These Mini Nuclear Reactors Can be Built Anywhere

what's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the term nuclear power if you're thinking of past disasters giant cooling towers in the middle of nowhere or stores of radioactive waste then well you're not alone despite its carbon free credentials nuclear power has an unhappy reputation and while public support for it may have increased since the mid 1980s a quarter of americans for example are still not in favor but now engineers may have found a way to turn things around no we're not talking about fusion as exciting as that may be instead we might be looking at the next iteration of more traditional nuclear making those big ugly power stations smaller in some cases quite a bit smaller these new designs will be cheaper safer quicker and easier to build than their predecessors meaning they can be deployed anywhere from large cities to remote locations and even though there's been some skepticism the first projects are already in the works so does the future of nuclear power mean a reactor in every town or is this whole concept destined for a [Music] meltdown climate change might be the biggest issue of the 21st century to help dodge the worst of its impact humanity set itself a huge challenge cutting greenhouse gases to net zero renewables are the main strategy but wind solar and hydro won't be enough on their own we need something else in reserve according to the international energy agency to get where we need to be we're going to have to invest more in nuclear power but the use of nuclear has been decreasing for decades not helped by japan's fukushima disaster in 2011. nuclear power has been declining in terms of its importance to global electricity generation for more than 25 years at this point in the ramana is a professor at the university of british columbia's school of public policy and global affairs specializing in nuclear energy the maximum contribution of nuclear power to global electricity was in 1995 it was 17.5 and it was declined to about 10 nuclear power plants can take decades to build cost billions and are hugely complex finding the right location can be difficult and there are often setbacks during planning and construction two new nuclear reactors under construction in georgia will cost far more than expected the two reactors being constructed in the united states uh in the vogel project in georgia are running at around 30 billion dollars at this point and that amount of cost is too much for most utilities to bear but what if they didn't have to be so big and complicated what if we could do nuclear without all the hassle well soon we might be able to do just that several companies are working on small modular reactors or smrs which promise to make nuclear power much simpler and easier instead of giant reactors deliver a gigawatt of power but need years of construction smrs are mass produced in factories unlike conventional power stations which are individual projects requiring a great deal of prep work with these just have to add one to your basket and it's on the way their modular nature means the smrs will be less expensive and easier to install at least that's the aim so how small are we talking exactly so smrs or small mod reactors or any reactor that has a power output of 300 megawatts electric or less so our design is a 77 megawatt electric reactor and each of those modules is able to work with other modules so we can put them in arrangements of four 6 or 12 to produce different power outputs depending on what the customer needs now small reactors aren't entirely new at fort belvoir virginia the corps of engineers shows off its package power reactor to military attaches of the washington diplomatic corps it's the first step in a program to develop an atomic power plant that can be transported by air to remote location in fact they were being designed as far back as the 1950s mostly for submarines and big aircraft carriers there were civilian uses too but not many as larger reactors went on to become more economically viable where things are different this time is in the modular design a 60 megawatt reactor for example might not be enough to power the thing you want it to on its own say for instance a large city but you could order more than one stack them together and get as much power as you need they're also portable enough to go pretty much anywhere you can use an smr to power something which needs a lot of juice like a factory without having to be hooked into the grid we're the first commercial nuclear power plant and that's been approved by the new great recognition to not require independent connections to the grid and that's huge because that allows us to work closely with industry for example hydrogen production one of our modules working with high temperature steam electrolysis can produce about 50 tons of hydrogen per day sounds great but we know what you're thinking if we're going to have nuclear reactors everywhere how do i know there won't be a minish noble in my hometown before you go digging a bunker in your backyard these units are designed to be far safer than their predecessors because the cores of smrs are much smaller they generate less heat and there are far fewer moving parts to worry about they've got clever safety features too so for our design under the worst case conditions the reactors will safely shut themselves down without any operator action without any ac or dc power and they'll remain cooled for an unlimited period of time without the need to add water so that's a first for commercial nuclear power and it makes it extremely resilient and extremely safe making sure things don't go wrong is clearly a priority for this other new company ultra safe nuclear corporation a name we can't decide whether we love or hate inside its reactor the fuel is encased within layered ceramic coatings placed inside a silicon carbide matrix we're not entirely sure what that means but we're told it makes the fuel highly rugged and stable even at extreme temperatures as for waste when all the fuel has been spent after about 20 years the caskets can be swapped out like a giant a battery and stored in an underground repository another firm multex energy has gone a step further by designing an smr that's fueled by recycled nuclear waste called the ssrw it's a type of reactor that uses molten salt for fueling and cooling this method allows any radioactive gases to be absorbed and in the event of an emergency the reactor can be drained and the salt solidified preventing a meltdown now you might not have heard of these companies but you will know some of the people and tech firms linked to them radiant developer of a one megawatt microreactor is run by former spacex engineers meanwhile terrapower which plans to build a demo reactor in wyoming was set up by bill gates at 345 megawatts terrapower's tech is arguably too big to be an smr but it's still much smaller than a regular power station the same goes for rolls royce and its new 470 megawatt reactor according to the international atomic energy agency there are already several modular reactors under construction around the world argentina was the first to break ground with an smr project the 25 megawatts karen which has been underway since 2014 although it's just a prototype the plan is to follow up with a bigger version of at least 100 megawatts once it's complete hopefully in 2023. china's also announced it's building a 125 megawatt demo project in hainan province ling long one was the first small reactor to pass a safety review from the iaea in 2016 and construction began in 2021 these schemes may be small in terms of reactor size but they still need a huge amount of time and effort to complete these are issues that nu scale and its competitors plan to tackle if they overcome their remaining hurdles but despite the challenges new scale's first smr project at the idaho national laboratory is scheduled to start providing power by 2029 and other firms have set similar timelines things do seem to be progressing nicely but there are certain factors that are making some experts skeptical professor romano isn't convinced they'll produce enough power to make them cost effective so you're going to start with reactors which are fundamentally even more expensive on a per kilowatt hour basis as compared to large reactors and large reactors themselves are much more expensive than the other even low carbon alternatives including solar and wind power at this point he also believes that getting full regulatory approvals isn't going to be easy because if you're going to be building them and you're going to be building them all over the place including near towns and and in remote place and so on you want to be absolutely sure that you're trying to make it as safe as possible any good nuclear uh safety regulator will ask a lot of difficult questions right what happens if there's a fire what happens if the operator makes this kind of a mistake what happens if this equipment fails and answering those questions is going to be very difficult but new ideas are desperately needed to battle the climate crisis and whether or not smr technology ends up making a difference you can see why it's starting to generate so much excitement if it's time to give nuclear another chance then perhaps good things really do come in small packages if you enjoyed this video and you want to learn more about where construction is headed make sure you subscribe to tomorrow's build you

Channel: Tomorrow's Build

Views: 543,447

Keywords: construction, architecture, engineering, Tomorrow's Build, tomorrowsbuild, TomorrowsBuild, tomorrows build, B1M, The B1M, Fred Mills, building, future, energy, nuclear, nuclear power, small modular reactors, smrs, fukushima, chernobyl, spacex, bill gates, nuclear fusion, net zero, climate change, renewable energy, clean energy, nuscale power, rolls-royce, terrapower, moltex energy, radiant nuclear, ultra safe nuclear corporation, terrestrial energy, x-energy, power plants, nuclear reactors

Id: BrN_SRzsEF4

Length: 9min 53sec (593 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 26 2022