of its life so the demand for clean energy is unprecedented the demand for electricity generation that is both clean and low cost and importantly dependable is is going to become much much more prominent in in the many many years ahead and we we certainly see our smr has been designed specifically to to address that market because frankly nuclear is the cleanest and safest form of power generation that's out there now we've we've used we've used sometimes the issues of waste in nuclear as a reason in the public discourse for not doing more nuclear while at the same time we produce energy with fossil fuels which creates about eight to nine million deaths a year uh from air pollution um and that's something we've got to try and try and address now the the consequences of not having nuclear in the grid are already being seen today with the impacts on climate change that we've got today and for us waste is a very well regulated well-managed and well-defined part of our programs it's funded in the cost of electricity in the uk for nuclear and the waste from a single smr can fill an olympic size swimming pool over that 60-year life um and the other statistic i like to use is if you were to use as a human in your life life cycle say 80 years nuclear is a source of all your energy needs the waste that you would produce in your lifetime from nuclear would be enough to fill a a can of coke or where i come from a can of iron brew so that's the that's the footprint of nuclear waste that's created by an individual over over their lifetime so nuclear has to do a better job at portraying itself as the cleanest and safest form of power generation and and for for folks in the industry now like we talked about at cop26 with the young generation network like the work that's done in the ima key we've got to bring that kind of narrative to life because unless people realize and understand the value and the impact that nuclear has in terms of moving to net zero we're going to continue to struggle to build up that momentum the other thing that's quite unique about nuclear and particularly asmr is the ability to provide a form of firm clean power power that's always on and we talk a lot about lcoe as a number to compare offshore wind and nuclear that isn't an apples to apples comparison because you're comparing one marginal turbine on an intermittent offshore renewable field with what is effectively a 60-year source of base load energy so when you do that firm power comparison you have to start adding in lots of plus plus uh to get to a compatible uh let's say renewable with storage solution or renewable with storage and hydrogen solution to try to create a dependable always-on solution and that's when you start to then see the cost competitiveness and the compelling nature of our smr when you look at those other those other options if you look at this picture here hopefully you'll agree that's not what you would expect a nuclear power plant to look like and because of the scale of this because of the size of this we've really tried to make this something that has a positive impact on the landscape and create something that's a more iconic structure that can hopefully stand the test of time these assets are going to be in our in our communities and on sites for for many many many decades and and i look back at places like tate britain uh which again is an iconic structure in london that used to be a power plant battersea power station is still an iconic structure in in london it used to be a power plant there's no reason why we can't think of how a power plant uh comes across into its landscape as we design it and see hopefully we've truly tried to bring design uh to the forefront of how this technology looks when it when it's built and so what is it we're doing with an smr why is it different well the big difference in our smr approach and we are quite unique i think in this regard but we are probably at the largest end of the spectrum of smr technology about 470 megawatts um you've got smrs out there that are 5 10 megawatts so we're we're clearly the largest end of the spectrum and we get to that size by basically driving for one of the fundamental features of our design which is that it's a factory built product factory built commodity so we've tried to drive as much activity into a factory environment as we possibly can to minimize and eradicate the complexity of construction that has become a real kind of impact and a real challenge for larger larger programs so by building the single largest product in the factory and still being able to transport it by road we end up with a diameter of vessel for our reactor and based on that diameter we can put in so much fuel and with that much fuel we can produce so much thermal energy and from that thermal energy we get 470 megawatts so it's the biggest reactor you can design that adheres to that factory principle and allows everything that we build in the factory to be road transportable to site so we don't need heavy marine off loading facilities we don't need large marine facilities or special transportation solutions to get the factory built components and modules to the site and that's really the kind of central element of what we've done because this isn't technology for technology's sake which you can you can find out there as well there's lots of people with great ideas about doing different things with nuclear technology and creating new forms of nuclear nuclear reaction and nuclear fuels we've not gone down that path because our goal was to bring something to market that met the needs of consumers and so we set out with basically four criteria one was had to be low cost we had to deliver a cost competitive solution to consumers the second was i had to be deliverable but to be deployable with confidence we couldn't come up with a solution that was complex to build or or or inherently risky to to get to get built and we had to build something that was scalable you know we talked about the demand for electricity as being unprecedented in the future and so we've got to build something that we can then deploy globally and we can scale up uh and then we've also got to make something the fourth point being quite important it's investable we ultimately want to get to a place where this type of product our smr is not dependent on government funding decisions every time somebody wants to build one so we can bring in private capital we can create different structures and make this technology available to customers who wouldn't otherwise have had the ability to to contemplate a 20 billion pound large nuclear facility so those low-cost deliverable scalable investable criteria what we've used to come up with this design and so we're using at the heart of this proven technology so we get to a low-cost solution by using a standard pwr using standard fuel again something that's very similar to what we do in submarines and we know uh very well in fact if anything this is a less complex design than the designs we have in the in the nuclear submarine fleet um so it's something we know well and we understand how to design it and how to build it and that that that is a really important factor in keeping the cost down as well as that at 470 megawatts but most of the steam turbine island the balance of plant the cooling water we can buy that equipment off the shelf effectively it's commercially available products that exist today from multiple suppliers in an existing supply chain so we've already spoken to about five or six companies who could readily supply us a steam turbine that meets our need doesn't require the world's largest steam turbine or something bespoke it's an available off-the-shelf uh solution that can be provided by multiple companies and so by doing that we again keep the cost down as one of our central tenants the the delivery objective is met by using modularization wherever possible by using modern manufacturing techniques and by driving as much of the activity into the factory environment as possible where we can then innovate we can maximize productivity we can create a different work environment and so that factory environment is is essential to us delivering a product with more confidence and then that factory footprint gives us something that's scalable so we'll deliver our first unit uh hopefully by 2031 but at that point we've built the factory architecture and we can make two units a year so a thousand megawatts a year from that factory footprint and if we need to increase that supply because of demand we just build more factories so it's an entirely scalable product and each of the factories is making the same product with the same people regardless of where that where that where that plant is going to be built because of the innovative a seismic bearing feature we've got in this technology and then again with that factory predictability and transfer of knowledge we're able to provide customers with something that is able to attract capital and that's what you see the section through this picture here shows that reaction island reactor island sorry the turbine island and our cooling water system interestingly on the cooling water side what we've tried to do is utilize as a base design cooling towers that further minimizes the need to extract seawater creating less impact on the environment but it also maximizes the flexibility and where we can locate these smrs again there you can see the kind of compact footprint keeping the footprint compact keeping the size of the site activity simplified and condensed reduces costs as well and minimizes the the needed activity on on groundworks and associated infrastructure we talk a lot about factories and we've effectively got four factories you can see three of them on here one is the factory for building our heavy pressure vessels so very similar to our pco facilities that you can you can look at in our derby uh facilities for some of you guys who might work there so that this would be a very similar factory to the pco that would build and manufacture the heavy pressure vessels for for our smr we'd bring in the the forgings from somewhere like sheffield forge master who had been machined in advance and then we would build the the final heavy pressure vessel components within that factory we would then have a number of module factories so we've got two standardized modules that would then be on the back of trucks taking those modules to site and we bring all the components together and from the supply chain into that factory environment to build those modules with the pumps vessels piping valves instrumentation cni uh in the factory in some cases commission it in the factory as well and then deliver those modules to site to be assembled similarly we're trying to minimize the amount of construction activity and civil activity on site by pushing as much of the civil works into the civil modular factories and we've been working with lango work on on how to do that and using their their civil module factories that they've got already in works up um and then the fourth factor it's not on here is our site factory so the first thing we do on site is also build a factory so that all the work we do after we come out of the ground on site is done inside factory conditions that has a minimum impact then on the environment in terms of light and dust and noise pollution that allows us then to bring that innovative working that high productivity into all the work we do on site as well and you can see here just by doing that you can see the side pictures here the site factory going up a bit like the site factory is a bit like the facilities that exist at borrowed british aerospace a big big facility that can actually be used for multiple units so we take the site factory down and use it again on other other deployments elsewhere but the site factory then protects us from the elements on site and that can have a massive impact on our productivity especially in the uk where the weather is particularly in the winter months can create a lot of downtime due to rain or wind or snow or ice and so having that site factory has a big boost to our productivity and a corresponding benefit to our costs and so all those factories kind of play an important role and then we start the units up and commissioner i think keep in mind that we're not a reactor designer that's selling a reactor concept to somebody to make and deliver to somebody else to build it what we're doing at rolls-royce smr is delivering a fully integrated turnkey nuclear power plant factory built brought to site and assembled started up and commissioned and then handed over to our customer under a single contract we then operate that asset over its lifetime to produce either good electricity or off-grid power for other applications so that's a very other another feature we've got which is very compelling is that we're not just selling a component we're offering our customers a fully integrated nuclear power plant we are the systems engineer we are the integrator we're managing the logistics and the supply chain interfaces and we take responsibility for bringing together all those components and modules onto the site to build the power plant again that's a very compelling solution when it comes to trying to raise private capital to finance these types of projects but equally within rolls-royce smr you can get a sense of the variety of technology and engineering challenges that we'll be facing as we take this technology both through the gda but as we engineer the product that can be delivered not just in the uk but globally so lots of exciting opportunities for engineering skills and engineering careers within this industry and one that is a uk solution that can be exported around the world so i've had the benefit of my career uh to spend about 17 years internationally building and delivering power plants either from a german technology provider or an american technology provider so actually to have something that we can then take around the world and export it and deliver from the uk will be made in the uk delivered by uk engineering teams delivered by site people on site helping to build these facilities globally again exciting career prospects and career opportunities for people in our industry in the uk today again going back to that single contract basis because of that single contract because of our ability to integrate and manage the systems engineering because of our ability to drive construction risk out of the design and move into a factory environment it's a completely different risk proposition to to investors that hopefully will help us to then attract capital and whereas we used to call about epc contracts engineer procure construct we talk about ours as an ema engineer manufacture and assemble so a different way of doing things when it comes to building nuclear so again this is identifying the type of opportunities that we're going to create across the uk and we make no apology for the fact that we are a uk solution we're a uk design and ukip we're going to create uk factories that will manufacture nuclear content and power plant systems will produce modules and that will be for the uk market but importantly also for the export market so we're going to contribute to the uk economy as well by delivering components and power plants from uk factories to customers around the world so this is a global export opportunity creating long-term sustainable and richly rewarding engineering careers within within this business the global opportunities are already manifest in the conversations we're having today that will increase further as people start to look at how they address net zero and the role that nuclear can play if there's a solution that can make it uh digestible for them which is what our smr does we're confident that more and more countries will look to our smr as a way to help them meet their clean energy needs and also when you look at the cost competitiveness i already mentioned offshore and the plus plus aspects that do a firm power comparison but depending on the cost of capital we get anywhere between 35 to 50 maybe slightly higher for the first few units as we build the technology out but if you look at that compared to offshore wind with battery storage and for those consumers who need a 24 7 source of clean energy from 2030 onwards the cost competitiveness of what we're doing is very compelling so in summary that's that's who we are that's what we're doing it's probably the largest smr that's out there and i've explained to you why it's a 50 hertz design but equally we expect and will eventually have a 60 hertz model that will go into the us and other 60s markets proven technology turnkey power plant what you see on the picture is what we deliver is rolls-royce smr i've got a much more condensed construction timeline for the for the nth unit uh we've got all the generation three plus levels of safety in here around passive safety walk away safe expecting to have the first unit on the grid by the early 2030s if we get an order in the next 12 months capital cost is under 2 billion and it's a really good multi-functional application with a very cost competitive price so i will i will pause there and i'll hand back over to anthony who can hopefully uh facilitate the q a thank you very much thomas absolutely great i mean we've had lots of questions started to flood in now so i'll get straight to it um i guess the first one how does rolls-royce's smr differ or compete with new scales offering well i think what we what i mentioned before about the fact that we're offering a fully integrated turkey solution that's the first difference so new scale ge hitachi they see themselves as uh n triple s or nuclear safety systems uh uh oems so they're designers of the nuclear reactor on nuclear island new scale is not going to take a contract to build a nuclear power plant for any customer or our ge attack so they'll look to a floor or a bechtel or somebody else to then construct it and build around their technology and they'll look to somebody else to manufacture it they'll outsource it to the supply chain that inherently has lots of the same risks and interface challenges that large has today although on a smaller scale so it's quite a different proposition by bringing to market a fully integrated turnkey solution um ge hitachi is a bwr design has been shrunk down from their their larger bwr solutions and new scales is an integrated reactor design something that we designed in rolls-royce back in the 1980s but we decided that was a very complicated thing to manufacture it's basically where you wrap around your steam generator with a helical coil structure around your reactor pressure vessel into a single integrated vessel and they're much smaller in megawatts so there's lots of the modules of those but equally they're very large and complex in size so the modular modularization that new scale have is in modules of say 60 70 megawatts our modularization is done at the power plant level okay brilliant so one we obviously talked a lot about the factory thought aspect do we have an understanding of kind of the cost reduction that gives us in comparison to a kind of bespoke built power plant or smr yeah well if you look at the the projections that we've got and again we've got a lot of cost analysis behind us we've had to go through as you can imagine to secure the grant funding from ukri extensive due diligence we've had due diligence done by our shareholders so we've we've fully expl explained all of our cost analysis and again our costs are based on our knowledge of the technology from submarines our knowledge of what it costs to build factories as rolls-royce our knowledge with people like lang o'rourke and bam knuckle on how to build a site factory and make civil modules so our the inputs we've got into our costs are are pretty well defined clearly there's a lot of the modularization piece that's yet to be kind of fully fleshed out so there's some some contingency and margin around that but we look at the total picture of our costs we're around about 50 to 60 pounds a megawatt hour with a with a traditionally financed solution and that's about half the cost of hinckley points in terms of pounds per megawatt hour so we see that as a very demonstration of our competitiveness as a modular smaller low-cost design attributes bearing that outcome is part of our solution great so there's one here on using existing sites so i know you've kind of touched on location um is is the aim for the smr to be deployed where i guess previous power stations have been decommissioned and have we consider has that been considered as part of the design where we could integrate those existing sites yeah very much so i think one of the key thing to mention on the sites is one of the the common features across all the sites is they have an a seismic bearing and the a seismic bearing is designed to to accommodate the site characteristics such that everything above the a seismic bearing is the same so the product we make in the factory is the same regardless of which site it goes on because of the a seismic bearing concept we've got three three categories of sites where we're planning to deploy this technology in the uk and i think it's the same elsewhere they may not have the first category as a newcomer country our first category is the nuclear decommissioned estate um including including some of the gigawatt sites that are no longer in active development so there's already a nuclear estate there that is ideally placed and where some of those locations weren't suitable for gigawatt deployment they're very well suited to the size of smr about 500 and 470 megawatts so they've already got existing grid connection they've already got existing water infrastructure that we can tap into so that's very much a part of that kind of decision making process the second category is decommissioned coal plants again coal assets across the uk that have run for for many many decades have got a good connection have got a cooling water architecture we could look at deploying smrs within that vicinity and take advantage of those existing connections as well the third area is places like industrial footprints where in refineries or other places where we currently process oil and gas we could put an smr in there and help those facilities to produce clean fuels hydrogen synthetic fuels and look at vanessa mar becoming a source of clean energy for 60 years it can be turned converted into other clean clean products and that that's the kind of three categories in the uk there are there are many many opportunities across that industrial coal and nuclear state in the uk to host many many smrs in other countries take for example poland there's a big market there they've got lots of coal estate lots of lignite combined heating power plants about 300 400 megawatts that are ideally suited then to take power from an smr so it depends on the country but there are the kind of three categories decommissioned nuclear sites coal plants and industrial locations brilliant so there's a couple of questions here just on kind of iep uh and national security so obviously there's a desire for global deployment and i think what you said kind of need that for for cost scalability how do we manage the iep and the national security considerations given where a lot of the expertise has come from um given the rolls royce submarine's links yeah well firstly the the rosemost submarine technology is a separate separate part of rolls royce that's not what we're using here but we've taken that knowledge base to design something for this application so there's no there's no correlation between that defense business and what we're doing here in terms of ip or technology we've transferred all the people now and the smr ip into rolls rolls-royce smr limited we operate under strict export control regimes any country which in which we intend to sell an smr would have to be fully signed up to all the appropriate nuclear international treaties we'd have to follow the iaea guidelines on what we need to be in place in country before we can start engaging with them but the the real factor is the export control regime protects and manages that the the management of nuclear information and the blur proliferation risks okay great so just moving now on to i guess kind of public perception on nuclear so there's a couple of questions around this uh is is the raspberry smr business doing anything to kind of support that positive public perception around nuclear because obviously some of the sites you've talked about they're kind of used to there being nuclear generating power stations there so so that so so to make it an easier place to pick um and in terms of the risk level for nuclear power stations there's a question here does the design eliminate risks of the nuclear disaster like fukushima um well i think the risks risks exist and have to be managed and designed out and we have obviously does not be on design basis events our design includes many of the safety features that have been identified across the industry post fukushima we have a number of passive safety features in there as well as other other layers of protection and safety features that reflect what came out of the learnings and experience from fukushima so absolutely yes communities that are closest to nuclear assets are the strongest advocates for nuclear assets they understand the technology they realize and can see the economic benefits and so i think that is that is a really compelling case for other communities who are contemplating hosting an smr to see those benefits as well we will have to confront that in the future but for the time being our initial deployments are going to be across those nuclear decommissioned estates so we're going to hopefully be able to prove what that looks like and deliver against that and then in parallel to that have those conversations with the call sites and other communities have not had a nuclear asset and we will have to do a more prominent role having that conversation in the public domain through rolls-royce smr limited hopefully people can see our new website they can see our linkedin facilities we're now active on social media we're active in the press and so hopefully by beginning this conversation we can describe to people what our smr is how it functions and try and address some of those perceptions in those communities that are not as familiar with nuclear yet okay so a bit more of i guess a technical design question i i i'll ask it ask it anyway so rather than enriched uranium have rolls or smr considered the use of kind of uranium salts or molten salt reactors instead as a technology for the smr yeah so again we when we started this journey back in 2015 you know rolls royce we we tried to secure components and scope within the gigawatt space and we tried to get business from all the gigawatt activities that were out there with foreign technologies that were active in the uk but it really didn't manifest in any real meaningful uk content for us and that's when we decided we have to come up with our own design and look at on uk a uk reactor technology solution that we can then deliver here and export globally but we started with a blank sheet of paper we didn't have any solution that we were trying to build around we looked at molten salt we looked at new scale we looked at other technologies and as i said we looked at addressing four criteria so the design has been influenced by those market criteria and so when it look when you look at other types of nuclear fuel molten salt there isn't an existing fuel supply network there isn't an existing waste cycle so you in bringing the technology to market you require that host nation or that community to then invest in those other things that don't exist today which has a big burden on on deployment so what we've decided to do is use existing technology pwr with existing standard uh enrich uranium fuel which is readily available and all the waste streams are readily understood and manageable and that helps us end to drive down the cost and improve uh delivery certainty by eradicating and or avoiding the introduction of innovative and unnecessary technology risk because if you look holistically at this anthony we achieved huge technology breakthroughs when we split the atom and produced nuclear power in the in the 40s and 50s i mean that that in itself is a remarkable thing that we've done and by capturing the heat through a pwr using standard fuel and with all the safety features that isn't the thing we're trying to solve what we're trying to solve is how do we build them on time and on budget and deploy them at scale across the world and so that's why we've designed our smr to be a factory built solution modular in the extreme using modern methods of manufacturing eradicating construction risk they're the things we had to solve and that's why we designed our smr that way it's not about trying to get a better way of splitting the atom and producing heat that's a pretty cool solution already let's use that it works and let's solve the other challenges by doing the modularization and modern methods of manufacturing okay so on to i guess the longer term view will rolls or smr be providing through life support in terms of supporting outages and necessary refueling and mandatory inspections will that be kind of passed on to the operator well clearly our customers will own and operate these assets but we will absolutely have a role to play as rolls-royce smr in providing services outage management support uh other technology and design support to the fleet uh globally as it goes forward clearly exelon are now a shareholder in rolls-royce smr they may also become an operator for this technology with some of our customers if our customers have not got a nuclear operating capability so that's really helpful addition to our to our toolkit but yes there will be hopefully additional service and support revenue from the build out of the fleet globally and we will be developing those solutions to give to our customers in due course okay brilliant so on that kind of fleet deployment question got one here from chris that says with only two being built per year two is smr's being built per year how will we prioritize how will you prioritize who secures access to the first smr well they're they're not quite queuing around the corner yet uh chris but hopefully we'll get we'll get to that point and i think you're touching on a really interesting phenomena which is when we build the factory and we're producing two a year we're going to be selling slots so you you want an smr you have to pick your slot it's like what happened when we when the nine fas and the big gas turbines were produced by the siemens and the ge's of the world you had to secure your slot in the production line i think we'll probably end up something similar with smrs in the future where customers will need to make a commitment early enough to secure the slot depending on when they want the smr on their grid but keep in mind it's a scalable solution so as that demand does increase and we see overseas export orders coming in we then can build a second set of factories in the uk or a third set of factors in the uk or based on where that regional demand is for the technology let's say in turkey for example they may have a demand for 20 units we might be able to build some modular factories in that part of the world and create a regional hub as the business grows globally okay brilliant so just kind of going back i know we've briefly touched on new scale who do you see is your biggest competitor if you like at this point in time yeah i think when it comes to 50 hertz i don't think there's anybody as far advanced as we are we've sent our application into the unr to begin the gda process two weeks ago we've got 490 million of capital lined up to come in over the next three and a half years to help us progress through that process and we're now focusing on securing revenue from sales in the coming 12 to 18 months so we're ready to go to market now we don't need to wait for the gta to be complete before we can then sell this technology in the marketplace so when it comes to 50 hertz i think we are we're at the front front uh front of the the market there are russian and chinese solutions out there but they they come with other other challenges and obviously in the u.s new scale has gone through the nrc process so they've gone through a more uh of their design process they've spent a lot more money there so there's been a longer time than us so they're probably ahead of us in terms of nrc status but again it comes back to how do you sell a product to customers that they want to buy that's manageable on an integrated turnkey basis we think that's a big differentiator for us as well okay and and in terms of kind of regulatory approval do you see there being any kind of major challenges we've taken the design through the gda process here in the uk um and is there anything that you need to work with the regulator on given that this is the first kind of i guess british designed um nuclear power or nuclear reactor in decades yeah no you're absolutely not and that's not a great thing to say that we've now got a uk design going through the gta with the uk regulator i think the regulator is looking forward to that they've had they've had a japanese design they've had an american design they've got a french design they've got a chinese design all designs that were regulated elsewhere that had to be shoehorned into the uk requirements which is quite painful we're going into this process with a deep knowledge of the uk regulatory requirements we're going through a process where the design will run concurrently with regulatory approval so we can adapt and adopt the regulatory outcomes as we go through the design we understand what the regulator will and won't accept so we understand they'll need to be hardwired safety systems so we build that in at the start by building it at the start it doesn't have a major major disadvantage to our cost or deployment because we've designed it in from the beginning some of the other technologies have had to fight some of those issues because it's not part of their design in other jurisdictions so i i think that will be a good process for us we've had extensive engagement during phase one with the regulator we've shown them and shared with them what we're planning to bring through the process which has helped them understand what we're bringing to the table um and i think as i say we're using proven technology pwr standard fuel uh the uk process is rigorous and it is going to be challenging but we've got a very extensive and experienced team here helena perry has just joined us from westinghouse who's been through the gda on the ap1000 she's been through the gda process and worked on horizon in the past so we're building a really capable team that will take that gda process forward backed by matt blake and the engineering team that are going to be presiding providing the design bases that will go into that process so i've got every confidence that we'll get through that gda process successfully it will be onerous it will be challenging that's the nature of regulation but keep in mind when we get that uh status of dac and soda for this technology that will be a huge badge of honor globally as as the uk regulator is seen as probably the high water mark on on uk on nuclear regulations globally brilliant so we've got loads of questions coming in so i'm going to have to to pick and choose given we've only got 10 minutes or 5 10 minutes left we've got an interesting one here on concrete so in in a reduced carbon world have we investigated using alternative materials um to concrete obviously people know concrete generates quite a significant amount of co2 yes yes we we are we're looking at ways in which we can have low low co2 concrete we're looking at ways we have less concrete uh looking at ways where we can use steel uh in the design and look at that modularization uh philosophy around how they build offshore rigs and oil and gas experiences so all those ideas are being explored uh from an engineering perspective in the teams right now and that's definitely part of our our objective here is to also have a low impact design as a minimum co2 built into the asset as we construct it brilliant so i'd like to just move on i guess to a few questions we've got on guess opportunities going forward and there's obviously a lot of young engineers on the call who may be interested in in the industry and their careers going forward what what are our pl what are your plans tom to support rapid talent acquisition um over the next kind of few years and specifically with attracting a young talent yeah so absolutely the the growth that we've got ahead of us over the next three or four years is enormous so we do need to attract talent we need to make sure we're seen as a a great place to come and work so we're working right now on building that culture in that environment where we want to make this a a really exciting place to work where the challenges and the opportunities are on unparalleled elsewhere in the business and so that's really incumbent on us and we can offer a very flexible and and rewarding experience for for for new new engineers and other career opportunities that come into our to our organization we've got a dedicated talent management team within the business uh under adam ellis and michael fideman we're using the the linkedin channels to to recruit we're working with a number of uh specific recruiters to help build the business around people like morrisons and aws and a few others but linkedin channels are probably the first starting point uh we'll be identifying the the positions in due course through that process and we do have a huge demand for it for engineering talent helping with the engineering design helping with the vmv helping with the gda with the regulator we have a desire for bringing in engineering talent to help us develop opportunities globally to sell the technology business development talent uh communications corporate affairs social media talent to help promote the technology globally so there's a whole raft of opportunities um and as somebody who began my career designing power plants in the uk and had the opportunity to work internationally in places like hong kong and china as a young engineer i think that's what really excites me about what we're doing in rolls-royce smr you can come to rolls-royce smr you can work on uk technology and the uk design and eventually you could go and help them be delivered and commissioned and started up all over the world and so that that most engineers i know are excited by uh what's out there in the world and having them a career in a company that's going to be active in that global clean energy space with a purpose that's so clearly tied to clean energy and net zero that i think will hopefully will hopefully be able to attract the best talent in this country and bring them into our business and grow brilliant and just so people are aware where where will if there are i guess opportunities available where can people find them or where will they be based so we've got two two current uh hubs we've got the hub in derby which is where most of our engineering team are currently based and we've got additional space there in jubilee house that we're taking on board to allow us to expand we've got a team in warrington and space there to grow as well and that's where helena and the gda team will be based a bit closer to the regulator in brutal we're probably going to create a headquarters or an office in manchester so we can then grow again some of the corporate functions but also other engineering and gda resources to support warrington and derby and so i think they'll become our three three key key areas uh you know warrington derby and a group a growth area potentially as well in in manchester which i find very exciting though mr rose met mr royce at the midland hotel in manchester to have a presence there with something as exciting as this i'm sure both of those uh both of those uh founders of the rolls-royce would have been extremely excited about would be would be quite iconic as well brilliant i'm sure people will be on the lookout for what's available going forward given the time i just i'll just ask one more question then um again apologies to questions i haven't asked we've had an absolute flood of questions is kind of about the first power station assets does rolls-royce smr foresee taking any equity stake in in those first power plant assets particularly the first adopters um not not right now that isn't that isn't part of our business plan but what we are doing right now is helping to establish a development company that can facilitate the deal architecture and create the projects that will then have the financial capital within them to to then deliver these projects and deliver our smr and they'll become our customer that we would then sign up to deliver an smr contract with um so we we're not intending to become an owner operator of nuclear assets but we do need to make sure that we facilitate the introduction of private capital excellent are going to be the operator if people need them to have an operator to help make that work and but we are going to become more active in that developer space and helping to structure the deals to allow us to go forward the uk hasn't really got utilities that are waiting to buy smrs edf have got their own technology eon i've got an anti-nuclear stance because of their german ownership so what we're hoping to do is create like a nuclear ipp that attracts capital with an operator with off take with sites and and so that will allow us then to move it base and deploy the fleet more quickly brilliant thank you very much tom i think it's great the amount of questions we're getting and kind of obvious enthusiasm of all the engineers on the call it's great to see i think we'll leave it there today given the time i'm sure everyone's got kind of meetings to be in at one o'clock um so i guess just like to say thank you very much tom for for your time today and coming to tell us about the rolls-royce smr and how it's going to support the journey to net zero in the uk and but not just the uk globally i guess um hopefully the audience enjoyed it and all the attendees found this useful i'm sure they did given the amount of questions we've been asked and it looks like there's some fantastic opportunities in the sector going forward so i guess everyone keep an eye out uh you've mentioned the website you've mentioned the linkedin site where people can follow follow up there so yeah i guess finally tom i guess thank you again for coming and supporting us um and also to the attendees have come in and asking some some great questions today and i hope everyone has uh enjoys the rest of their day thanks very much anthony well done okay super thanks everyone

Channel: Institution of Mechanical Engineers - IMechE

Views: 14,232

Keywords: Nuclear, low carbon, net-zero, net zero, energy, mechanical engineering, engineering, small modular reactor, Rolls-Royce

Id: MkP3LeKbPJs

Length: 54min 9sec (3249 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 05 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Gordon_The_Greedy]

This is the future. I think this is going to make them an industry leader and we are the VIP’s early to the party.

[u/Comfortable_Head_262]

“Who do you believe is your competition?

-No one.” Paraphrasing of course 😏

[u/No-Cheesecake-8472]

is the sound a little cockeyed or is it just me? no just me by running two at once..