It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Sunday, February 19, 2023
Canadian company in race to mine ocean floor unmoved by Ottawa's ban on seabed mining
Naimul Karim Sun, February 19, 2023 deep-sea-mining-gs0217
The Canadian government this month banned mining in its oceans — and that’s just fine by the Vancouver-based company that is on track to become the world’s first deep-sea miner.
“That was no surprise to anyone. We are not interested in that,” said Gerard Barron, chief executive of The Metals Co., or TMC. “We are only interested in our licence areas, which is in the Clarion Clipperton Zone, a thousand miles off the coast of Mexico in the Pacific Ocean.”
The realization that Ottawa’s tough talk will do little to slow the companies in the vanguard of an emerging sub-sector of the mining industry bolster critics who described the federal government’s order as hollow. At the same time, the reluctance of lawmakers to put a stop to deep-sea mining suggests Barron’s argument that he can help fight climate change is resonating with officials who have made neutralizing carbon emissions a priority.
Barron argues that the world’s increasing demand for metals needed to build electric vehicles and renewable energy infrastructure, such as nickel, cobalt and copper and to tackle climate change can be better met by deep-sea mining as opposed to land mining, since the former doesn’t include “ripping up rain forests,” “generating a lot of waste” and “pushing out Indigenous communities.”
Those arguments would resonate with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has put the environment, climate change, and reconciliation at the centre of his agenda.
Jonathan Wilkinson, natural resources minister, at an event in Ottawa last year. Wilkinson, along with fisheries minister Joyce Murray, have banned mining in Canadian oceans.
Nonetheless, on Feb. 9, Jonathan Wilkinson, the natural resources minister, and Joyce Murray, the fisheries minister, issued a joint statement that said Canada wouldn’t authorize seabed mining within its jurisdiction because it didn’t have in place a domestic legal framework. The ministers suggested they were skeptical that seabed mining should be done anywhere, given the risks to natural habitat and the relative lack of knowledge about life on the ocean floor.
“Seabed mining should only take place if effective protection of the marine environment is provided through a rigorous regulatory structure, applying precautionary and ecosystem-based approaches, using science-based and transparent management, and ensuring effective compliance with a robust inspection mechanism,” the statement said.
The statement added that Canada would negotiate in “good faith on regulations to ensure that seabed activities do no harm to the marine environment and are carried out solely for the benefit of humankind as a whole.”
`Total alignment’
For his part, Barron said he was in “total alignment” with the Canadian government.
Deep-sea mining concerns the extraction of minerals from the ocean floor at depths of 200 metres or more. While it has never been done, several companies are exploring regions and testing the mining process. Miners plan to use robots to excavate the ocean floor and then pump the minerals up to a ship. The waste water and the debris would be pumped back into the ocean and the collected materials, which include minerals, would be processed on land.
By 2024, TMC hopes it can start mining a section of the seabed situated in an area between Mexico and Hawaii that it’s currently exploring for metals such as nickel, cobalt, copper and manganese — all key inputs in the making of batteries and other technology that will be necessary to electrify the economy.
However, the company still needs a permit from the International Seabed Authority (ISA), an autonomous body under the United Nations that regulates the exploration and exploitation of seabed minerals in international waters.
TMC hopes to get approval by the end of this year. On a test basis, the company already has collected 3,000 tonnes of nodules, which are potato-like objects present in the seabed sediment, often partly or completely buried, that contain valuable metals.
The ISA, which has has so far issued about 30 exploration contracts, aims to finalize regulations that miners will have to follow to conduct deep-sea mining by July, a spokesperson said. However, the deadline is not rigid and “further work may be needed after the deadline to finalize” decisions, the spokesperson said.
`Paucity of rigorous scientific information’
Some environmentalists and scientists have criticized the intent of authorities to sanction this new form of mining, arguing that more research is required before the seabed is so violently disturbed.
For example, more than 700 marine science and policy experts from 44 countries have called for a “pause” to deep-sea mining due to the “irreversible” loss it might cause to the ecosystem. “There is a paucity of rigorous scientific information available concerning the biology, ecology and connectivity of deep-sea species and ecosystems, as well as the ecosystem services they provide,” the statement read.
Some, including the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, a collection of 100 charities, criticized Canada’s deep-sea mining statement and urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to be more ambitious.
By 2024, TMC hopes it can start mining a section of the seabed situated in an area between Mexico and Hawaii that it’s currently exploring for metals such as nickel, cobalt, copper and manganese — all key inputs in the making of batteries and other technology that will be necessary to electrify the economy.
The coalition’s director, Sian Owen, said that while Wilkinson and Murray used the term “effective moratorium” several times at the International Marine Protected Areas Congress earlier this month, the written statement fell “short of that clarity and is thus potentially open to a much weaker interpretation.”
MiningWatch Canada’s Catherine Coumans said that removing the nodules – which take millions of years to form – could “wipe out the life of the deep seabed” and create a dead zone. She added that most scientific papers published on the issue agree that “we have just barely scratched the surface” of understanding the species that exist in the deep sea and that several more years of research was required to gather more information on its ecosystem.
Barron, however, said that it wasn’t logical to oppose deep-sea mining, since it was a “hundred per cent” more environment-friendly than mining on land. The world needs more metals such as nickel and copper to fight climate change by accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels, so best to dig for them where miners will cause the least amount of damage, he said.
“There is a crowd of people that like to get together and oppose new industries and new ideas,” Barron said. “Some of the faces that were opposing the nuclear industry back in the ’70s and ’80s are showing up in this industry as well. That’s what happens unfortunately.” Mostly bacteria
TMC is exploring a region in the abyssal zone — one of the levels into which oceans are divided — at a depth of about 4,300 metres. There are no plants and 80 per cent of the fauna is bacteria living among the sediment, Barron said.
Compared with land mining, where Indigenous communities are affected, and harmful mining wastes get “dumped into the oceans” the “large abundant resource” area that his team is exploring was like a “dream,” he said.
“You either go with a low impact and no impact on human lives, or you go with an enormous impact on the ecosystem and environment of human lives,” said Barron.
Coumans of MiningWatch disagreed. She said the bacteria present in the deep sea “form the basis for the life” that exists there. “Those bacteria are critically important, plus they have not been studied at any extent and there’s so much research now on the health implications of bacteria that are being discovered now on Earth,” Coumans said. “Just because it’s small doesn’t mean that it’s not important.”
Allowing seabed mining would create the “largest contiguous mining area on Earth” and create a “dead zone” almost as big as British Columbia and Yukon combined, said Coumans, insisting that too little is known about life at those depths to assume the ocean floor can be mined at relatively low cost to natural habitat.
Barron, of course, disagrees with his critics. TMC has spent a considerable amount of time garnering information on the deep sea, and he said companies have spent more than $1 billion on research.
“The argument that we don’t know enough is propagated by opponents who like to say we know more about the moon than we know about the deep ocean,” he said. “In this particular part of the deep ocean, the CCZ, we know an awful lot. The other thing is, how much more do we need to know? Because climate emergencies don’t wait around.”
Are Small Modular Reactors The Future Of Nuclear Power?
Nuclear power is falling back in favor as the push to slash emissions accelerates.
Small modular nuclear reactors are affordable and convenient alternatives to traditional plants.
Scores of governments, including the U.S. government, have begun incentivizing SMRs by making them more attractive for lenders and utilities.
For decades, many countries have maintained a love-hate relationship with nuclear energy, with the sector regarded as the black sheep of the alternative energy industry thanks to poor public perception, a series of high-profile disasters such as Chernobyl, Fukushima and Three Miles Island as well as massive cost-overruns by nuclear projects. Currently, 440 nuclear reactors operate globally, providing ~10% of the world’s electricity, down from 15 percent at nuclear power’s peak in 1996. In the United States, 93 nuclear reactors generate ~20 percent of the country’s electricity supply.
ButRussia’s war in Ukraine and the need for energy security are now forcing a major realignment of energy systems on a global scale, with countries that were formerly strongly opposed to nuclear power such as Germany and Japan now seriously considering incorporating more nuclear energy in their energy mix. Further, the global energy transition is in full swing, and many experts are coming to the realization that the world needs more nuclear power to meet our climate goals. Indeed, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the world needs to double the annual rate of nuclear capacity additions in order to reach the 2050 net-zero target. Further, nuclear plants can be paired up with renewable energy projects to act as baseload power thanks to nuclear power possessing the highest capacity factor of any energy source: nuclear plants produce at maximum power more than 93 percent of the time compared to 57 percent for natural gas and 25 percent for solar energy.
Unfortunately, it’s going to be incredibly hard to achieve that milestone thanks to the harsh reality of nuclear power projects. Consider that it not only takes an average of eight years to build a nuclear power plant, but also the mean time between the decision and the commissioning typically ranges from 10 to 19 years. Additionally, major commercial hurdles, primarily the large upfront capital cost and huge cost overruns (nuclear plants have the greatest frequency of cost overruns of all utility-scale power projects), make this an even more onerous endeavor.
Enter small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs).
SMRs are advanced nuclear reactors with power capacities that range from 50-300 MW(e) per unit, compared to 700+ MW(e) per unit for traditional nuclear power reactors. Their biggest attributes are:
Modular – thismakes it possible for SMR systems and components to be factory-assembled and transported as a unit to a location for installation.
Small – SMRs are physically a fraction of the size of a conventional nuclear power reactor.
Given their smaller footprint, SMRs can be sited on locations not suitable for larger nuclear power plants, such as retired coal plants. Prefabricated SMR units can be manufactured, shipped and then installed on site, making them more affordable to build than large power reactors. Additionally, SMRs offer significant savings in cost and construction time, and can also be deployed incrementally to match increasing power demand. Another key advantage: SMRs have reduced fuel requirements, and can be refueled every 3 to 7 years compared to between 1 and 2 years for conventional nuclear plants. Indeed, some SMRs are designed to operate for up to 30 years without refueling.
Source: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
Source: Geopolitical Intelligence Services AG
Encouraging SMR Development
Scores of governments, including the U.S. government, have begun incentivizing SMRs by making them more attractive for lenders and utilities.
“You simply must have some form of reliable, baseload power because you can’t get there with assets that operate (part of) the time. A nuclear power plant is more costly upfront, but it is an asset that operates for 80 years. If you compare that to wind and solar, they generally have 20-year lifetimes and batteries of around eight years. If you compare renewables and batteries to nuclear, nuclear stacks up very, very well,” Jeff Merrifield, partner, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, and a former Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner, said during a recent nuclear energy virtual press conference hosted by theUnited States Energy Association. Merrifield pointed to West Virginia, Idaho, Wyoming, as some of the states where SMRs would be suitable, noting that they all lack nuclear plants but have enacted legislation that allows small modular reactors to develop.
Back in 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce launched a Small Modular Reactor Working Group that looks to expedite SMR deployment in European markets in a bid to position U.S. companies to succeed in those markets. Meanwhile, Ghana and Kenya are also looking to develop SMRs to expand their power generation capacities.
But the private sector is just as active in the SMR arena.
TerraPower and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energylaunched the Natrium project in 2020 to design SMRs that they hope to commercialize by 2030. The partners are currently testing the technology, along with Berkshire Hathaway’sPacifiCorp. The Natrium reactors are intended to act as power backup for wind and solar projects.
NuScale, a subsidiary of American multinational engineering and construction firm Fluor, has lined up plans to start building SMRs in Idaho starting 2026. The company’s designs will combine 12 modules to generate 924-megawatts, equivalent to the output of a large nuclear plant.
And now the million dollar question: are SMRs the future of nuclear power?
You will notice that a major SMR wave hit around 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic but well before Russia invaded Ukraine. It’s therefore possible that the ongoing global energy crisis, climate concerns and the much smaller footprint by SMRs compared to traditional reactors will persuade the public that this is the way to go.
However, studies like these that paint SMRs in a bad light have the potential to throw a spanner in the works and increase public resistance if proven to be accurate:
“Our results show that most small modular reactor designs will actually increase the volume of nuclear waste in need of management and disposal, by factors of 2 to 30 for the reactors in our case study. These findings stand in sharp contrast to the cost and waste reduction benefits that advocates have claimed for advanced nuclear technologies,” said study lead author Lindsay Krall, a former MacArthur Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University’sCenter for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). The study found that one of their key attractions--small size--is also their major Achilles heel because SMRs experience more neutron leakage than conventional reactors, which in turn affects the amount and composition of their waste streams. The study also discovered that spent nuclear fuel from SMRs will be discharged in greater volumes per unit energy produced and can be far more complex compared to waste from conventional reactors.
By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com
These “microreactors” could be the future of nuclear power
They’re being explored for use everywhere from disaster zones to moon bases.
This article is an installment of Future Explored, a weekly guide to world-changing technology. You can get stories like this one straight to your inbox every Thursday morning by subscribing here.
One of the best ways to scale up the use of clean nuclear energy in the future might be to scale down the tech, with “microreactors” that can be built and deployed in a fraction of the time required for traditional nuclear power plants. They’re being explored for use everywhere from university campuses to disaster zones and even bases on the moon. The nuclear option
At nuclear power plants, atoms are split inside reactors. This process — nuclear fission — releases a tremendous amount of energy in the form of heat. That heat is then used to boil water, creating steam that spins electricity-generating turbines.
Unlike the burning of coal or natural gas, nuclear fission doesn’t generate carbon emissions. It’s also more consistent than environmentally dependent sources of energy, such as solar and wind power, while taking up much less physical space than solar or wind farms.
Despite those benefits, only 10% of the world’s electricity is generated by nuclear power plants, and the power source is on the decline, with older plants closing faster than new ones are being built — and size is a major reason for this downturn.
“The biggest barrier to new nuclear construction is mobilising investment.”
INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY
Matters of size
Most nuclear power plants are massive affairs — in the US, the average facility takes up about a square mile of land and generates 1 gigawatt (GW) of power, which is about enough to power 750,000 homes.
Building such a plant today can cost upwards of $10 billion and take 7 years, and that’s if everything goes according to plan.
In Georgia, a project to add two 1.1 GW reactors to an existing nuclear power plant started construction in 2009 with an estimated cost of $14 billion — the total cost of the project now exceeds $30 billion, and construction still isn’t complete.
Rather than take on such a risky endeavor, clean energy investors are more likely to put their money into solar or wind farms, which are cheaper but require 75 and 360 times as much land, respectively, to generate the same amount of power as the steady 1 GW nuclear reactor.
“The biggest barrier to new nuclear construction is mobilising investment,” wrote the International Energy Agency in a 2019 report.
Microreactors
Rather than hoping investors will take a chance on building large nuclear power plants like the ones we already have, some experts are betting on “microreactors” as the future of nuclear energy.
These in-development reactors are a 100th to 1,000th the size of traditional ones, and while they couldn’t meet the energy needs of a large city, they can be deployed in more places and could potentially power a small remote community, a military base, or even a college campus.
Because microreactors are designed to be built and assembled in factories and then shipped to a site for installation, their upfront cost is expected to be much lower. They can also be deployed quickly, which opens up their potential use in disaster relief.
“Having another option for restoring power quickly following natural disasters would support faster restoration of critical services such as hospitals, communications, and the water supply to the local community,” wrote the US Government Accountability Office in 2020.
Looking ahead
Microreactors are still a new technology, and the US’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has yet to approve a design for commercial use.
The NRC did recently approve its first small modular reactor — those are factory-made reactors larger than microreactors, but still far smaller than traditional designs — and microreactors could be next, as several groups plan to demonstrate their tech within the next five years or so.
Here are a few projects to keep your eye on:
Project Pele: In April 2022, the US Department of Defense announced that it was moving forward with Project Pele, an initiative to design, build, and demonstrate a prototype microreactor at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL).
This reactor will be in the range of 1-5 MW and is being built by nuclear energy company BWX Technologies as part of a $300 million contract. BWXT is expected to deliver the microreactor to the INL in 2024, and the plan is for it to be operational within 72 hours of delivery.
INL will then run the microreactor for at least three years at full capacity. The US already envisions applying what it learns from the prototype to future military efforts, as well as space missions that will require us to provide power to astronauts on the moon.
Microreactors could be built and then shipped via truck, train, or plane. Credit: INL
Westinghouse’s eVinci: Pennsylvania’s Westinghouse Electric Company — a pioneer of nuclear power back in the 1950s, and the same company working on the expensive nuclear power project in Georgia — is developing its own microreactor: the eVinci.
This microreactor is designed to generate up to 5 MW of electricity or 13 MW of heat — essentially, rather than using the heat from fission to boil water, it can be used directly to warm homes and other buildings.
The eVinci is designed to take less than 30 days to install onsite, and while the first units are expected to cost $90 million to $120 million, Westinghouse believes the price could drop to about $60 million as production increases.
The company has already begun submitting documents needed for approval to the NRC. It hopes to have its tech licensed by 2027, and Penn State has already signed a memorandum of understanding with the company to install an eVinci on its main campus.
Radiant’s Kaleidos: In 2020, a team of former SpaceX engineers launched Radiant, a startup focused on the development of a 1.2 MW nuclear microreactor, called “Kaleidos,” that is designed to fit inside a shipping container and be installed overnight.
Radiant envisions Kaleidos replacing the diesel generators used by remote communities. The microreactor could also be installed at hospitals, data centers, and military bases to provide backup power in the event the main source of electricity fails.
Radiant hopes to have a fueled demonstration of the reactor ready by 2026, and while it hasn’t said what Kaleidos will cost, it says it expects it to be cheaper than diesel generators. For now, it will continue developing the system with researchers at the DoE’s Argonne National Laboratory.
“We plan to be the first new commercial reactor design to achieve a fueled test in more than 50 years,” said Radiant CEO Doug Bernauer. The bottom line
While many microreactor designs are expected to be safer than full-sized plants, they still produce a small amount of radioactive waste that needs to be stored. Many also require high-assay low-enriched uranium, which is easier (although not easy) to make into nuclear weapons than the less enriched fuel used in traditional reactors.
Besides those limitations, it would also take a lot of microreactors to decarbonize the world — but that doesn’t mean the tech couldn’t be a key piece of the clean energy puzzle, along with its larger counterpart, the small modular reactor.
“While the role of large reactors continues to be important to our nation and others around the world, customers needs [sic] product choice and that is precisely what these smaller systems provide,” writes the DoE. First small modular nuclear reactor certified in US
A single nuclear power plant could host up to 12 of these reactors.
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has certified the design of a small modular reactor for the first time — potentially opening the door to cheaper, safer nuclear power plants.
Nuclear power: When atoms are split, they release a tremendous amount of energy in the form of heat. Nuclear power plants trigger that process in reactors, and then use the heat to boil water, creating steam that spins electricity-generating turbines.
Nuclear power plants don’t generate greenhouse gas emissions, making them a cleaner source of electricity than coal or natural gas, and they’re more consistent than solar or wind farms while also taking up less space.
Small modular reactors may be a way to reinvigorate the nuclear power industry.
Cost is a major reason for this decline. Owners of aging plants are opting to shutter them rather than pay for costly repairs, and few want to commit to building brand new reactors with the designs we have, as that can cost upwards of $10 billion and take 7 years.
Add in the falling cost of renewables and a public that can be wary of nuclear power due to safety concerns, and the idea of getting into the nuclear business seems even less appealing.
What’s new? Dozens of companies see small modular reactors as a way to reinvigorate the industry.
Unlike reactors in nuclear plants today, which are all unique designs built on site, these reactors would be standardized and built on an assembly line. The small reactors could then be shipped to a site, cutting the cost and time needed to establish a new nuclear power plant.
“Small modular reactors are no longer an abstract concept.”
KATHRYN HUFF
Now that the NRC has certified its first small modular reactor design — developed by Oregon-based energy company NuScale — we’ll finally get a chance to see if they live up to their promise in the US.
“SMRs are no longer an abstract concept,” said Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Kathryn Huff. “They are real, and they are ready for deployment thanks to the hard work of NuScale, the university community, our national labs, industry partners, and the NRC.”
The tech: At just 76 feet tall, NuScale’s reactor is about one-third the size of other certified reactor designs. It can generate 50 megawatts of electricity — that’s only about 5% as much as a traditional reactor, but a single plant could host up to 12 reactors, according to NuScale.
NuScale’s small modular reactor also has a passive cooling system, designed to prevent the reactor from melting down even if the cooling system loses power, which could help alleviate safety concerns.
Looking ahead: Now that the NRC has certified the design of NuScale’s small modular reactor, anyone interested in building a new plant powered by the tech can apply for a license to use it.
It might not be long before we see these reactors up and running, either — NuScale says it has signed 19 agreements with groups in the US and internationally to deploy the reactors.
Smaller, safer, cheaper? Modular nuclear plants could reshape coal country
The Biden administration envisions dozens of ‘modular’ nuclear plants sprouting across the country. Why coal communities are so eager to be the staging ground for the risky endeavor.
WISE, Va. — As Michael Hatfield scanned the landscape from atop the abandoned mine where he once worked, he saw more than a patch of Appalachia left behind by an energy economy in transition. He saw a launchpad for the next nuclear age.
The nuclear power plants Hatfield has in mind are not what you think. No massive cooling towers, miles of concrete, expansive evacuation zones. The nuclear industry and the Biden administration are pitching coal communities on small, adaptable plants that promoters boast are safer, cheaper and capable of being deployed all over the country in the effort to cut the power sector’s contribution to climate change.
Whether small modular reactors, or SMRs, can realistically be built all over the nation is very much in dispute. The nuclear industry has a record of overpromising and energy scholars warn this new technology is straining to show viability. Two demonstration projects expected to break ground, in Idaho and Wyoming, are behind schedule and struggling with spiraling costs.
But as the United States seeks efficient alternatives to burning fossil fuels for electricity, these proposals for space-age plants that can be small enough to fit in a large backyard feature prominently. They are designed to look more like office parks than nuclear plants, with low rise architecture that replaces concrete with steel, and downsized reactors the administration compares to those the U.S. Navy uses to power ships and submarines.
U.S. climate envoy John F. Kerry said in a recent interview with The Post that the technology’s success is vital for meeting the world’s goal of avoiding the most catastrophic fallout from climate change by limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
“I don’t think we get there without it,” Kerry said.
Coal country is a ripe target for this experiment, with infrastructure that can be repurposed, capable workforces and communities eager to reclaim prominence in the energy economy. More than 300 retired and operating coal plants in the United States are good candidates for a nuclear conversion, according to a recent Department of Energy report that has touched off a frenzy of activity.
Communities that previously rejected nuclear power as unsafe or a threat to the coal industry are now clamoring to be a part of what might be branded nuclear 2.0.
“See that hilltop over there?” said Hatfield, a former coal company engineer who is now the administrator for Wise County. “If you put a nuclear plant someplace like that, it is not going to be near anybody’s backyard. This would keep us in the forefront of the energy business. We see it as our future.”
Wise County Administrator Mike Hatfield stands on a former coal property in Big Stone Gap, Va., that was last mined in the late 1980s. It is now the Lonesome Pine Airport. (Mike Belleme for The Washington Post)
In January, billionaire Bill Gates, founder of an advanced nuclear company called TerraPower, toured a mothballed coal power plant near Glasgow, W.Va., with Joe Manchin III, the state’s Democratic senator. Gates was warmly embraced at a town hall following the plant visit. It was a notable turnabout in an area where the style of climate activism personified by Gates has long been met with hostility.
“The way nuclear plants were built, they were just very expensive,” Gates said at the event. “Unless we start from scratch with a new design, we won’t be able to have low-cost electricity.”
It was only a year ago that nuclear power was banned in West Virginia, under a state law intended to protect the coal industry. The state is among several to either lift such a ban or pass a law encouraging development of small nuclear reactors over the last few years. Political leaders see opportunities to boost regional economies and to get a piece of the billions of dollars in subsidies for generating “advanced nuclear” power available through the recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act.
These reactors are still very much a work in progress, with multiple companies pursuing dozens of designs in the hopes of achieving a breakthrough. Some of the designs build on the light-water reactor technology that powers legacy nuclear plants, while others go in entirely different directions. TerraPower would use “fast reactors” cooled with sodium instead of water, potentially enabling them to operate more efficiently and safely than existing plants. Other designs use helium as a coolant.
One glaring challenge with all of the designs: nuclear waste. Designers of the smaller plants vow each facility would produce only a small volume of it, requiring more modest evacuation zones and safety buffers. But scattering hundreds of plants around the country means every community they are in will need to be comfortable with some measure of spent fuel in their backyards, and some prominent researchers are challenging claims that these new reactors create less waste.
The developers are hoping plant designs that keep all the spent fuel contained in the reactor, which stays put for a number of years — even decades — before ultimately getting hauled away could be palatable to communities. But at the moment, there is nowhere to dispose of the used reactors.
“If you are saying, ‘we want to build on this site,’ and the community is asking ‘how long will the waste be here?’ and you have no answer, that is a big problem,” said Jessica Lovering, co-founder of Good Energy Collective, a group that advocates nuclear power as a climate solution.
Political leaders are forging ahead regardless, and officials in coal towns are eagerly pursuing advice from the Department of Energy on how they might draw a small reactor to their locale.
“When you get to a place like this that’s lost all these energy jobs, the talk is not whether it’s coming or not,” said Stephen Lawson, the town manager in Big Stone Gap, Va., a Wise County community where the regal brick building that once housed the Westmoreland Coal Company is now a pottery store. “It is, ‘Who is going to get it? And how do we keep from being left out?’”
“When you get to a place like this that’s lost all these energy jobs, the talk is not whether it’s coming or not,” said Stephen Lawson, the town manager in Big Stone Gap, Va. “It is, ‘Who is going to get it? And how do we keep from being left out?’" (Mike Belleme for The Washington Post)
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R) energy plan calls for Southwest Virginia to build the nation’s first commercial small reactor. The governor was in Wise County in October promoting the plan at an abandoned mine site. Virginia is among at least eight states pursuing a small reactor. At least another eight have launched feasibility studies, according to federal energy officials.
That includes Maryland, where a nuclear energy innovation company called X-energy recently partnered with the state and Frostburg State University to show how one of the Maryland’s coal plants could be repurposed for nuclear energy. The final report, published in January, did not identify the specific coal plant studied. X-energy officials said it was because the owner of the plant asked for confidentiality. The omission of a location underscored how carefully proponents of this technology are treading at a time many communities still fear nuclear power is too big a safety and financial risk.
Some places are already reconsidering whether the technology lives up to the talking points. The Pueblo County, Colo., board of commissioners was initially all in, telling state regulators that a modular nuclear plant is the only zero-emissions option for replacing the electricity and economic activity created by the Comanche Generating Station, a hulking coal plant slated for closure in 2030. After a public backlash, the supervisors abandoned the plan.
“A lot of these communities are under pressure because they need to do something now to plan for the closure of coal plants,” said David Schlissel, director of resource planning analysis at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. “The marketers of these small modular reactors, who don’t even have products licensed yet, are of course going to tell them the other alternatives are bad. They say you can’t rely on renewables, you can’t rely on battery storage, so they can sell their products. The risk is these places end up with gigantic financial commitments to nuclear projects, some of which are nothing more right now than a Power Point presentation.”
The demonstration modular nuclear project underway at the Idaho National Laboratory has been sobering for nuclear enthusiasts. The developer, NuScale Power, is working on a plant intended to provide electricity to tens of thousands of homes serviced by 27 local power companies across the west. The communities that signed on were expecting to purchase electricity for $58 per megawatt hour, the price stated under the initial agreement.
But by the time the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last month approved the design of the plant — the first such approval in the United States — the expected cost of the energy had gone up more than 50 percent. Some communities pulled out, and others are anxious the costs could rise further by the time the plant goes online, scheduled for December 2029. The cost of the power would be even higher were the plant not so heavily subsidized by the federal government, which has already committed $1.4 billion to develop it and will offset the cost of the electricity it produces by about $30 per megawatt hour, which could cost U.S. taxpayers another $2 billion.
NuScale, which is also angling to build plants in Romania, Poland and Ghana, said in a statement that the cost increases reflect “external factors such as inflationary pressures and increases in the price of steel, electrical equipment and other construction commodities not seen for more than 40 years.”
“Hopefully, the prices won’t get any higher,” said LaVarr Webb, spokesman for the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, which represents power companies seeking to buy electricity from the Idaho project. “But that has not yet been proven.”
A project Gates is backing in Kemmerer, Wyo., is having its own challenges. The plant would be fueled by a highly enriched form of uranium that TerraPower planned to initially source from Russia. That plan fell apart with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions it triggered.
The company announced in December it was pushing back its target date for opening the plant by two years, to 2030. And it is now lobbying Congress to allocate $2.1 billion to subsidize facilities that could produce such uranium in the United States. The request comes after the federal government has already committed $1.6 billion to building the company’s Wyoming plant.
On an industrial plot an hour outside Houston, a much smaller modular nuclear company is trying a completely different approach — one that doesn’t rely on any government subsidies. The company Last Energy plans to use the same technology employed by legacy nuclear plants to create power as cheaply as a natural gas plant. The reactor and much of the core technology fits into a tidy, 30-feet-long-by-30-feet-wide-by-30-feet-high steel box that is mostly assembled off site and can be transported in nine truck trips. Last Energy is only selling its modules to industrial customers in Europe, where the regulatory hurdles are not as cumbersome for new reactor designs.
A sophisticated campaign to find communities that might be amenable to hosting the nuclear plants is underway, coordinated through a University of Michigan-based coalition called Fastest Path to Zero. It has built extensive databases that gauge not just technical suitability for building a plant and transmitting power, but also political suitability. Communities are rated on how amenable they might be to having a nuclear plant in their backyard, based on survey results and other data.
When it comes to finding sites for plants, said Gabrielle Hoelzle, the group‘s lead data scientist, “we are trying to do things in a new way and get it right the first time. We cannot fall into the previous approach of deciding where they will go, announcing it and then trying to defend it.”
Back in Wise County, Mountain Empire Community College, which years ago dropped its underground mining major due to low enrollment, is now mapping out how it can revise course offerings to train a nuclear workforce.
“We’re looking at what are those jobs that are going to be needed if we do get SMRs,” said Kris Westover, president of the college. “We’re trying to make sure that we’re ready.”
By Evan HalperEvan Halper is a business reporter for The Washington Post, covering the energy transition. His work focuses on the tensions between energy demands and decarbonizing the economy. He came to The Post from the Los Angeles Times, where he spent two decades, most recently covering domestic policy and presidential politics from its Washington bureau. Twitter
Will this new carbon capture technology help solve the climate crisis? The Liddell Power Station, left, and Bayswater Power Station, coal-powered thermal power station are pictured near Muswellbrook in the Hunter Valley, Australia on Nov. 2, 2021. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
Instead of taking the captured CO2 and storing it underground, this technology converts the carbon dioxide into methanol, a widely used chemical often found in plastic products and paint.
But will this new technology save us from the climate crisis?
As CTV News Science and Technology Specialist Dan Riskin explains, it’s going to take more than recycling carbon dioxide to stop climate change. Watch this month’s Riskin Report at the top of this article for more.
Cheating controversy in the chess world continues to rage on
The great chess scandal of 2022 has continued into the new year, but there is still no consensus on whether American grandmaster Hans Niemann cheated in his game against world champion Magnus Carlsen.
Niemann has launched a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the world champion, after Carlsen refused to play him and hinted Niemann had cheated in their game last fall. The 19-year-old American says it has damaged his chess career.
Any suggestion the controversy had died down was dispelled last month when Niemann added a new complaint to his lawsuit. He accused Carlsen of paying a fellow Norwegian player €300 to yell “Cheater Hans” at the closing ceremony of a tournament in Austria last fall.
He also claimed Carlsen and other Norwegian team mates publicly chanted the same thing in bars and streets during the tournament. Carlsen’s lawyers have denied all the allegations.
Since the controversy arose, Niemann has continued to enter tournaments and do well. His classical chess rating rose above 2700 for the first time last month. With enhanced security at top level events, many think it’s unlikely anyone could be cheating.
Carlsen, meanwhile, told a press conference in December he doesn’t know what he will do if he’s paired with Niemann in a future event.
Hans Niemann v. Tabatabaei Mohammad, Spain, 2022
HANDOUT
What’s a quick way for White to secure the win?
White played 27.Nxb7 and Black resigned. The passed Pawns are too powerful to stop.
RIP
Richard Belzer, TV detective and stand-up comic, dies at 78
By Jake Coyle The Associated Press Posted February 19, 2023
RICHARD BELZER at the 40th Annual DGA Honors in New York City, 11/16/03.
Associated Press
Richard Belzer, the longtime stand-up comedian who became one of TV’s most indelible detectives as John Munch in “Homicide: Life on the Street” and “Law & Order: SVU,” has died. He was 78.
Belzer died Sunday at his home in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, in southern France, his longtime friend Bill Scheft said. Scheft, a writer who had been working on a documentary about Belzer, said there was no known cause of death, but that Belzer had been dealing with circulatory and respiratory issues. The actor Henry Winkler, Belzer’s cousin, tweeted, “Rest in peace Richard.”
For more than two decades and across 10 series _ even including appearances on “30 Rock” and “Arrested Development” _ Belzer played the wise-cracking, acerbic homicide detective prone to conspiracy theories. Belzer first played Munch on a 1993 episode of “Homicide” and last played him in 2016 on “Law & Order: SVU.”
Belzer never auditioned for the role. After hearing him on “The Howard Stern Show,” executive producer Barry Levinson brought the comedian in to read for the part.
“I would never be a detective. But if I were, that’s how I’d be,” Belzer once said. “They write to all my paranoia and anti-establishment dissidence and conspiracy theories. So it’s been a lot of fun for me. A dream, really.”
From that unlikely beginning, Belzer’s Munch would become one of television’s longest-running characters and a sunglasses-wearing presence on the small screen for more than two decades. In 2008, Belzer published the novel “I Am Not a Cop!” with Michael Ian Black. He also helped write several books on conspiracy theories, about things like President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
“He made me laugh a billion times,” his longtime friend and fellow stand-up Richard Lewis said Sunday on Twitter.
Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Belzer was drawn to comedy, he said, during an abusive childhood in which his mother would beat him and his older brother, Len. He would do impressions of his childhood idol, Jerry Lewis. “My kitchen was the toughest room I ever worked,” Belzer told People magazine in 1993.
After being expelled from Dean Junior College in Massachusetts, Belzer embarked on a life of stand-up in New York in 1972. At Catch a Rising Star, Belzer became a regular performer and an emcee. He made his big-screen debut in Ken Shapiro’s 1974 film “The Groove Tube,” a TV satire co-starring Chevy Chase, a film that grew out of the comedy group Channel One that Belzer was a part of.
Before “Saturday Night Live” changed the comedy scene in New York, Belzer performed with John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray and others on the National Lampoon Radio Hour. In 1975, he became the warm-up comic for the newly launched “SNL.” While many cast members quickly became famous, Belzer’s roles were mostly smaller cameos. He later said “SNL” creator Lorne Michaels reneged on a promise to work him into the show.
But Belzer became one of the era’s top stand-ups. He was known especially for his biting, cynical attitude and his witty, sometime combative banter with the audience. As one of the most influential comedians of the ’70s, Belzer was a master of crowd work.
“My style evolved from dealing with drunken people at twelve, one, two in the morning and trying to be like an alchemist and get the lead of their lives and turn it into golden jokes,” Belzer told Terry Gross on “Fresh Air.”
Belzer would later write an irreverent self-help book titled “How to Be a Stand-Up Comic” with advice on things like how to to apologize to Frank Sinatra when you made fun of him onstage or how to deal with hecklers. One of his favorite lines was: “I have a microphone. You have a beer. God has a plan and you’re not in on it.”
Belzer often played a stand-up comic in film, including in 1980s’ “Fame” and 1983’s “Scarface.” He had small roles here and there, including in “Night Shift” in 1982, and “Fletch Lives” in 1989. But Munch would change Belzer’s career.
As ”Homicide“ co-creator Tom Fontana said, ”Munch was the spice in these dishes,” Belzer told the AV Club. “Munch was based on a real guy in Baltimore who was a star detective, in a way. He would come onto grisly murder scenes, start doing one-liners, because someone had to break the tension. So Munch served a very important function. Not only was he a dissident who said what was on his mind, he kind of had the gallows humor that’s needed in a homicide squad.”
When “Homicide” wrapped in early 1999, Munch called Dick Wolf to see if the character could join another NBC series, “Law & Order,” where Munch had popped up in a few previous episodes. Wolf already had his leads for “Law & Order,” but he wanted Belzer to star in a spinoff. That fall, “Law & Order: SVU” premiered, with Belzer starring alongside Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni in a storyline written as though Munch had transferred from Baltimore to New York.
“Richard Belzer’s Detective John Munch is one of television’s iconic characters,” Wolf said in a statement.
“I first worked with Richard on the `Law & Order’/`Homicide’ crossover and loved the character so much,” Wolf said. “I wanted to make him one of the original characters on `SVU.’ The rest is history. Richard brought humor and joy into all our lives, was the consummate professional and we will all miss him very much.”
Belzer is survived by his third wife, the actress Harlee McBride, whom he married in 1985. For the past 20 years, they lived mostly in France, in homes he purchased partially from the proceeds of a lawsuit with Hulk Hogan. In 1985, Belzer had Hogan as a guest on his cable TV talk show “Hot Properties” to perform a chin-lock on him. Belzer passed out, hit his head and sued Hogan for $5 million. They settled out of court.
This story has been corrected to reflect that Belzer died in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, France, not Bozouls, as Scheft originally told The Hollywood Reporter.
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