Scientists assessed the options for growing nuclear power
They are grim. Under every plausible scenario, power from SMRs is (and
remains, even with subsequent generations of the tech)
substantially more expensive than power from competitors. By David Roberts, July 11,
2018
Exelon: No new nuclear power units will be built in US
This includes small modular reactors, seen as too expensive,
due to size and security requirements. Exelon is the largest
electric utility holding company and the largest nuclear
generator in the US. Platts, April 12, 2018
Comments to Los
Alamos County Council (NM) on UAMPS (Utah Associated
Municipal Power Systems) Small Modular Reactor Project
UAMPS and the County Council refer to the proposed UAMPS
SMR Project as Carbon Free Power Project, yet there is no
information in support of that very misleading description.
Power, most likely derived from fossil fuel, is used for
uranium mining and milling, uranium conversion and
enrichment, fuel fabrication, fabrication and construction
of the SMR, operation of the SMR, used fuel storage,
irradiated fuel disposition, transport (road, rail, and
ocean shipping), and myriad other aspects of the nuclear
fuel chain necessary to license, fabricate, construct, and
operate a reactor and the irradiated fuel storage site it
will become. “Carbon Free Power Project” is an egregious
public relations misnomer leading to false assumptions and
poor decisions.
By Sarah Fields, Program Director, Uranium Watch,
February 14, 2018
Power from mini nuclear plants "would cost more than from
large ones" A UK study found that electricity from
small modular reactors would cost nearly one-third more than
from plants such as Hinkley Point C, which is already the
most expensive ever ordered. Meanwhile, as the UK government
continues to spend huge amounts subsidizing expensive
nuclear power, without adequate support for solar and wind
energy, it has been unable to find a community interested in
hosting a long-term underground nuclear waste dump. The
Guardian (UK), December 7, 2017
Small nuclear reactors are a 1950s mirage come back to
haunt us The UK government proposes a 250 million
pound subsidy to develop SMRs, but by 2050 they will be
50-100 times more expensive than solar. By Oliver Tickell,
The Ecologist (UK), October 24, 2017
Small Modular Reactors and the Challenges of Nuclear Power
Any attempt to deal with the problems of safety,
proliferation resistance, decreased generation of waste, and
cost reduction has to be reflected in some fashion in the
design of specific nuclear reactors. But it turns out that
each of these priorities can drive the requirements of the
reactor design in different, sometimes opposing, directions.
SMRs miss out on what are called economies of scale: the
advantages that come with costs scaling more slowly than
output power. For example, a 1000 MW reactor does not
require four times as much concrete as a 250 MW reactor.
Designers hope that this negative effect possibly could be
offset somewhat through economies of mass manufacture. But
even with optimistic assumptions about learning rates,
hundreds, if not thousands, of reactor units would have to be built in order for
mass manufacture effects to counteract the loss of economies
of scale.
By M.V. Ramana and Zia Mian, Princeton University, January
2017
US
Government Accountability Office pours cold water on
advanced reactor concepts SMNRs require additional
technical and engineering work to demonstrate reactor safety
and economics. These challenges may result in higher cost
reactors than anticipated, making them less competitive with
large light-water reactors. Nuclear Monitor,
September 9, 2015
The Forgotten History of Small Nuclear Reactors
Small nuclear reactors have historically suffered from poor
economics as well as technical problems. Without exception,
they have cost too much for the little electricity they have
produced. By M. V. Ramana, Princeton University, April 2015
(PDF)
Small
modular reactors: a chicken-and-egg situation A
review of their inability to gain traction. Nuclear
Monitor, March 19, 2015
Nuclear Power: A risky wager for the Pacific Northwest
Running an aging nuclear plant and building new, modular
ones is a gamble for Washington State. By Bruce Amundson and
Chuck Johnson, Crosscut, September 11, 2014
What went wrong with SMRs?
Something
happened on the way to the modular reactor promised land.
Over the past year, the SMR industry has been bumping up
against an uncomfortable and not-entirely-unpredictable
problem: It appears that no one actually wants to buy one.
By Thomas Overton, POWER Magazine, September 1, 2014
One size doesn’t fit all: Social priorities and technical
conflicts for small modular reactors Small modular reactors (SMRs) have been proposed as a
possible way to address the social problems confronting
nuclear power, including poor economics, the possibility of
catastrophic accidents, radioactive waste production, and
linkage to nuclear weapon proliferation. Several SMR
designs, with diverse technical characteristics, are being
developed around the world and are promoted as addressing
one or more of these problems. This paper examines the basic
features of different kinds of SMRs and shows why the
technical characteristics of SMRs do not allow them to solve
simultaneously all four of the problems identified with
nuclear power today. It shows that the leading SMR designs
under development involve choices and trade-offs between
desired features. Focusing on a single challenge, for
example cost reduction, might make other challenges more
acute. The paper then briefly discusses other cultural and
political factors that contribute to the widespread
enthusiasm for these reactors, despite technical and
historical reasons to doubt that the promises offered by SMR
technology advocates will be actually realized. By M.V.
Ramana and Zia Mian,
Energy Research and Social Science, May 24, 2014
Your choice: small reactors or carbon reductions. You can't
have both. A newly-released study asserts that large-scale development
of “small modular reactors” (SMRs) likely would cost $90
Billion – an amount that likely would be diverted from
development of much more cost- and climate-effective
renewable energy. May 15,
2014 The full report:
The economic failure of nuclear power and the development of
a low-carbon electricity future: Why small modular reactors
are part of the problem, not the solution By Mark
Cooper, Ph.D., Institute for Energy and the Environment,
Vermont Law School, May 2014
Why Nuclear Power Fails
Jeremy Rifkin, President of the Foundation on Economic
Trends, speaks at the Wermuth Asset Management 5th Annual
Investors Event regarding nuclear power and its fate in the
future of renewable energy, offering several reasons to
avoid nuclear investments, including:
*
Nuclear power can't be scaled up enough to have an impact on
climate change.
*
No solution has been found for the disposal of nuclear
waste.
*
Even with existing plants, there will be a uranium deficit
in the not-distant future.
*
Water to cool the power plants is in short supply - over 40%
of all fresh water used in France is used to cool nuclear
plants.
*
The centralized power-plant paradigm is outdated. The future
is bringing distributed generation.
Video (4 minutes), published October 8, 2013
Light Water Designs of Small Modular Reactors: Facts and
Analysis This paper discusses why SMRs are a poor
bet to solve the financial and safety problems of
present-day commercial nuclear power reactors. By Arjun
Makhijani, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research,
September 2013
Small Modular Reactors: Safety, Security, and Cost Concerns
This article examines the various concerns and concludes
that small reactors are unlikely to solve the economic and
safety problems faced by nuclear power. Union of Concerned
Scientists, September 2013
