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Wednesday, April 03, 2024

X-energy, TransAlta to assess use of Xe-100 in Alberta

03 April 2024

X-Energy Reactor Company and Canadian power producer TransAlta Corporation are to study the feasibility of deploying an X-energy Xe-100 advanced small modular nuclear reactor at a repurposed fossil fuel power plant in the province of Alberta.

The Xe-100 reactor design (Image: X-energy)

The partners will evaluate the economics, regulatory impacts, licensing requirements, timelines, and overall suitability of deploying an Xe-100 plant at a fossil fuel power plant site. The study will also focus on identifying and building Alberta-based supply chain partners and vendors and economic benefits for the province.

X-energy and TransAlta will be supported by Canada-based nuclear and professional engineering firms, including Hatch Ltd, Kinectrics Inc, and PCL Nuclear Management Inc. The study results are expected to provide "valuable insights and data to inform future TransAlta project and business decisions".

The study will be supported through funding from Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA), an initiative supported by the Government of Alberta designed to invest in promising technologies and solutions to reduce emissions throughout the province. X-energy has been awarded CASD623,152 (USD459,079) in funding for the project through ERA's Reshaping Energy Systems funding competition. It is one of 13 projects to receive funding totalling CAD33.7 million through the competition. "These projects, valued at approximately CAD88 million in public and private investment, focus on technologies that will reduce emissions and contribute to a more flexible and sustainable energy grid in Alberta," ERA said.

Alberta - which last year established a goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 - joined the provinces of New Brunswick, Ontario and Saskatchewan as a signatory to a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on small modular reactor (SMR) development in 2021 and has more recently signed memorandums of understanding with several SMR developers including ARC Clean Technology, X-energy and the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute.

The Government of Alberta is reconsidering the possibility of having conventional nuclear power plants, Affordability and Utilities Minister Nathan Neudorf told reporters at the provincial legislature on 28 March. His comment was the first public suggestion that the government is contemplating conventional nuclear power plants like those in Ontario and New Brunswick, according to CBC.

"This partnership with Emissions Reduction Alberta marks a significant step forward for clean energy technologies in the province," said Benjamin Reinke, X-energy's vice president for global business development. "We are pleased to work with TransAlta, a leader in power production, innovation, and sustainability, to evaluate how X-energy can support the province's climate goals.

"Alberta's tradition of energy innovation combined with our advanced nuclear technology offers a powerful solution to reducing emissions while increasing reliable baseload generation capacity and supporting the region's key economic drivers."

Blain van Melle, Executive Vice President, Commercial and Customer Relations at TransAlta, added: "TransAlta is excited to work with Emissions Reduction Alberta and our project partners to explore how X-energy's innovative small modular reactor technology can potentially augment TransAlta's existing sites and assets to deliver clean, reliable heat and power to our customers at competitive rates and without emissions from fossil fuels."

The Xe-100 - a high-temperature gas reactor capable of a thermal output of 200 MW or (80 MW electrical) which uses fuel made from robust TRISO fuel particles - is one of two designs selected by the US Department of Energy in 2020 to receive USD80 million each of initial cost-shared funding to build an advanced reactor demonstration plant that can be operational within seven years. X-energy announced in March 2023 that the first deployment of the design will be at one of materials science company Dow's sites on the US Gulf Coast. Seadrift - where Dow manufactures more than 4,000,000 pounds (1816 tonnes) of materials per year for use in applications such as food packaging, footwear, wire and cable insulation, solar cell membranes and packaging for pharmaceutical products - was selected to host the first Xe-100 in May 2023.

X-energy has also signed a joint development agreement with utility Energy Northwest for the deployment of up to 12 Xe-100 small modular reactors in central Washington State.

X-energy aims to deploy the first advanced small modular reactor in Alberta by the early 2030s.

In January this year, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission concluded that there are no fundamental barriers to licensing the Xe-100, an outcome that X-energy said increases confidence in proceeding with formal licence applications in Canada.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Friday, September 28, 2007

A Little Golf A Little Hustle

Alberta suddenly has become a destination of preference for U.S. Ambassador Dave Wilkins.Though his presence in the province has been downplayed despite his visiting the largest American city north of the 49th Parallel.

There are 75,000 Americans who call Calgary home -- more than any other city in the nation.
U.S. Consul General for the region Tom Huffaker says Calgary may indeed have a higher number of American ex-pats than any other city on the planet.
And this Saturday, Huffaker is calling all to share some food and good times to celebrate the great relationship that exists between Canada and the U.S.
The Can-Am Celebration, formerly known as the American Picnic, will take place at Heritage Park starting at 10:30 a.m.
Dignitaries at the Calgary Economic Development-sponsored function include Huffaker and U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins.

Last weekend he shot a little golf and shot the shit with Prince Ed over the royalty review.

U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins reportedly button-holed Stelmach last weekend in Banff about the key Hunter recommendation not to "grandfather" out any oilsands plants "on the grounds of fair treatment for all participants."

In October he will return to address that august body the Whitecourt Chamber of Commerce. Whitecourt is softwood lumber country, and it just so happens Alberta is named in the U.S. softwood suit.

Whitecourt is the site of three mills:

Blueridge Ranger Lumber Sawmill (owned by West Fraser)
Millar Western Sawmill / Pulp Mill (owned by Millar Western Forest Products)
Alberta Newsprint Company Pulp & Paper Mill.

It is also being courted as a site for a nuclear power plant by a Franco Canadian company. One in competition with Canadian Candu and American G.E. reactors.

Furthermore, Areva is talking to the federal government about forming a partnership with AECL. (Ottawa is also in discussions with Areva's American competitor, General Electric.)

So why is he visiting? Talk a little softwood, a little G.E.?

Nuclear Power Discussion is Back ( 9/26/2007 )

Nuclear power is back in the spotlight in Whitecourt. Areva Canada President, Armand Laferrere, attended town council last night, to give a presentation on his company in relation to nuclear power. Laferrere says Whitecourt would be the perfect site for his companies next project. He also said he was encouraged by the reaction from council members. Areva is the world's leading nuclear power plant provider, and currently has 98 plants worldwide.

Areva Canada does not build nuclear reactors, that is done by its parent company in France. In Canada Areva is involved solely in uranium mining in Saskatchewan. Given the fact that Whitecourt's sits right on the Athabasca river, this is an advantage for the companies expansion in competition with Energy Alberta who plans a nuke plant in neighbouring Peace River.

It's late afternoon in Saskatoon and Armand Laferrere's flight back home to Toronto doesn't leave for a couple of hours yet.
The president of Areva Canada Inc. doesn't seem to mind the wait. The day is typically busy for the smartly dressed Frenchman -- leaving Toronto in the early hours of the day for a morning business meeting in Alberta, and then hopping on another plane to give an afternoon presentation to the Canadian Nuclear Workers Council in Saskatoon before heading home.
Laferrere is talking about excited American customers who have already purchased equipment to compliment Areva's newest reactor, the EPR, although it's still in the licensing process. The model is being built in Finland and France, he explained, and is a third-generation plant that has buyers eagerly awaiting the day they can purchase the technology. The EPR, perhaps, is the model he would like to see in Western Canada.
"Saskatchewan has been pro-nuclear for a while because uranium is involved with it. The friendly atmosphere for nuclear in Saskatchewan, which we're already used to, seems to be spreading even further west, which is good news for the industry," Laferrere said. "I think public opinion is moving at astounding rates right now. Alberta is very seriously considering a nuclear build. Even British Columbia, which used to be very anti-nuclear, is starting to think about it -- much quicker than we thought."
Sitting in a nearly empty hotel conference room, Laferrere makes it clear that when the opportunity arises, he would like to see an Areva reactor in Western Canada. With the recent nuclear announcement coming from Alberta, Laferrere is keeping a close eye on the situation. Although plans for a nuclear reactor there aren't a done deal, Calgary-based Energy Alberta Corp. said its partner, Atomic Energy of Canada, would use Candu reactor technology if its applications are approved.
"We're interested in working in Alberta, definitely, and we're continuing contacts for that," he said. "The business model is not the kind of business model Areva would use; we would rather partner with an existing utility. But still everything that goes on in the industry is positive for the industry, and I'm watching it very closely. We just wouldn't do it this way."
With buzz around the nuclear horizon in the West, Laferrere notes that without uranium mining in Saskatchewan, Areva would be at a significant disadvantage in the industry. Though a provincial election could alter some contacts in his address book, he doubts any major changes would take place if a new party came into power.

A nuclear power plant in White court would be a carbon offset to the pollution spewed by the lumber processing plants. And in effect would allow them to continue spewing, without having to add scrubbers and new technology to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Saskatoon Sask Mining Week Areva Resources Canada Inc.

Whitecourt is also a hub into the Tarsands. Which is another reason the nuclear industry is looking at it. In the global economy the way big oil treats the environment, using up fresh water for tarsands extraction, creating deserts of sand from the extracted mud, whether in Ecuador or Whitecourt, it's all the same.
Long term pain for short term gain.

As bobert the blogger writes from the Amazon jungle on Blogging It Real he compares the situation of Ecuadorian oil workers, many working for Canadian companies, with those in Whitecourt. Of course some of those Ecuadorian workers may be coming here soon.

I’m in the Amazon. In a place called las joyas de sachas. It should be a pretty town, but it is the text book definition of an ecological and human disaster. The girl here is in a "soccer pitch" and that dark horizontal line is indeed the petrol vein. This is the place that Texaco came tearing into, and pulled out as much crude oil as possible with very little given to environmental and human health. The public outcry of Texaco’s handicraft forced them to change their name to Chevron. You know, a new name means a new history, no?

Despite Texaco / Chevron rubbing the slate clean, the after effects of their work in the Amazon is still devastating, as all the new petroleum developers continue to follow a few basic rules: pay nothing to environmental sustainability, pay very little to the Ecuadorian government (only $4 - $7 of every barrel of oil pulled out of Ecuador, actually stays in Ecuador), and pay the workers next too nothing.

Oil workers in sachas get paid about $120 a month, when the work is good. If it is slow, or there is maintenance to be done on the pipeline, that number goes down…a lot. The rates of cancer, according to some local doctors, are skyrocketing! Cancer is just about ready to takeover as the number one killer in sachas. That’s a pretty impressive accomplishment, to have a first world disease compete among diseases of the poor for the champion of morbidity. I can see the mayor now, broadcasting to all how 25 oil workers died from cancer, while only 14 pregnant mothers died on the road to the hospital to give birth (this is quite a common occurrence, as despite the abundance of Texas tea, locals can hardly afford anything, let alone a working vehicle with petrol in it).

So now, I’m curious. About 6,000km to the north and a little to the west is Alberta. Canada’s very own American State. In June I was passing through the town of Whitecourt, another oil town. Whitecourt is struggling, in its own way, as it can’t build enough houses or schools to accommodate the growing population that is seeking fortune on the oil fields. Car dealers can’t keep up with the demand for hummers, and the guy selling big screen TV’s is struggling to keep inventory in his store for more than a day.

At the local Boston Pizza, the young oil workers, almost all high school drop-outs who abhor any idea of higher education as salaries of $100,000 for a guy without grade 12 math is pretty hard to turn down, are doing lines of cocaine in the bathroom. They just can’t spend their money fast enough, so it goes up their nose. Without their grade 12, and the mentality of a spoiled kid in the candy store, they spend and spend.

What I can’t figure out is why my pals in Whitecourt, who don’t have enough math skills to do their own taxes, have the right to furiously spend money as if it were on fire. And in the light of the bonfire comes the chatter of how Alberta needs private healthcare, more private schools, and won’t give one cent from the oil boom to other provinces who are struggling with public debt.

Meanwhile in the broiling Amazon, oil workers only have the right to work, get paid next to nothing and die from being poisoned. Oil is oil. Be it from Alberta or Ecuador. The world market says there is no difference between oil pulled out of ground by a group of guys who get paid $100,000 a year compared to another group of guys who do the very same job, and sell the proceeds to the very same market, for about $1400 a year.

Halliburton and friends should have an annual worker exchange program! The boys from Alberta should come down to the Amazon and get cancer, and the Ecuadorians should enjoy a month in Whitecourt complete with nightly visits to Boston Pizza’s bathroom.

In many ways Alberta is the whitewash of oil. It justifies the extraction, because life is good for those who do it. But, the grim reality is that most of the world’s oil is pulled out of the ground by the desperate of the earth, who either have to suffer through bad health or brutal violence, and in the case of Iraq…both! If the entire world’s oil was pulled out of the ground with same lifestyle and mentality as it is in Alberta, we would be paying a solid $20 a gallon for fuel. No questions there.

But most of the world’s population enjoys bargain prices on oil, and complain about the imposed taxes that get thrown in there. It’s the brutality of labour conditions coupled with trade policies that ensure that next to no money remains in the communities of oil workers; money that could be put into safety equipment, transportation systems and basic social services that could do something about the monthly occurrence of a dead-would-be-mother lying in the ditch 20km from the nearest hospital. Spikes in energy prices might occur from time to time when speculators smell war, or hurricanes, but the baseline price, is based on places like sachas. Places torn open and left to rot, with absolutely no capacity to take care of those in need.

It’s the same philosophy that lies in Whitecourt, only seen through the fun-house mirror that is the global economy.

SEE:

RONA Vs Greenpeace

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Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Nuclear NIMBY

Unlike many opponents to nuclear power use in the Alberta tar sands, I am not anti-CANDU.

I support the use of CANDU as the safest low volume residue reactors in the world. That their need for continuing capitalization for maintenance is what has been problematic in the case of the industry in Ontario. Had the world adopted CANDU disasters like Three Mile Island or Chernobyl would never have occurred, because the technologies are different.

That being said, as a power engineer I oppose the use of Nuclear power in the Tarsands, as inefficient and not cost effective, because it will be used for steam injection of bitumen rather than for production of electricity. This will take up larger volumes of water, and further pollute the existing Athabasca river with heated effluent.

Nuclear power might be all the rage for some interested parties in Alberta's oil patch, but others question the need for such controversial power generation in an industry that requires more steam than electricity.

And let's understand that is what is being proposed for the tarsands, not just an electrical plant but one for steam and electrical production needed for bitumen production.

He was one of a small delegation of community leaders from Peace River, interested in visiting New Brunswick’s nuclear power plant. Whitecourt and Peace River are in the running to host Western Canada’s first nuclear plant, putting it about an hour’s drive from the B.C. border. It’s proposed for northwestern Alberta due to the presence of bitumen trapped in rock west of the main oilsands deposits.
Nuclear power may soon run deep electric heaters to extract that rockbound oil, reduce emissions for conventional oilsands extraction and perhaps light northeastern B.C. homes. It would spur the proposed pipeline to deliver the black gold to the west coast at Kitimat and on to Asia, and further cement the merger of Alberta and B.C. into Canada’s western super-province.

The prize Royal Dutch is chasing is bitumen trapped in hard-rock limestone, rather than the conventional oil sands around Fort McMurray where bitumen is mixed with dirt and sandstone.

The Anglo-Dutch energy giant is the likeliest customer for a nuclear power plant proposed by Energy Alberta Corp., a private company working with Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.Unlocking the multibillion-barrel bonanza encased in limestone requires an astounding amount of electricity.
The resource has been known for decades but efforts to recover it have failed.

Royal Dutch is working on electric heaters below ground to loosen up the gooey bitumen to draw it to the surface through wells.

The firm is trying to commercialize what it calls a "novel thermal recovery process" invented by Shell's technology arm.

But because companies in the oilsands are now becoming conservationists due to the provinces carbon tax, they are finding alternatives to nuclear power in other fuels they generate as waste.

oil companies are already moving rapidly towards cheaper, more efficient technologies than those used for the past 20 years, one representative said.

''Nuclear may be an option in five to 10 years from now, but in the meantime, people are already moving off of natural gas and moving on to other things,'' Greg Stringham, with the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said.
In the meantime, gasification of asphaltines, the dregs of the bitumen barrel, is one process being piloted in the oil sands as an alternative fuel, and underground fires fueled by oily air is another revolutionary technology being piloted to reduce costs in the oil sands, Stringham said.

So the guy who once was the leader of the Young Conservatives in Alberta now has to find a different market for his nuclear power plant. While still hoping to sell it to the oil companies as a possible mode for steam injection processes.

Energy Alberta, with partner Crown corporation Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., originally targetted the energy-hungry oil sands in its sales pitch, but has moved on to focus on Alberta in general. ''The purpose of this plant is to produce electricity only,'' spokesman Guy Huntingford said. ''Obviously hydrogen and steam are byproducts of it, but that's not why it's being built; it's being built purely for electricity, so we can place the plant anywhere.''

Nuclear power production of electricity is cleaner than coal, even when considering the environmental impact of both its energy source; uranium mining and fresh water, and its waste problems. It is also less environmentally damaging in comparison to the impact of hydro plants.

In fact nuclear power was one alternative source that M.K. Hubert recommended when offering alternatives to oil consumption in his Peak Oil theory.

The Green NGO's and their campaigners target nuclear power because they equate it with two false premises; fear of radiation, and fear of nuclear war.

They equate peaceful nuclear power with the military industrial complex, and they play on peoples fear of radiation.

There are all kinds of other problems with nuclear energy, including safety (even if technology has improved there is no such thing as a 100% accident proof anything, and a nuclear accident is the stuff of nightmares), dangerous waste (there is no way to get rid of nuclear waste at this time and the plant to be built would store all waste on site), environmental concerns (water would be drawn from the Peace River and that could mean pollution or an effect on local ecosystems), security (governments say nuclear power and nuclear waste are potential terrorist targets), and scarcity (uranium is a limited, non-renewable resource).

Facing reality
Editorial - Monday, June 18, 2007 @ 08:00

Not in my backyard. The call is going out loud and clear. In fact, it has been reverberating in both political and community circles ever since it was realized nuclear energy generates waste that must be stored somewhere.

As recorded in Saturday's Nugget, Nipissing-Timiskaming MP Anthony Rota has grave doubts about the whole concept of burying nuclear waste.

Rota is both a cancer victim and survivor. He cannot be thanked or commended too much for having the courage to admit his experience with cancer, and always being at the forefront in every effort to fight this dreaded disease.

Nuclear waste is radioactive. Radiation causes cancer. Rota speaks for millions of Canadians who are afraid of the stuff and do not want it in their backyards

Radioactive waste is the trouble with nuclear power says the right wing Green NGO Energy Probe which opposes nuclear power because they are shills for King Coal.

Dealing with the waste produced by nuclear reactors is one area that constantly dogs the nuclear power industry. Norman Rubin, director of nuclear research for the anti-nuclear organization Energy Probe, believes the waste is the primary problem with the technology.

The real problem is that with Canada's state funded CANDU, uranium industry and its provincial funded utilities,etc. the control lies with a closed group of state sanctioned corporations like Atomic Energy Canada, which have no public transparency, with no public representation on the board; union, consumer, engineering associations, MP's, etc.

The licensing of more reactors would also be a great boon, at potentially greater public expense, to Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, which has received subsidies of $17.5 billion over 50 years, according to the Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout.

Widespread distrust of existing agencies led Canadians to call for a new independent, non-partisan oversight body to keep tabs on how both government and industry handle nuclear waste.

This message means that top elected officials in Ottawa and the provinces must "revisit the mandates of existing oversight bodies in the nuclear field," concludes the report. Bodies like the federal regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, will need to have a "very public face."

Where our concern has to be is the privatization of nuclear power, it is when plants like that at Three Mile Island or worse; Hanford, are built by Westinghouse and contractors in a P3 with the State that slip shod construction and maintenance leads to critical problems.

The same kind of cronyism that saw the MIC in the U.S. build nuclear power plants was the kind of cronyism that occurred when the Soviet State built its MIC nuclear power plant in the Ukraine. After all Ukrainians were expendable just like the nice folks around Hanford, or those who live in the Nevada desert.

CANDU was a state sponsored engineered and maintained nuclear power process plant different from the Westinghouse and other designs. It was during the Harris and Martin governments rush to privatize and cut back public sector funding that resulted in the Bruce plant in Ontario running into problems. Bruce is now operated by a more public corporation which includes the Power Workers Union.

But in the Post-Kyoto era all that has changed. Those who once talked about selling off government assets now embrace them and are promoting them not only in Alberta but internationally.

Stephen Harper would seem an unlikely pitchman for nuclear power. When the Prime Minister launches into his familiar spiel about Canada as an emerging "energy superpower," we all think we know what he's talking about -- he's an Alberta MP, after all, and his father worked for Imperial Oil. Yet in a key speech last summer in London, his most gleeful boast was not about record oil profits, but about soaring uranium prices. "There aren't many hotter commodities, so to speak, in the resource markets these days," Harper joked to the Canada-U.K. Chamber of Commerce crowd. Then, noting that Britain is among those countries poised to begin buying new reactors for the first time in decades, he added: "We'll hope you remember that Canada is not just a source of uranium; we also manufacture state-of-the-art CANDU reactor technology, and we're world leaders in safe management of fuel waste."

And in response to the key criticism of waste storage these leaders in the 'safe management of fuels", a state sanctioned private conglomerate of nuclear power companies, have blown the dust off another old proposal from the seventies; using the Canadian Shield to store radioactive waste. Not much of a different plan than that used by the US. And one opposed by the Canadian public.

Canada's Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn announced Friday the Harper government's endorsement of nuclear power and its approval of going ahead with storing high-level radioactive waste underground.
The Conservatives' announcement allows existing reactor sites to continue accumulating waste indefinitely, and it initiates a search for an "informed community" willing to host a "deep repository" for burial of wastes. It will also explore moving wastes to a central location for temporary, shallow underground storage and recycling of nuclear fuel.
As Susan Riley writes in today's Ottawa Citizen, "Apart from the experimental nature of the proposed solution, many hurdles remain — notably, finding a community desperate enough to become a nuclear dumping ground. It has been long supposed that some remote northern town would be the lucky winner, given the technological preference for disposing of the waste deep in the Canadian shield. But recent research suggests the sedimentary rock underlying much of southern Ontario would also be suitable. That said, the prospect of a bidding war between Oakville and Rosedale appears unlikely."
Lunn said the planned depository would cost billions of dollars but said the cost would be borne by the nuclear industry.
It would take 60 years to find a location, build the facility and then transport in the used fuel.
The Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) regulates this waste, which is currently stored safely and economically in water-filled pools or in dry concrete canisters at the nuclear reactor sites. While there is no technical urgency to proceed toward disposal right away, the issue needs to be addressed partly because the volume of the waste is growing, and partly because the Government has recognized a public concern that a disposal option needs to be identified. In 1978, AECL began a comprehensive program to develop the concept of deep geological disposal of nuclear fuel waste in igneous rock of the Canadian Shield. AECL, assisted by Ontario Hydro, subsequently developed the detailed proposal that is the subject of a public environmental review process by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. Public hearings began on March 11, 1996, and are expected to continue until the end of the year.
Subsequently, in 1978, the Governments of Canada and Ontario established the Nuclear Fuel Waste Management Program “to assure the safe and permanent disposal of nuclear fuel waste”. In this program, the responsibility for research and development on disposal in a deep underground repository in intrusive igneous rock was allocated to Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL).
As it stands, the AECL concept for deep geological disposal has not been demonstrated to have broad public support. The concept in its current form does not have the required level of acceptability to be adopted as Canada’s approach for managing nuclear fuel wastes.
Ignoring a 1998 recommendation by a federal environmental panel (the Seaborn Panel) to create an impartial radioactive waste agency, the Chretien government in 2002 gave control of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization to the nuclear industry - namely Ontario Power Generation, Hydro Quebec and New Brunswick Power. Also in 2002 the federal Nuclear Fuel Waste Act gave NWMO a three-year mandate to choose between (a) "deep geological disposal in the Canadian Shield"; (b) "storage at nuclear sites"; and (c) "centralized storage, either above or below ground". NWMO must make its final recommendation to the federal government by November 15, 2005.
The Nuclear Fuel Waste Act results from the response of the Canadian federal government (December 1998) to the recommendations of the report of the Environmental Review panel (March 1998) on AECL's nuclear fuel waste management proposal. The report concluded that the plan for Deep Geological Disposal is technically sound, and that nuclear waste would be safely isolated from the biosphere, but that it remains a socially unacceptable plan in Canada. The report makes several recommendations, including the creation of an independent agency to oversee the range of activities leading to implementation. The scope will include complete public participation in the process. (See also the author's March 1998 editorial on this subject, and a detailed critique by industry observer J.A.L. "Archie" Robertson, published in the Bulletin of Canadian Nuclear Society, vol. 2 and 3, 1998)
Over a study and consultation period of three years the NWMO was mandated to choose among three storage concepts and propose a site:

Deep underground in the Canadian Shield
Above-ground at reactor sites
Or at a centralized disposal area

The final report of the NWMO was released in November 2005, recommending a strategy of "Adaptive Phased Management". The strategy is based upon a centralized repository concept, but with a phase approach that includes public consultation and "decision points" along the way, as well as several concepts associated with centralized storage (vs. disposal), and the ability to modify the long-term strategy in accordance with evolving technology or societal wishes. The approach of Adaptive Phased Management was formally accepted by the federal government on June 14, 2007.
The NWMO is financed from a trust fund set up by the nuclear electricity generators and AECL. These companies were required to make an initial payment of $550 million into the fund: Ontario Power Generation (OPG), contributed $500 million, Hydro-Quebec and New Brunswick Power each paid $20 million, and AECL contribute $10 million. The participants are also required to make annual contributions ranging between $2 million and $100 million (one-fifth of their respective initial contributions).
Another important component of the disposal plan is the transportation of nuclear fuel to the disposal site. In Canada this aspect is the responsibility of the Ontario utility, Ontario Power Generation Inc.. Special transport casks have been designed that are able to withstand severe accidents. The battery of tests applied to these casks include being dropped 9 metres onto a hardened surface, exposure to an 800 degrees Celsius fire for 30 minutes, and immersion in water for 8 hours. The development of such specialized containers has proceeded in parallel with efforts in other countries. Sandia Labs in the U.S., in particular, has published some remarkable photographs of severe crash tests performed on one such design.

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Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Tarsands To Go Nuclear

The Greening of Alberta's Tar Sands will result in a green glow of radiation.

So along with Greenhouse Gas emissions there will be more destruction of the Athabasca water basin when it is used to cool a nuke plant planned for the Tarsands.

Nuke plants require vast amounts of water as coolant, the result is hot water returned to mix with the original source water.

Henuset and Hank Swartout - founder and executive chairman of Precision Drilling Corporation - are co-directors of Energy Alberta Corporation. The new firm has an exclusivity agreement with Atomic Energy of Canada Limited to develop nuclear power in Alberta. Later this year in early 2008, AECL and Energy Alberta hope to file an application with the Alberta Energy & Utilities Board for a permit to construct a 750 megawatt generating plant.

The partnership estimates that a two-reactor nuclear plant over its 50-year lifetime would be 15% less expensive than its natural gas equivalent (including capital and decommissioning expenses as well as operating costs). Crucially important in Henuset's view, the long-term price of uranium to fuel those reactors is more likely to remain stable than natural gas. "Nuclear power is a natural hedge against rising gas prices," he states. His firm's nuclear-versus-gas cost projection assumes an Alberta gas price of $7.04 per gigajoule in the year 2015, which the former oilman considers highly conservative.
Energy Alberta is well aware that its project faces high hurdles. Because these power stations are large, big sums of money must be raised. In fact, nuclear power ranks as the most capital-intensive form of electricity generation, although its operating costs are correspondingly low. Time is another factor. The period required to win regulatory approval and construct a nuclear facility is estimated to be 10 years. Further, there are rival forms of power generation, notably coke and coal gasification (see accompanying article).
Perhaps most formidable of all, North Americans have lived inside a "no-nuke" bubble for several decades; hostility toward the technology among many people is deeply emotional as well as intellectual. In response, Henuset points out that uranium-fueled power continues to develop rapidly elsewhere in the industrialized world.

And the folks behind the push to go nuclear are none other than the Alberta PC party. The same folks who brought you the unplanned, unorganized, rapid expansion of the Tarsands. And though they ousted Ralph Klein for his failure to plan for the boom, they have elected Steady Eddie Stelmach in his place who promises more of the same.

David McColl: Why An Energy Economist Helped Oust Ralph Klein
A fair amount of technical and economic analysis of these issues has already been done by the Alberta Energy Research Institute, the Institute for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economy and other organizations. McColl himself has researched and co-authored studies on the oilsands development, nuclear options and related subjects for the Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI) and Energy Alberta Corporation.

What's still missing, the Calgary consultant maintains, is any meaningful political response. McColl, who holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Waterloo and a master's in economics from the University of Alberta, has been president of the Alberta Progressive Conservatives' youth wing for more than two years. From that post, he helped instigate the party leadership review which led to the ouster of Ralph Klein as the province's premier. "Many Albertans had a discouraging sense of public policy drift, even paralysis, at the Cabinet level," says the 26-year-old economist.

Also See:

Nuke The Tar Sands

Dion Pro Nuke

Cutting Your Nose

Energy

CANDU

Peak Oil

Tar Sands

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Thursday, January 20, 2022

Guess Who’s Leading the Charge for Nuclear Power in Canada?

Small reactors make no economic sense, despite the boost by Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and lobbyists.

David Climenhaga 10 Jan 2022 | Alberta Politics

‘Real solution’ for Canada? Former heads of nuclear regulatory committees in the UK, US, Germany and France just announced that ‘nuclear is not a practicable means to combat climate change.’

Image via Shutterstock.

Small nuclear reactors don’t make any more economic sense now than they did back in the summer of 2020 when Alberta Premier Jason Kenney took to the internet to tout the supposed benefits of the largely undeveloped technology being promoted by Canada’s nuclear industry.

In a year with plenty of gripping issues to choose from, these were the big draws in our pages.

Now that Kenney has taken to Twitter again to claim atomic energy is a “real solution that helps reduce emissions” and that so-called small modular reactors can “strengthen and diversify our energy sector,” it’s worth taking another look at why the economics of small nuclear reactors don’t add up.

As I pointed out in 2020, “as long as natural gas is cheap and plentiful, small nuclear reactors will never make economic sense.”

Natural gas is somewhat more expensive now than it was then, but not enough to make a difference to that calculation when the massive cost of any new nuclear-energy project is considered.

Even “small modular reactors,” so named to reassure a public skittish about the term nuclear and wary of the costs and risks of atomic reactors, are extremely expensive. It would be more accurate to call them “medium-sized nuclear reactors.”
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For example, two such reactors built by Russia starting in 2006 were supposed to cost US$140 million. They ended up costing US$740 million by the time the project was completed in 2019.

Getting approvals for smaller reactors is time consuming, too. As environmentalist and author Chris Turner pointed out yesterday, the first small nuclear reactor approved in the United States “submitted its application in 2017, got approval late last year, could begin producing 700MW by 2029 if all goes perfectly. Solar will add double that to Alberta’s grid by 2023.” Indeed, the estimated completion date of the NuScale Power project may be even later.

The small reactors touted by many companies, often entirely speculative ventures, are nothing more than pretty drawings in fancy brochures. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, there are about 50 concepts, but only a couple in the United States and Russia with massive amounts of government money behind them are anything more than pipedreams or stock touts’ pitches to investors.

And small nuclear reactors are less economical than big reactors, so power companies aren’t interested in building them; all but one proposed design requires enriched uranium, which Canada doesn’t produce, so they won’t do much for uranium mining in Alberta; and all the safety and waste-removal problems of big nukes continue to exist with small ones.

These points are documented in more detail my 2020 post, which also discussed why smaller reactors will never create very many jobs in Alberta, although they could be a boon to Ontario if the technology took off.

Kenney’s most recent tweet — which provides a link to a slick video touting nuclear power produced by the British newsmagazine the Economist, was posted on Jan. 6.

By coincidence, presumably, a communique issued the same day by the former heads of nuclear regulatory committees in the United Kingdom, United States, Germany and France concluded that “nuclear is not a practicable means to combat climate change.”

“The central message, repeated again and again, that a new generation of nuclear will be clean, safe, smart and cheap, is fiction,” the communique states.

Nuclear energy is neither cheap enough nor safe enough to provide an effective strategy against global climate change, the communique authors argued. “To make a relevant contribution to global power generation, up to more than 10,000 new reactors would be required, depending on reactor design.”

Among their key points:

Nuclear power more expensive than renewable energy on a similar scale
None of the problems of waste disposal have been solved
It’s so expensive financial markets won’t invest in it, so it requires massive public subsidies
No one is prepared to insure against the full potential cost of environmental and human impacts of accidental radiation releases
Construction timelines are too long for it to make a contribution to stopping global warming

So why are Canadian provinces like Alberta so enthusiastic about the idea?

Well, it provides a way for governments captured by the fossil fuel industry to show they’re doing something about climate change without actually doing anything about climate change.

Of course, just because nuclear power generators might reduce the carbon footprint of oilsands extraction, that doesn’t mean the oil extracted would not be burned elsewhere, contributing to climate change.

For a government like Kenney’s United Conservative Party, it’s also an opportunity to make positive-sounding announcements about new jobs in a new industry on days when news media would otherwise be concentrating on the latest scandal — nowadays pretty well every day.

Moreover, the UCP Government is being actively lobbied by the Canadian Nuclear Association, “the voice of the Canadian nuclear industry since 1960,” which “promotes the industry nationally and internationally.

Are Thousands of New Nuclear Generators in Canada’s Future?

READ MORE

According to the Alberta Lobbyist Registry, Calgary-based New West Public Affairs, a firm with close ties to the Kenney government headed by former Harper government minister Monte Solberg, has been engaged to “facilitate introductions for the Canadian Nuclear Association and share information on small modular reactors” with various government departments.

New West was hired “specifically, to generate support for the technology and to identify if there is an opportunity in Alberta’s mining and oil and gas sectors for the deployment of new low carbon energy sources, including nuclear,” the registry entry says.

The CNA is also using Ottawa-based Earnscliffe Strategies, one of Canada’s best-known lobby firms, to seek “support for clean electricity — including nuclear electricity — as a foundation for emissions reduction in Canada.” In addition, Earnscliffe is lobbying for “support for the research and development of small modular reactors.”

Kenney and lobbyists.

David Climenhaga is an award-winning journalist, author, post-secondary teacher, poet and trade union communicator. He blogs at AlbertaPolitics.ca. Follow him on Twitter at @djclimenhaga.

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=NUKE+ALBERTA

Sunday, May 06, 2007

Alberta Tories Support Nuking the Tarsands

At least one Alberta Tory knows the difference between power and energy. Though apparently one delegate at this weekends PC Convention thinks the Liberals are still in power in Ottawa.

Nuclear power is for creating electrical energy, the use that is being looked at for the Tarsands is to produce steam for injection into the oilsands to release the bitumin, which is neither efficient nor cheap. Nuclear power to just produce steam is like hunting flies with a shotgun.

Also Saturday, delegates voted to explore using nuclear power plants to assist oilsands development.

Delegate Bill Dearborn of Medicine Hat said the oilsands need a nuclear option as a bulwark against any future federal raids on Alberta's resource-based economy.

"We're familiar with these Liberal governments in Ottawa that have imposed unfair taxes on the oil and gas industry in the past,'' he said.

But delegate Don Dabbs said he has participated in a past provincial study on nuclear power and that it's not the way to go to generate steam power for the oilsands.

"A reactor to generate steam is not the principal purpose of a nuclear reactor. It's for electrical energy.

"It's a very expensive source of steam.''
Thomas Savery (1650-1715)
Thomas Savery was an English military engineer and inventor who in 1698, patented the first crude steam engine, based on Denis Papin's Digester or pressure cooker of 1679.
Thomas Savery had been working on solving the problem of pumping water out of coal mines, his machine consisted of a closed vessel filled with water into which steam under pressure was introduced. This forced the water upwards and out of the mine shaft. Then a cold water sprinkler was used to condense the steam. This created a vacuum which sucked more water out of the mine shaft through a bottom valve.

Boilers
The high-pressure steam for a steam engine comes from a boiler. The boiler's job is to apply heat to water to create steam. There are two approaches: fire tube and water tube.
A fire-tube boiler was more common in the 1800s. It consists of a tank of water perforated with pipes. The hot gases from a coal or wood fire run through the pipes to heat the water in the tank, as shown here:

In a fire-tube boiler, the entire tank is under pressure, so if the tank bursts it creates a major explosion.
More common today are water-tube boilers, in which water runs through a rack of tubes that are positioned in the hot gases from the fire. The following simplified diagram shows you a typical layout for a water-tube boiler:

In a real boiler, things would be much more complicated because the goal of the boiler is to extract every possible bit of heat from the burning fuel to improve efficiency.

Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR or CANDU).

The CANDU reactor design has been developed since the 1950s in Canada. It uses natural uranium (0.7% U-235) oxide as fuel, hence needs a more efficient moderator, in this case heavy water (D₂O).**

** with the CANDU system, the moderator is enriched (ie water) rather than the fuel, - a cost trade-off.

The moderator is in a large tank called a calandria, penetrated by several hundred horizontal pressure tubes which form channels for the fuel, cooled by a flow of heavy water under high pressure in the primary cooling circuit, reaching 290ƒC. As in the PWR, the primary coolant generates steam in a secondary circuit to drive the turbines. The pressure tube design means that the reactor can be refuelled progressively without shutting down, by isolating individual pressure tubes from the cooling circuit.

A CANDU fuel assembly consists of a bundle of 37 half metre long fuel rods (ceramic fuel pellets in zircaloy tubes) plus a support structure, with 12 bundles lying end to end in a fuel channel. Control rods penetrate the calandria vertically, and a secondary shutdown system involves adding gadolinium to the moderator. The heavy water moderator circulating through the body of the calandria vessel also yields some heat (though this circuit is not shown on the diagram above).

Steam generator (nuclear power)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an article about nuclear power plant equipment. For other uses, see steam generator.

Steam generators are heat exchanger used to convert water into steam from heat produced in a nuclear reactor core. They are used in pressurized water reactors between the primary and secondary coolant loops.

In commercial power plants steam generators can measure up to 70 feet in height and weigh as much as 800 tons. Each steam generator can contain anywhere from 3,000 to 16,000 tubes, each about three-quarters of an inch in diameter. The coolant is pumped, at high pressure to prevent boiling, from the reactor coolant pump, through the nuclear reactor core, and through the tube side of the steam generators before returning to the pump. This is referred to as the primary loop. That water flowing through the steam generator boils water on the shell side to produce steam in the secondary loop that is delivered to the turbines to make electricity. The steam is subsequently condensed via cooled water from the tertiary loop and returned to the steam generator to be heated once again. The tertiary cooling water may be recirculated to cooling towers where it sheds waste heat before returning to condense more steam. Once through tertiary cooling may otherwise be provided by a river, lake, ocean. This primary, secondary, tertiary cooling scheme is the most common way to extract usable energy from a controlled nuclear reaction.

These loops also have an important safety role because they constitute one of the primary barriers between the radioactive and non-radioactive sides of the plant as the primary coolant becomes radioactive from its exposure to the core. For this reason, the integrity of the tubing is essential in minimizing the leakage of water between the two sides of the plant. There is the potential that if a tube bursts while a plant is operating; contaminated steam could escape directly to the secondary cooling loop. Thus during scheduled maintenance outages or shutdowns, some or all of the steam generator tubes are inspected by eddy-current testing.

In other types of reactors, such as the pressurised heavy water reactors of the CANDU design, the primary fluid is heavy water. Liquid metal cooled reactors such as the in Russian BN-600 reactor also use heat exchangers between primary metal coolant and at the secondary water coolant.

Boiling water reactors do not use steam generators, as steam is produced in the pressure vessel.

See: