U.S. Oil Major Is A Big Winner Of Biden’s Climate Funding

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Aug 31, 2023, 

• Occidental Petroleum won one of two grants by the Biden Administration to build the world’s first direct air capture plant in Texas.
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• The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act increased credit values for carbon reduction projects across the board.
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• Capturing CO2 from the air is the most expensive application of carbon capture, the International Energy Agency says
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One of the biggest U.S. oil producers, Occidental, has just won one of two grants by the Biden Administration to build the world’s first direct air capture plant in Texas that would extract carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere.      

Occidental, the first U.S. oil firm to pledge net-zero emissions, including the emissions from its products Scope 3, is betting big on direct air capture (DAC) technology to directly remove the greenhouse gas and sell carbon removal credits to corporate polluters. 

DAC is not directly threatening Oxy’s core oil business. It focuses on emissions reductions, not reduction of the currently available energy sources.     

Environmentalists, of course, slam the carbon removal and carbon management efforts of Big Oil, claiming that DAC and carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) are the next greenwashing tools of companies that don’t want to reduce oil and gas production. 

The Biden Administration, which has angered the oil industry many a time in the past two years with restrictive policies and attempts at too much oversight, is handing out billions of grants as part of the Investing in America plan. It has also significantly raised tax credit values for carbon capture technology with the Inflation Reduction Act. 

And one of the top U.S. oil producers, Occidental, is a winner in both. 

South Texas Direct Air Capture Hub

The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act increased credit values for carbon reduction projects across the board, with the tax credit for carbon storage from carbon capture on industrial and power generation facilities rising from $50 to $85 per ton, and the tax incentives for storage from direct air capture (DAC) jumping from $50 to $180 per ton. The provisions also extend the construction window by seven years to January 1, 2033. This means that projects must begin physical work by then to qualify for the credit.Related: Gazprom Claims It Accounts For Over Half Of Chinese Gas Import Growth

In early August, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced up to $1.2 billion to advance the development of two commercial-scale direct air capture facilities in Texas and Louisiana. The projects are “the initial selections from the President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law-funded Regional Direct Air Capture (DAC) Hubs program, which aims to kickstart a nationwide network of large-scale carbon removal sites to address legacy carbon dioxide pollution and complement rapid emissions reductions,” the DOE says. 

One of the two projects, South Texas DAC Hub in Kleberg County, is being developed by Occidental subsidiary 1PointFive and its partners, Carbon Engineering and Worley. The project will seek to develop and demonstrate a DAC facility designed to remove up to 1 million metric tons of CO2 annually with an associated saline geologic CO2 storage site.  

“We believe this selection validates our readiness, technical maturity and the ability to use Oxy’s expertise in large projects and carbon management to move the technology forward so it can reach its full potential,” Oxy president and CEO Vicki Hollub said. 

Days later, Occidental signed an agreement to buy its partner, Carbon Engineering, a DAC innovator company with which it has been collaborating since 2019.   

“Together, Occidental and Carbon Engineering can accelerate plans to globally deploy DAC technology at a climate-relevant scale and make DAC the preferred solution for businesses seeking to remove their hard-to-abate emissions,” Hollub said. 

DAC: The Most Expensive Carbon Removal Application 

Capturing CO2 from the air is the most expensive application of carbon capture, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says.

The CO2 in the atmosphere is much more dilute than in flue gas from a power station or a cement plant, which contributes to DAC’s higher energy needs and costs relative to these applications.

DAC is currently expensive, but Oxy believes it could bring the costs down, Richard Jackson, President, U.S. Onshore Resources and Carbon Management, Operations, at Occidental, has told the Houston Chronicle.

“The biggest challenge is scale, building million-ton plants at scale, proving that can be done. The market will be there once these products are proven,” Jackson said. 

Wide adoption of DAC needs costs to drop from $600-$1,000 per ton today to below $200 per ton, and ideally closer to $100 per ton, according to David Webb, Chief Sustainability Officer, Managing Director and Senior Partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG). 

While the Biden Administration’s policies are accelerating DAC plans and pilot projects, technology, costs, and scale need to materially improve for direct air capture to become a profitable industry. 

Critics say DAC and other carbon removal plans are different forms of greenwashing in which polluters, including oil firms, use these technologies as an excuse not to cut emissions from the oil and gas they pump. 

“It’s a shiny technology that would allow the world to avoid making hard decisions about energy use and continue business as usual,” Andrew Logan, a senior director at Ceres, the non-profit coalition advocating for sustainability, told Bloomberg.

Climate groups are not convinced that carbon removal deals, in which companies capturing CO2 sell credits to polluters to offset their emissions, would accelerate global emissions reduction.   

For example, the European Commission’s proposed Carbon Removal Certification Framework (CRCF) “leaves many important questions unanswered and vital issues unaddressed, and could usher in an era of greenwashed and money-wasting carbon removals,” non-profit think tank Carbon Market Watch says. 

In the EC’s draft regulation, “there is a risk for the framework to be turned into a greenwashing exercise and provide another excuse for big polluters to avoid cutting their emissions,” according to WWF.      

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

The Completion Of This Mega Refinery Is Crucial For China

By Simon Watkins - Aug 29, 2023

• The finalisation of Oman’s Duqm refinery complex is a strategic step for China and Iran.
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• The 230,000-bpd Duqm refinery project is crucial in China’s plan to build up a petrochemicals presence in the Middle East.
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• As it now stands, the Duqm refinery will soon function alongside the US$4.6 billion Liwa Plastics Project.

Oman has an importance to China and Iran that goes way beyond its relatively small oil and gas reserves (only around five billion barrels of oil reserves and about 24 trillion cubic feet of gas). Crucial to both countries is Oman’s geographically-strategic position, with long coastlines along the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea offering unfettered equal access to the markets of the West and the East. According to a senior source who works closely with Iran’s Petroleum Ministry spoken to by OilPrice.com, China’s long-held objective is to secure control over Oman to have mastery over all the key crude oil shipping route chokepoints from the Middle East into Europe that avoid the Cape of Good Hope route (more expensive and more nautically challenging) and the Strait of Hormuz route (more politically sensitive). This is fully aligned with Beijing’s broad strategic goal encapsulated in its ‘One Belt, One Road’ multi-generational power-grab project. 

China already has effective control over the Strait of Hormuz through the all-encompassing ‘Iran-China 25-Year Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement’, as first revealed anywhere in the world in my 3 September 2019 article on the subject and as analysed in full in my new book on the new global oil market order. The same deal also gives China a hold over the Bab al-Mandab Strait, through which crude oil is shipped upwards through the Red Sea towards the Suez Canal before moving into the Mediterranean and then westwards. This has been achieved as it lies between Yemen (the Houthis having been long supported by Iran) and Djibouti (over which China has also established a stranglehold).

Related: Chevron Evacuates Gulf Of Mexico Oil Platforms As Hurricane Idalia Approaches

China has another use for Oman, which is to enable its core Middle Eastern partner, Iran, to finally build out its liquefied natural gas (LNG) business into a world-scale operation. The plan is for Iran to utilise at least 25 percent of Oman’s total 1.5 million tons per year LNG production capacity at the Qalhat plant. Such an idea was originally part of the broader co-operation deal made between Oman and Iran in 2013, extended in scope in 2014, and fully ratified in August 2015 that was centred on Oman’s importing at least 10 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year (bcm/y) from Iran for 25 years through an underwater pipeline. That deal was to have begun in 2017, at which time it was worth around US$60 billion. The target was then changed to 43 bcm/y to be imported for 15 years, and then finally altered to at least 28 bcm/y, also for a minimum period of 15 years. The land pipeline of the project that would move gas from Iran’s supergiant South Pars and North Pars fields in the first instance would comprise around 200 kilometres of 56-inch pipeline to run from Rudan to Mobarak Mount in the southern Hormozgan province. The sea section would include a 192-kilometre section of 36-inch pipeline along the bed of the Oman Sea at depths of up to 1,340 metres, from Iran to Sohar Port in Oman.

This deal was intended to allow for the completely free movement of Iranian gas (and later oil) via Oman, running out through the Gulf of Oman and then into the world hydrocarbons markets. The route was designed to allow Iran the same sanctions-free flows that it was operating via Iraq, as also analysed in my latest book on the global oil markets. Given the potentially sanctions-busting nature of the project, though, the U.S. included the prevention of this Iran-Oman LNG project in its efforts to stop Iran from expanding its hydrocarbons export routes into the booming market of Asia. Before the Saudi Arabia-led blockade of Qatar erupted in 2017, the U.S. offered an alternative for Oman, which was that it increased its uptake of gas from Qatar. This would come via the Dolphin Pipeline running from Qatar to Oman through the UAE, or in LNG form, but Oman refused. Oman’s desire to re-energise the plans for the Iran-Oman gas pipeline was also fanned at that time by the UAE’s demands for an increasingly large fee for allowing the transit of gas from Iran through its waters, again part of the U.S. strategy to persuade Oman to take its gas from Qatar.

Following the recent China-brokered resumption of relationship deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia, as also analysed in my latest book, the UAE’s willingness to be utilised by the U.S. in its fight against this planned new network of pipelines appears to have evaporated. As highlighted by OilPrice.com in May, a major new gas pipeline being planned will run along a 2,000-kilometre corridor via Oman - and the UAE - through the Arabian Sea and into India. This will allow gas to be gathered in from Oman and the UAE themselves, and from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkmenistan. These countries together have, by very conservative estimates, just under 2,895 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas reserves - Iran 1200 tcf, Qatar 858 tcf, Saudi Arabia 333 tcf, Turkmenistan 265 tcf, UAE 215 tcf, and Oman 24 tcf. Critically as well, although there will be one major pipeline running from the Middle East to India in the first instance, several other extensions of this pipeline plan are readily available. As also analysed in full in my new book, finished plans for an Iran-India pipeline and an Iran-Pakistan pipeline – both of which could be extended to China – have long been in place. 

This said, it was the US$8.5 billion 230,000-bpd Duqm refinery project – and ancillary projects (another US$10 billion or so) – in which China first saw the best route to win favour in Oman, and thereby seek to establish control over key regional oil transport routes. The problem Oman encountered in the mammoth Duqm undertaking was that building up a petrochemicals presence, as the project is intended to do, requires a lot of upfront spending ahead of being able to generate returns further down the line, and this left a massive gap in its finances. Already accounting for around 90 percent of Oman’s oil exports and most of its petrochemicals exports to that point, China was quick to leverage this to sign a US$10 billion investment in the Duqm refinery project - just after the implementation of the nuclear deal with Iran at the beginning of 2016, in fact. The focus of this Chinese money initially was on completing the Duqm refinery, but it was also expanded to include financing for a product export terminal in Duqm Port and the Duqm refinery-dedicated crude storage tanks of the Ras Markaz Oil Storage Park. More Chinese money was also funnelled towards the construction and building out of an 11.72 square kilometre industrial park in Duqm in three areas - heavy industrial, light industrial, and mixed-use.

According to the plans, all of which will be ready within the next five or so years, in the light industrial zone there will be 12 projects, including the production of 1 gigawatt (GW) of solar power units, and of oil and gas tools, pipelines and drilling equipment. The mixed-use sector will focus on projects designed for the tourist trade, including the construction of a US$150 million hotel on a 10-hectare area, US$100 million to build a hospital, and US$15 million towards a school. The heavy industry sector will also see 12 projects, dealing with the production of commercial concrete, building materials and related industries, production of glazed glass, methanol and other chemicals. In addition, the site will cater for steel smelting, aluminium production, production of vehicle tires, building materials for protection against water and corrosion, extracting magnesium from seawater, and various chemical-aromatic projects. 

As it now stands, the Duqm refinery will soon function alongside the US$4.6 billion Liwa Plastics Project (LPP) industrial complex, also near the Oman Oil Refineries and Petroleum Industries Company’s Sohar refinery in the Special Economic Zone at Duqm. The final part of Oman’s vision of building an Omani integrated refining and petrochemical business, is the 290-kilometer-long Muscat Sohar Product Pipeline for transporting refined products. The US$336 million pipeline connects the refineries of Mina Al Fahal and Sohar to an intermediate distribution and storage facility at Al Jifnain. Split into three sections - 45 kilometres between the Mina Al Fahal and Al Jifnain Terminal, 220 kilometres between the Sohar and Jifnain Terminal, and 25 kilometres between the Al Jifnain Terminal and Muscat International Airport – the project is integral to the delivery of more than 50 percent of Oman’s fuel via the state-of-the-art storage facility in Al Jifnain. For China and Iran, all these facilities will be extremely useful in their day-to-day business. But incalculably more useful in multiple ways will be the fact that they have secured control over this vital global strategic hub of Oman.

By Simon Watkins for Oilprice.com

Viewpoint: Quantum computing and the nuclear industry

29 August 2023

A research project has highlighted the potential for quantum computing to deliver significant benefits for the design and operation of radiation facilities in the nuclear, medical and space industries, as Professor Paul Smith, Jacobs ANSWERS Technical Director, explains.

(Image: Paul Smith/Jacobs)

Modelling radiation transport is fundamental to nuclear physics and plays a part in everything from reactor design and operation, fuel fabrication, storage, transport, decommissioning and geological disposal. Beyond nuclear power and decommissioning, it plays a vital role in nuclear medicine, the space industry, food irradiation and oil well logging.

Monte Carlo codes are the reference method for creating simulations and solving equations to understand the way in which physical energy is transferred by the absorption, emission and scattering of electromagnetic radiation - known as radiation transport.

The codes are designed to model and understand the movement and interactions of radiation particles (such as photons, neutrons, or charged particles) as they travel through different materials and interact with various structures.

There are two main approaches to solving the equations for radiation transport. In the deterministic approach traditional numerical methods are used to solve the mathematical equations - this involves a number of approximations. The alternative Monte Carlo approach involves simulating the paths of individual particles which involves less approximation but for some applications is prohibitively slow. In such cases it is used to produce high-fidelity solutions to test the accuracy of deterministic solutions which although more approximate, can be arrived at more quickly.

The ANSWERS Software Service, part of Jacobs, led a project to explore the potential benefits of quantum computing in accelerating Monte Carlo methods.

Supported by the UK’s National Quantum Computing Centre’s SparQ programme, which supports research into new applications, this project aimed to investigate the advantages of leveraging quantum computing instead of conventional digital computing to improve the runtime of Monte Carlo methods, making them more competitive.

ANSWERS provides and supports the MCBEND and MONK 3D Monte Carlo codes which are widely used worldwide for radiation shielding, dose assessments, nuclear criticality safety and reactor physics analysis. For example, ANSWERS software is used to support the design and safety case production for transport flasks for radioactive materials.

Several processes contribute significantly to the computational cost of performing Monte Carlo radiation transport calculations including random number generation, nuclear database searches, ray tracing and the Monte Carlo process itself. Quantum algorithms are available or under development for each of these processes. Quantum random number generation has the clear advantage of generating truly random numbers, based on truly random quantum processes, whereas traditional computational methods are only capable of generating pseudo random numbers or quasi random numbers which can be subject to subtle correlations that can introduce bias into calculation results.

Whereas digital computers work with bits of data that are either 0 or 1, quantum computers work with qubits – two-state quantum-mechanical systems that can be in a superposition of the 0 and 1 states. For example light may be horizontally or vertically polarised (try looking at an LED television through glasses with polarised lenses and tilting your head at different angles). If an individual photon of light is polarised at 45 degrees to horizontal it may be thought of as being in a superposition of the horizontal and vertical states.

This allows quantum computers to process many states in a single operation, increasing their processing power exponentially and achieving complex problem-solving which is impossible on digital computers. In practice, many quantum algorithms offer a quadratic advantage over traditional digital computers - for example, a quantum algorithm may achieve in 1000 operations what would take a million operations using a traditional algorithm.

There are certain scenarios where digital computing surpasses quantum computing. For instance, due to the specific ordering of nuclear databases (from lowest energy to highest energy), binary searches offer an exponential advantage over the quantum Grover search algorithm.

One of the biggest challenges faced by quantum computing at present is the presence of quantum noise. Being microscopic, quantum systems are very delicate.

Any interaction with the surrounding environment can change the state of the system, for example changing a qubit from state 0 to state 1 or vice versa. Random interactions with the qubits effectively add an element of noise to the answers obtained from a quantum computer. The project used Lucy, the Oxford Quantum Circuits computer, and was successful in demonstrating the effectiveness of new techniques for the reduction of quantum noise. This is currently an area of intense research activity.

The project partners - Jacobs, National Quantum Computing Centre (part of UK Research & Innovation), Oxford Quantum Circuits, National Nuclear Laboratory, Sellafield Ltd, and the University of Cambridge - note that there are promising signs that quantum algorithms could transform the computational aspects of ray tracing and Monte Carlo radiation transport simulation, but further research is needed to evaluate their applicability.

 

Atucha II returns to service after completing repairs

30 August 2023

Argentina's Atucha II nuclear unit is delivering power again after the successful completion of repairs prompted by the October 2022 inspection discovery that one of the four internal supports of the reactor had detached and moved from its design location.

The Atucha site (Image: Nucleoeléctrica Argentina)

After the discovery, the unit was shut down and an interdisciplinary team worked to diagnose the situation and decided to extract the separator and carry out the repair remotely without needing to dismantle the reactor, shortening the expected repair time from four years to 10 months, Nucleoeléctrica Argentina said.

The company said that "after evaluating the situation, it was decided that the best option to extract the separator through the channel was to cut it into four parts ... it was also resolved to preventively reinforce the welding of the three separators that were still mounted to avoid future damage".

The detached separator was 14 metres inside the reactor, so new tools needed to be designed to adapt to those conditions, including a cutting tool, holding tool, gripper, a basket within which to extract the piece as well as lighting and vision tools to monitor the manoeuvre.

To test the tools and train and prepare for the cutting and extraction manoeuvres a full-scale model of the sector of the reactor in which the intervention was carried out was designed, manufactured and installed - the tank used to represent the moderator tank was the same one used as a mock-up to test the tools and rehearse the manoeuvres that allowed the historic repair of the Atucha I reactor in 1988.

The cutting of the separator took two weeks in total, and once it was completed the extraction tool was introduced "which allowed each of the cut separator pieces to be held and placed in the basket tool for removal from the reactor". The welding of the remaining supports took six days.

Nucleoeléctrica Argentina said that it worked with other suppliers in the country to create the necessary tools, and said: "The completion of this challenge not only marks a new milestone for the Argentine nuclear industry, but also confirms the country's scientific-technological capabilities to carry out complex engineering projects. In this way, the experience acquired by Nucleoeléctrica in this repair will allow the country to export knowledge and tools for use in other nuclear power plants in the world."

Argentina's nuclear sector has three pressurised heavy water reactors with a total generating capacity of 1641 MWe across the Atucha I, Atucha II and Embalse power plants. Atucha II's first grid connection was in 2014 - construction began in 1981 as a joint venture of Argentina's National Atomic Energy Commission and Germany's Siemens-Kraftwerk Union but work was suspended in 1994 with the plant 81% complete. It was restarted in 2006, entering commercial operation in May 2016.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Westinghouse expands fuel offerings of Columbia plant

29 August 2023

Westinghouse has announced the creation of a centre of excellence for Low Enriched Uranium Plus (LEU+) fuel manufacturing at its Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility (CFFF) in Hopkins, South Carolina.

The Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility (Image: Westinghouse)

"The demand for LEU+ fuel in the range of 5–10% enrichment is expected to grow significantly in the coming years due to increased power generation which reduces the number of outages needed in nuclear plants," the company said. "Westinghouse has initiated the work to expand its operations at CFFF with advanced processes, upgraded equipment, and engineered safeguards for sustainable, efficient, and reliable fabrication of LEU+ nuclear fuel."

"Westinghouse is committed to providing fuel products and engineering services required by our customers to achieve 24-month cycles through our High Energy Fuel Program," said Westinghouse's president of nuclear fuel, Tarik Choho. "The programme is aligned with our customers' needs for LEU+ fuel. Further, this vision will provide high-tech job opportunities and increase collaboration with our local technical colleges and universities in South Carolina."

Westinghouse said its High Energy Fuel Program paves the way for utilities to leverage high burnup, higher enrichment (LEU+) and accident tolerant technologies for 24-month cycle operation and improved safety, economics, and reliability. The programme includes innovations such as EnCore Fuel, AXIOM fuel rod cladding, PRIME fuel advanced features and ADOPT fuel.

The company's EnCore Fuel programme is centred on the use of high-performance features that are "being developed and deployed on a strategic timeline" so utilities can gain safety and cost benefits quickly. It has begun with an improved chromium-coated cladding that inhibits the zirconium-steam reaction and increases maximum temperature by an additional 300°C. Westinghouse is also developing advanced fuel rod materials such as silicon-carbide cladding, which has an extremely high melting point and minimal reaction with water and steam.

AXIOM is Westinghouse's next generation of fuel rod cladding targeting high fuel duties, improved corrosion resistance, lower hydrogen pick-up and lower creep and growth when compared with current Westinghouse products. In December 2022, Westinghouse received approval from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to use its AXIOM Fuel Rod Cladding in US pressurised water reactors (PWRs).

Westinghouse said its PRIME advanced fuel features help to improve fuel performance, enhance fuel reliability, enable enhanced fuel cycle economics and provide additional margin at uprated conditions and higher burnup.

The company has also developed Advanced Doped Pellet Technology (ADOPT) Fuel to improve fuel cycle economics and enhance the accident tolerance of conventional uranium dioxide fuel pellets. In November of last year, Westinghouse received approval from the NRC to use its ADOPT Fuel in US PWRs.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Saskatchewan seeks to develop SMR supply chain

25 August 2023

Saskatchewan's Crown Investments Corporation (CIC) is providing CAD479,000 (USD352,296) to the Saskatchewan Industrial and Mining Suppliers Association (SIMSA) and its partners to prepare local companies for their future participation in provincial, national and global small modular reactor development.

SaskPower has selected GEH's BWRX-300 for potential deployment in Saskatchewan (Image: GEH)

The two-year funding agreement between CIC and SIMSA - a non-profit organisation representing more than 300 Saskatchewan-based suppliers to the industrial, mining and energy sectors - will support a small modular reactor (SMR) supply chain specialist position with SIMSA.

The funding will also help engage First Nations Power Authority (FNPA) for its assistance to explore Indigenous economic opportunities and enable the Organization of Canadian Nuclear Industries (OCNI) to deliver its Ready4SMR programme to develop local suppliers, including Indigenous-owned companies.

"Programming and resources made available through this funding are crucial to moving toward building a nuclear industry in Saskatchewan," said Minister of Crown Investments Corporation Don Morgan. "Our province has a long successful history of nuclear research and development, and we are a world-class supplier of high-quality uranium ore. Advancing Saskatchewan's SMR supply chains will unlock economic and job potential for communities near and far, including our rural, northern and remote regions, and Indigenous communities."

"SIMSA is excited to work with CIC to build additional resources to enhance the development of qualified nuclear manufacturing and construction companies in our province," said SIMSA Executive Director Eric Anderson. "One crucial component of this work is the recruitment of an SMR supply chain specialist. The specialist has outstanding nuclear and supply chain experience and knows the current market elements. This position will be an invaluable asset to advance SMR development in Saskatchewan."

"The Organization of Canadian Nuclear Industries is proud to be working in Saskatchewan with SIMSA and FNPA to implement our Ready4SMR programme," added OCNI President and CEO Bill Walker. "We'd also like to acknowledge and thank the Crown Investments Corporation of Saskatchewan for their contribution in making this project possible.

"Canada is leading the world in the deployment of small modular reactors and we're excited to see Saskatchewan planning for SMRs as part of their clean energy mix. Our role is to build a pan-Canadian supply chain that gives provinces like Saskatchewan an opportunity for economic development as your already thriving supplier base considers joining the Canadian nuclear industry."

Last week, the Canadian government approved CAD74 million of federal funding for SMR development in Saskatchewan. The funding - including more than CAD24 million from the proceeds of Canada's pollution pricing system - will support work to advance the project led by utility SaskPower.

In 2022, SaskPower selected GE-Hitachi's BWRX-300 SMR for potential deployment in Saskatchewan in the mid-2030s, subject to a decision to build that is expected in 2029. SaskPower has identified the regions of Elbow, in south-central Saskatchewan, and Estevan, in the far south of the province, as potential areas to host an SMR. It has begun an engagement exercise to share information and gather input as it works to narrow down a site. According to its project timeline, it expects to finalise its site selection in 2025.

Although all of Canada's uranium production comes from Saskatchewan, the province does not currently use nuclear power. However, Saskatchewan's government identified development of SMR technology as a goal for growth in its 2019 development roadmap, and in March 2022, alongside the governments of Ontario, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Alberta, it released a joint strategic plan setting out a path for developing and deploying SMRs.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Tractebel, Hatch team up for nuclear new build

31 August 2023

Belgian engineering firm Tractebel and Canadian engineering, project management, and professional services firm Hatch have agreed to cooperate on supporting the deployment of small and large nuclear technologies in North America and Europe.

From left to right: Anicet Touré, Head of Strategy, Nuclear (Tractebel), Dan Kell, Senior Director - Power Transmission & Integration (Hatch), Philippe Van Troeye, CEO (Tractebel), Jim Sarvinis, Managing Director - Power (Hatch), Denis Dumont, Chief Global Nuclear Officer (Tractebel), Adel Muna, Director of Power - Europe (Hatch), Arnaud Rahier, Chief Operating Officer, Canada (Tractebel), Alain Masuy, Advisory Lead, Europe (Hatch) (Image: Tractebel)

By collaborating, the two companies aim to provide "invaluable expertise" in the field of nuclear engineering and consultancy for nuclear projects. "This will ensure continuity in the expert teams that will work on nuclear new build projects in North America and Europe, which was identified as a key success factor by nuclear technology developers," the partners said.

Tractebel has over 60 years of nuclear engineering experience in Europe and now globally throughout the entire life cycle of nuclear installations, from design to decommissioning, as well as in industrial applications. Tractebel - a subsidiary of France's Engie - has been collaborating with EDF on the Nuward small modular reactor (SMR) project since 2021.

Hatch offers engineering, consulting, and technology and equipment design, including first-of-a-kind development in the nuclear sector and covers the entire life cycle of nuclear installations from mining, fuel development, new build, operation, decommissioning and waste management. The company has been involved in supporting the development and evaluation of SMRs for on-grid or off-grid power since 2012. It is working with SMR vendors, utilities, heavy industry, industry regulators, and governments to support their development, licensing and implementation.

"Hatch and Tractebel's cooperation will be crucial to the construction of new nuclear assets," said Denis Dumont, Tractebel's chief global nuclear officer. "We are honoured to cooperate with Hatch, a company that has strong roots in the North American industrial market and experience in the nuclear sector. Tractebel will bring its international nuclear new build and design authority experience to the alliance. We believe that by summoning up our strengths, we can build bridges between the North American and European energy ecosystems."

"We are proud to collaborate with Tractebel, which has cutting-edge expertise in nuclear engineering and a thorough knowledge of the European nuclear and industrial market," added Amar Jolly, Global Director Nuclear, Hatch. "We will bring our strong nuclear systems, equipment design and waste management experience as well as our deep knowledge of the industries that are likely to implement SMRs to the collaboration. We believe that nuclear will be instrumental in the energy transformation and in achieving our global net-zero goals, including the decarbonisation of heavy industries."

In June 2022, ARC Clean Energy Canada announced it was teaming up with Hatch for the deployment of ARC Canada's advanced SMR technology, which is planned for deployment in New Brunswick before the end of the decade. Hatch will use its engineering technology and capabilities to design ARC Canada's power plants in a fully digital format, with a focus on modular design to maximise factory production and scalability, minimising on-site construction time. Hatch is also playing a key role in the integration of ARC Canada's advanced technology for heavy industry using high-quality process heat which includes the optimisation of the technology for clean hydrogen and ammonia production.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

 

Court annuls licence for Texas used fuel store

30 August 2023

The licence issued for the construction and operation of a consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) for used nuclear fuel in Texas has been cancelled by a US appeals court. The court ruled that the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) does not have the authority to license a private storage facility away from nuclear reactors.

ISP's vision for the CISF (Image: ISP)

Interim Storage Partners (ISP) was established in 2018 as a joint venture of Waste Control Specialists and Orano CIS, a subsidiary of Orano USA, to license a CISF to be built at WCS's existing waste disposal site in Andrews County, Texas. The proposed licence would authorise a CISF to store up to 5000 tonnes of used commercial nuclear fuel as well as so-called Greater-Than-Class C waste for a period of 40 years. ISP plans a phased expansion of the facility over 20 years to eventually store up to 40,000 tonnes of used fuel, subject to future approvals.

In July 2021, the NRC issued its final environmental impact statement (FEIS) on ISP's application, recommending a licence be granted for the facility. The licence was issued in September 2021.

Fasken Land and Minerals, a for-profit group working in oil and gas extraction, and Permian Basin Land and Royalty Owners, an association focused on protecting the interests of the Permian Basin, along with the State of Texas and others, petitioned for review of the licence. Texas lawmakers passed a law in 2022 prohibiting the storage of high-level radioactive waste in the state, except at currently or formerly operating nuclear power reactors.

In a 25 August decision, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled the NRC does not have authority from Congress to license such a facility under either the Atomic Energy Act or the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

"The Nuclear Waste Policy Act creates a comprehensive statutory scheme for addressing spent nuclear fuel accumulation," the court said. "The scheme prioritises construction of the permanent repository and limits temporary storage to private at-the-reactor storage or at federal sites. It plainly contemplates that, until there's a permanent repository, spent nuclear fuel is to be stored onsite at-the-reactor or in a federal facility.

"In sum, the Atomic Energy Act doesn't authorise the Commission to license a private, away-from-reactor storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. And the Nuclear Waste Policy Act doesn't permit it. Accordingly, we hold that the Commission doesn't have authority to issue the licence challenged here. When read alongside each other, we find these statutes unambiguous. And even if the statutes were ambiguous, the Commission's interpretation wouldn't be entitled to deference.

"Accordingly, we grant the petition for review and vacate the licence," the court said.

The management of civilian used nuclear fuel in the USA is a federal responsibility, but the planned permanent repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, which in 1987 was designated as the sole initial repository for 70,000 tonnes of high-level wastes, has not been built. This means used fuel from over 70 shutdown, decommissioned and operating nuclear energy facilities is currently in storage at sites across the nation.

CISFs such as the one proposed by ISP would offer dry-cask storage at an away-from-reactor site pending disposal at a permanent disposal facility. ISP's facility would use proven above-ground dry fuel storage systems developed by Orano TN and NAC International, which are already in place at numerous operating and decommissioned commercial nuclear energy facilities in the USA. The storage system has a design life in excess of 100 years.

The NRC has also issued a licence to Holtec International to build and operate a CISF for used nuclear fuel in New Mexico. That licence, issued in May this year, is being challenged in the US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.

In partnership with the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance (ELEA), Holtec launched the initiative to set up the Hi-STORE CISF in 2015 at a site between Carlsbad and Hobbs in Lea County, New Mexico, on land owned by ELEA.

Holtec submitted its application with the NRC for a 40-year licence for the initial phase of the project, for up to 500 canisters holding some 8680 tonnes of used fuel, in 2017. The company said it expected this to increase to a total of 10,000 canisters in an additional 19 phases over the course of 20 years. Each expansion would require a licence amendment from the NRC.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

 

US projects to look at nuclear role in carbon capture

31 August 2023

Two projects to explore the feasibility of using nuclear energy in systems to remove carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere - one led by GE Vernova and one led by Northwestern University - are included in a list of 19 projects selected to receive US Department of Energy (DOE) support.

Scientists and engineers from GE's Carbon Capture Breakout Team will work on the pre-feasibility studies (Image: GE)

GE announced on 29 August that a pre-feasibility assessment to establish a direct air capture (DAC) regional hub near Houston, Texas, to remove up to one million tonnes of CO2 per year, led by Niskayuna, New York-based GE Vernova, has been selected as one of the awardees. Part of the proposed study will look at the feasibility of a novel DAC system design that integrates GE Hitachi's BWRX-300 small modular reactor and renewable electricity to enable the gas to be captured from ambient air and stored underground or used as a value-added product such as a feedstock for sustainable aviation fuels. The DOE has allocated USD2.554 million to the project, alongside non-DOE funding of USD762,827, giving a total value of just over USD3.3 million.

A separate project, the Midwest Nuclear DAC Hub, will see Northwestern University of Evanston, Illinois testing the feasibility of deploying at-scale novel DAC solutions by developing a DAC hub powered by nuclear energy. The Midwest is the second largest regional emitter of carbon dioxide in the USA, and is home to both heavy-emitting industries and a rich ecosystem of innovation and research, DOE notes. Centring the study around nuclear power "ensures that a reliable low-carbon energy source (and the opportunity for heat integration) will be used for technology development", DOE said in its announcement of the award, for which it has allocated USD3 million, with non-DOE funding of USD927,910 for a total value of some USD3.9 million.

GE Vernova is aiming to deploy a commercially scalable DAC solution by the end of the decade. In March, GE announced the successful demonstration of a scalable prototype DAC system at its Niskayuna research facility. The company is also a DAC technology provider for two other projects included in the DOE announcement, which will be led by the University of Illinois, and executed in Colorado and Florida.

Of the Houston Area DAC Hub project, Matt Guyette, director, Advanced Research at GE Vernova, said: "Our pre-feasibility study proposes to draw upon our full suite of energy generation assets and capabilities in ways only GE Vernova can, including carbon-free nuclear and renewable electricity, to create what we believe will be a cost-effective solution for removing millions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere."

All awardees will now enter negotiations with the DOE to finalise the terms and scope of their respective studies.

The award negotiations are part of the first round of funding under the Regional DAC Hubs programme under the US Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which DOE says aims to kickstart a nationwide network of large-scale carbon removal sites to address legacy carbon dioxide pollution and complement rapid emissions reductions. The DOE on 11 August announced up to USD1.2 billion of funding to advance the development of two commercial-scale DAC facilities in Texas and Louisiana, in what it says will be the world's largest investment in engineered carbon removal to date.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News