Governments are backing nuclear power in a big way but fears of disasters still linger, with any mishap having the potential to derail the big nuclear resurgence. As governments get behind nuclear projects for the first time in several decades, in order to boost their energy security, many continue to be fearful of nuclear developments for both safety and environmental reasons. But will leaders be able to convince the public of the need for nuclear energy as part of a green transition?
Nuclear energy was hailed years ago as the cleaner alternative to fossil fuels that could provide reliable energy to countries around the globe. But as it was increasing in popularity, with several major global developments being achieved, three notable disasters undermined the potential for widespread nuclear development. The events of Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979; Chornobyl in 1986; and Fukushima in Japan in 2011 led to a movement away from the development of nuclear projects in favor, largely, of fossil fuels.
However, with growing energy insecurity being felt worldwide, in response to sanctions on Russian oil and gas; a rapid movement away from fossil fuels to greener alternatives; and a rise in energy prices, several governments are putting nuclear power back on the agenda. With its carbon-free energy producing capabilities, it appeals to governments who have made ambitious carbon pledges, while offering them greater mid-term energy security than other renewable energy projects that may take longer to be developed at the scale required to meet growing demand.
In the U.S., nuclear energy accounts for around 20 percent of the country’s power, and 50 percent of its carbon-free power. And with major public and private investments being pumped into research and development, countries around the world are hoping to build more efficient, lower-cost, and smaller nuclear reactors than what we have traditionally seen. If all goes well, the U.S. Department of Energy expects demand for nuclear reactors to reach $1 trillion globally.
But according to several energy experts, just one incident could radically worsen the already negative public perception of nuclear power. A multitude of studies deem nuclear energy the safest form of electricity generation, and yet many people around the world who have lived through nuclear disasters are still opposed to the development of new nuclear projects due to the danger associated with them. Others believe that nuclear power is not as green as it is made out to be, as although it creates carbon-free power, there is still the problem of waste management.
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So, why are we so scared of nuclear power? Despite a lack of public understanding of nuclear technology, meaning that it can sometimes be confused with nuclear weapons, there was a general optimism around nuclear energy when it first emerged several decades ago. It seems that the current negative public perception of nuclear power stems mainly from the nuclear disasters that were seen around the world in real-time.
Although relatively few died during these incidents compared to deaths worldwide from other energy operations, the incidents were widely televised and the fear of the unknown spread rapidly. Governments responded to them differently compared to other energy disasters, mainly because it was not known how many people should be evacuated and the best way to respond to the disaster on the ground. This made people more panicked than when other events occur, such as an explosion on an offshore oil platform or a fire at a refinery. The overreaction by political powers in the face of a nuclear incident has led to widespread mistrust of nuclear technology. Furthermore, the portrayal of nuclear disasters in several TV series and movies has exaggerated the dangers associated with nuclear power.
In reality, the nuclear incidents that caused the fear resulted in relatively few deaths. No one died due to radiation in the Three Mile Island or Fukushima disasters, and fewer than 50 died during and following Chornobyl. While this may sound like a lot, if this is the only nuclear incident that resulted in deaths during the current lifespan of nuclear energy production, the figure is much lower than other energy sources, particularly fossil fuels that continue to create deadly air pollution.
Perhaps the only way to improve public perception of nuclear energy is through re-education that highlights the relative safety of the technology compared to other energy operations. In addition, as the public and international organizations put pressure on state governments to go green, better marketing of nuclear energy could help shift the public perception, as people begin to see the carbon-free energy source as necessary for a green future. However, for now, governments are feeling the mounting pressure to ‘get it right’, with the potential for any mishap to add to the long-term demonization of nuclear power.
By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com
Agreement to bolster Korean nuclear industry
11 August 2022
South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP), Doosan Enerbility and nuclear energy equipment and materials manufacturers with the aim of revitalising the country's nuclear industry.
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The signing of the MoU (Image: MOTIE)
The MoU was signed on 10 August at a conference in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, to discuss business support measures for revitalising the industry ecosystem. The Nuclear Energy Industry Business Conference was presided by Trade, Industry and Energy Minister Lee Chang-yang and was attended by various representatives, including Gyeongsangnam-do Economy Deputy Governor Kim Byung-gyu, KHNP Vice President Choi Nam-woo, Doosan Enerbility Vice President Na Ki-yong and PK Valve CEO Chun Young-chan.
The MoU aims to improve the competitiveness of the nuclear industry ecosystem through shared growth, working together to contribute to carbon neutrality, responding to the energy crisis and stabilisation of power supply. Based on this, the industry plans to closely cooperate to create new jobs, develop joint technologies, exchange manpower and expand exports.
During the conference, Lee outlined policy programmes and directions across five major areas: securing new projects; finance; research and development; creating a nuclear energy cluster; and expanding exports.
For winning new contracts, he said KRW130.6 billion (USD100 million) worth of new projects are to be awarded by the end of 2022. Lee said bids amounting to KRW86.2 billion have already opened, and remaining projects are likely to be confirmed by October.
For financing, funds and special guarantees amounting to KRW100 billion have been available since July for nuclear energy companies, and the evaluation of 60 companies' applications is currently under way.
For R&D, Lee said a KRW670 billion fund will be launched this year by the MOTIE, the Ministry of Science & ICT and KHNP. In addition, KRW21.5 billion worth of R&D funds will be reserved for small and medium-sized companies, applications for which are expected to begin being received this month.
As nuclear energy companies are concentrated in Changwon, Lee said MOTIE is considering designating the area as an Energy Industry Convergence Complex, where R&D benefits, local investment subsidies and tax cuts could stimulate the region's growth. He noted South Gyeongsang Province is currently preparing the application process to establish this.
"We plan to supply KRW1 trillion of orders for power plant related materials for nuclear energy companies in Changwon region," Lee was cited as saying by Korea JoongAng Daily.
Next week, a committee of government departments, Korea Electric Power Corporation, financial companies and private sector companies specialising in exporting Korea's nuclear power capabilities will be launched.
MOTIE said it plans to "facilitate close communication with corporations and incorporate their needs into policy programmes".
President Yoon Suk-yeol, who took office in May, vowed to reverse former President Moon Jae-in's policy of phasing out nuclear power, a policy which was brought in after he assumed office in 2017, and followed the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident in Japan.
Last month, the South Korean government laid out a new energy policy which aims to maintain nuclear's share of the country's energy mix at a minimum of 30% by 2030. It also calls for the construction of units 3 and 4 at the Shin Hanul nuclear power plant to resume after design work was suspended in 2017 due to uncertainties about government policy on the construction of new reactors.
The new policy also aims to strengthen exports of new energy industries and "capitalise on them as growth engines". It sets the goal of exporting 10 nuclear power plants by 2030, as well as the development of a Korean small modular reactor design.
EDF sues French government over electricity sales
10 August 2022
The state-controlled nuclear giant EDF has launched a legal claim against the French government for more than EUR8.0 billion (USD8.2 billion) in lost earnings resulting from the order to sell more nuclear electricity at below market-level prices this year.
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The Bellville nuclear power plant in Central France (Image: EDF)
Under the so-called Regulated Access to Incumbent Nuclear Electricity (Accès Régulé à l’Electricité Nucléaire Historique, ARENH) mechanism set up to foster competition, rival energy suppliers can buy electricity produced by EDF's nuclear power plants located in France that were commissioned before 8 December 2010. Under such contracts, between July 2011 and December 2025, suppliers can buy up to 100 TWh - or about 25% of EDF's annual nuclear output - at a fixed price of EUR42 (USD47) per MWh. EDF operates 57 reactors in France, with a total capacity of 62.3 GWe, which together provide about 75% of the country's electricity.
In January, the French government - in an attempt to limit the rise in people's energy bills - decided to increase the amount of electricity that had to be sold at the below market-level prices of the ARENH scheme. It declared an additional allocation of 20 TWh of electricity to be sold at a regulated price for 2022. It also announced a postponement of a portion of the 2022 tariff increase over a 12-month period starting from 1 February 2023.
At that time, EDF said it would "consider appropriate measures to strengthen its balance sheet structure and any measure to protect its interests".
The government issued a decree and orders in March defining the specific terms and conditions for the allocation of the additional volume of electricity that can be allocated in 2022 and setting the price at which it will be sold at EUR46.20 per MWh.
"Following an in-depth legal analysis, and in light of the losses incurred as a result of the decree and orders dated March 11, 12 and 25, 2022, EDF today filed a legal claim with the Conseil d'Etat (the French administrative supreme court), as well as a claim for indemnification, for an amount estimated to date at EUR8.34 billion, with the French State," the company has now announced.
It has been a difficult year for EDF with its nuclear output falling as a result of the discovery of "unexpected stress corrosion" which led to the need to carry out checks across much of its French fleet. The cost of the lower than expected nuclear power output was estimated by EDF at EUR11 billion (USD11.2 billion) and in February it launched a EUR2.5 billion rights issue to help its finances following the combined hit from lower output as well as the cost of measures imposed on it by President Emmanuel Macron to limit energy bills.
The French state is also in the process of fully renationalising the company by increasing its shareholding in EDF from 84% to 100%.
Final permits in place for Phoenix ISL field test
10 August 2022
Denison Mines Corp is now fully permitted to recover a uranium-bearing solution from the Phoenix ore body at the Wheeler River project in northern Saskatchewan. The feasibility field test (FFT) will be a first-of-its-kind test and will help de-risk the planned in-situ leach (ISL) uranium mining operation.
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The surface liner in place at the FFT's containment pad, currently under construction (Image: Denison)
The final permit needed for the FFT, a Nuclear Substance Licence from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, has now been received. This allows Denison to possess the uranium collected from the operation of the FFT, store it on site, and to handle and transfer recovered material for laboratory analyses.
With the receipt of the final permit, Denison's focus is now on the "timely completion of the construction and operation of the FFT", the company's Denison President and CEO David Cates said.
ISL - also known as solution mining, or in situ recovery (ISR) - recovers minerals from ore in the ground by dissolving them and pumping the pregnant solution to the surface where the minerals can be recovered. The method causes little surface disturbance and generates no tailings or waste rock, but the orebody needs to be permeable to the liquids used, and located so that they do not contaminate groundwater away from the orebody. More than half of the world's uranium production is now produced by solution methods, but the technique has not so far been used in Canada.
The FFT will use an existing commercial-scale ISL test pattern at Phoenix for combined assessment of the deposit's hydraulic flow properties with the leaching characteristics that have been assessed through the metallurgical core-leach testing program.
Since receiving Saskatchewan Minister of Environment approval in July, work has begun on earthworks and associated preparation of the site for the FFT facilities. Construction of the recovered solution management modules is under way. Operation of the FFT is planned to occur in three phases: leaching; neutralisation; and recovered solution management. The leaching and neutralisation phases are expected to take place over an estimated 60-day operating time frame.
The company recently said it had substantially completed metallurgical test work to define the mechanical components for the Phoenix processing plant, with tests on core samples representative of the planned ISL wellfield demonstrating the ability to produce a saleable uranium product.
Wheeler River, a joint venture between Denison (90% and operator) and JCU (Canada) Exploration Company Limited (10%), is host to the high-grade Phoenix and Gryphon uranium deposits. While ISL operations are envisaged for Phoenix, the Gryphon deposit is envisaged as an underground mining operation, with processing carried out at the existing McClean Lake mill which is 22.5%-owned by Denison.
Chinese molten-salt reactor cleared for start up
09 August 2022
The Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP) - part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) - has been given approval by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment to commission an experimental thorium-powered molten-salt reactor, construction of which started in Wuwei city, Gansu province, in September 2018.
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A cutaway of the TMSR-LF1 reactor (Image: SINAP)
In January 2011, CAS launched a CNY3 billion (USD444 million) R&D programme on liquid fluoride thorium reactors (LFTRs), known there as the thorium-breeding molten-salt reactor (Th-MSR or TMSR), and claimed to have the world's largest national effort on it, hoping to obtain full intellectual property rights on the technology. This is also known as the fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactor (FHR). The TMSR Centre at SINAP at Jiading, Shanghai, is responsible.
Construction of the 2 MWt TMSR-LF1 reactor began in September 2018 and was reportedly completed in August 2021. The prototype was scheduled to be completed in 2024, but work was accelerated.
"According to the relevant provisions of the Nuclear Safety Law of the People's Republic of China and the Regulations of the People's Republic of China on the Safety Supervision and Administration of Civilian Nuclear Facilities, our bureau has conducted a technical review of the application documents you submitted, and believes that your 2 MWt liquid fuel thorium-based molten salt experimental reactor commissioning plan (Version V1.3) is acceptable and is hereby approved," the Ministry of Ecology and Environment told SINAP on 2 August.
It added: "During the commissioning process of your 2 MWt liquid fuel thorium-based molten salt experimental reactor, you should strictly implement this plan to ensure the effectiveness of the implementation of the plan and ensure the safety and quality of debugging. If any major abnormality occurs during the commissioning process, it should be reported to our bureau and the Northwest Nuclear and Radiation Safety Supervision Station in time."
The TMSR-LF1 will use fuel enriched to under 20% U-235, have a thorium inventory of about 50 kg and conversion ratio of about 0.1. A fertile blanket of lithium-beryllium fluoride (FLiBe) with 99.95% Li-7 will be used, and fuel as UF4.
The project is expected to start on a batch basis with some online refuelling and removal of gaseous fission products, but discharging all fuel salt after 5-8 years for reprocessing and separation of fission products and minor actinides for storage. It will proceed to a continuous process of recycling salt, uranium and thorium, with online separation of fission products and minor actinides. The reactor will work up from about 20% thorium fission to about 80%.
If the TMSR-LF1 proves successful, China plans to build a reactor with a capacity of 373 MWt by 2030.
As this type of reactor does not require water for cooling, it will be able to operate in desert regions. The Chinese government has plans to build more across the sparsely populated deserts and plains of western China, complementing wind and solar plants and reducing China's reliance on coal-fired power stations. The reactor may also be built outside China in Belt and Road Initiative nations.
The liquid fuel design is descended from the 1960s Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the USA.
Researched and written by World Nuclear News
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Two of the six units, pictured before the war began (Image: Energoatom)