Nuclear power solutions – Small Modular Reactors (SMR’s) - some rambling background notes

Before cracking on, a thought occurs that in the event of an emergency, the only possible source of power is going to be a diesel generator or similar. It is not as if windmills or solar panels or hydrocarbon or nuclear power plants can be “dropped in”. Just another chink in the armour of renewables, they only work when conditions suit, not when there is dire need.

Another thought occurs. How long before MINIATURE Modular Reactors are available?

OK, here we go.

After reading the article below, referencing a (UK) Daily Telegraph article, I went down the SMR rabbit hole.

Get Rolls-Royce building SMRs – the sensible alternative to wind farms - The Conservative Woman

There is a good chance that there is a bit of Union Jack flying going on in the articles – even if Rolls Royce is owned by BMW (assuming it’s not a separate company also using the Rolls Royce brand).

I found the article a little tortuous because of the pollution of things like “CO2 capture” and the need to use H2 storage in order to make comparisons.

“Who has compared the cost of SMRs with the cost of solar and wind farms, plus the enormous energy storage needed? We are told that by 2030 wind will provide 50GW of electricity when it is blowing hard. But 50GW of wind farms will average only around 30 per cent of that over the year. So stored energy (eg in H₂) would have to make up the 70 per cent shortfall. But the electrolysers used to release H₂ from water require over 200 units of input energy for every 100 units out. So a total wind farm nameplate capacity of around 250GW, plus H₂ storage, will be needed to meet an average 24 x 7 grid demand of 50GW. That’s around five times the wind farms planned, but only 10GW of H₂ capacity is planned.”

In other words – and as usual – accounting “devices” are used that seem barely above arbitrary and vague. There seems to be a very large mismatch between the H2 storage planned. Bleh to wind farms. I prefer forests of trees to forests of windmills!

The consideration of SMR’s in the UK is not new – even the left wing rag, the BBC covered it a few years ago.

Rolls-Royce plans 16 mini-nuclear plants for UK - BBC News

“A consortium led by Rolls-Royce has announced plans to build up to 16 mini-nuclear plants in the UK. It says the project will create 6,000 new jobs in the Midlands and the North of England over the next five years. The prime minister is understood to be poised to announce at least £200m for the project as part of a long-delayed green plan for economic recovery.”

It seems that it takes 5.5 years to construct each Rolls Royce SMR – though these can probably me made consecutively.

So, I cruised on over to the International Atomic Energy Agency website for its position on SMR’s.

What are Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)? | IAEA

“Small modular reactors (SMRs) are advanced nuclear reactors that have a power capacity of up to 300 MW(e) per unit, which is about one-third of the generating capacity of traditional nuclear power reactors. SMRs, which can produce a large amount of low-carbon electricity, are:

• Small – physically a fraction of the size of a conventional nuclear power reactor.

• Modular – making it possible for systems and components to be factory-assembled and transported as a unit to a location for installation.

• Reactors – harnessing nuclear fission to generate heat to produce energy.

300 MW(e) – what is that all about?

Megawatts electric - Energy Education

“Megawatts electric or MWe is one of the two values assigned to a power plant, the other being megawatts thermal or MWt. Megawatts electric refers to the electricity output capability of the plant, and megawatts thermal refers to the input energy required.”

Ok. so now we have a few numbers. Just for the UK’s 68 million people (multiply by 5 for US equivalent) Statista calculated that “In 2022, the UK's electricity consumption fell to its lowest level this century, at 275.24 terawatt-hours.”

275.24 terawatt hours. A terawatt is a 1,000 gigawatt hours. A gigawatt is 1,000 megawatt (hours?). A terawatt hour is a million megawatt (hours?). So, 275.24 terawatt hours is 275.23 million megawatt (hours?).

The UK is planning for its windmills to produce 50 GW (gigawatt hours?) by 2030, by building wind farms that will have 250 gigawatt capacity. 50 gigawatt out of 275 gigawatt consumed across the UK. Ugly forests of the beastly ecologically disastrous wind farms.

An SMR? The IAEA thinks one produces 300 megawatts per unit – to simplify, lets call UK consumption 300 terawatts. Building a thousand SMR’s would satisfy electricity consumption in the UK (before any switch to EV’s or electric powered ships and planes or full conversion of trains from diesel/electric mix and buses).

A thousand SMR’s.

Referring back to the TCW article “around 100 SMRs would provide around 50GW, 24 x 7, at a similar cost without energy storage and with lower transmission capital and loss costs, with longer life expectancy and no need for energy storage.”

100 SMR’s would provide 50 gigawatt hours? But each SMR produces 300 MWe? 100 x 300 = 30,000 MWe = 30 gigawatts? Must not be that small! And it turns out they aren’t! IAEA says and SMR has that 300 MWe limit, the Rolls Royce ones are almost 50% bigger!

How much do they cost?

From here:

Rolls Royce Reveals 440 MW Commercial Reactor Design | Neutron Bytes

“The target cost for each station is GBP1.8 billion, U$D 2.3 billion, by the time five have been built, with further savings possible, Rolls-Royce said. Each power station will be able to operate for 60 years and provide 440 Mwe of electricity.

Estimates of the cost of smaller SMRs, that is with power ratings of less than 300 MWe, are currently in the range of $4,000 to $5,000 / Kw. A 440 MW plant would therefore cost, using these numbers, between $1.76B and $2.20B which puts the Rolls Royce number in the neighbourhood of $5,000/kw. (Someone check my numbers, please!)

Okay, there’s a total cost – 2.3 billion bucks. But not for 1,000 units at 300 MWe to power the UK with standard (300 MWe) units, but UK consumption of 300GWe divided by 440 MWe for each Rolls Royce SMR to power the UK  times that 2.3 billion bucks - so just 681 Rolls Royce units.

681 x 2.3 billion bucks = around 1.6 trillion bucks for 60 years electricity.

Ok, let’s put that in the context of households and ignore manufacturing, offices and industry usage (yeah, yeah, I know! I am also not adjusting for a doubling of the population on 60 years either!).

From here:

How Much is the Average Electricity Bill in the UK? | Electricity Prices

“The average electricity bill is £1,066.53 per year” but to that we have to add the gas bill “The average gas bill is £1,007.45 per year” – call it £2,000 a year. There are 28 million households in the UK, so the annual spend by UK households = 56 billion pounds = around 71 billion bucks.

Over 60 years with no price increases caused by the use of horribly expensive wind and solar, that  comes to 4.6 trillion bucks – compared to that 1.6 trillion bucks for 671 Rolls Royce (not so small) SMR’s.

Which would mean a cut in household energy costs of around 65%. Not bad.

What we need is a good estimate of MWe costs. That involves taking the annual consumption approximation of 300 TWe for 60 years and dividing that by the approximated cost.

Someone needs to give me a hand for the MWe or KWe costs!!!

You can basically multiply the SMR plant cost numbers by 5 to convert to equivalents for the whole of the US.

Now perhaps all those smart UK people at the (instructed to be green, woke and bloated by (p)ignorant politicians) here:

 Department for Energy Security and Net Zero - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

 Maybe the Ministry could put out some kind of position paper with better population growth adjustments and factor in commercial sector usage as well. Chance would be a fine thing!

Anyway, that’s not the whole story. I wonder what kind of competition there was for the German Rolls Royce SMR’s. Don’t forget, there will be a 20% hike to prices because of VAT as well – which of course the Government controls and incentivizes with reimbursement grants ( so it can “control” things and hand out grants like that 200 million pounds referenced in the BBC article above).

But wait, there’s more! The US has a competing product!

From here:

VOYGR SMR Plants | NuScale Power

“Lower Costs, Community Benefits

Cost Competitive Energy

Summary

We have undertaken detailed studies of capital, operating, and decommissioning costs for our VOYGR-12 plant design. Based on the overnight cost estimate of an nth-of-a kind plant built in the southeast U.S. at a generic greenfield site, the levelized cost estimate (LCOE) is in the range of approximately $40/MWh to $65/MWh depending on the financial profile of the customer.

The smaller, simpler VOYGR plants have a number of economic advantages over large nuclear power plants. For example:

• Plants have a construction period of less than 36 months from the first safety concrete.

• The first module generates electricity and revenue while additional modules are being installed.

• Modules can be added incrementally as load demands increase, reducing financial risk for customers.

• NuScale Power Modules are factory-manufactured with no in-field construction, erection, or fabrication.

• The plant design makes use of many commercial, off-the-shelf components.

Building and operating a nuclear power plant also brings direct economic benefits to the community it serves. After construction, each VOYGR plant will support many full-time high-quality, high-paying jobs. On average per year, a nuclear power plant in the U.S. generates $470M in local community sales of goods and services, and pays around $16M in state and local taxes.”

Ok, costs of around “in the range of approximately $40/MWh to $65/MWh”

It takes just 3 years to build a VOYGR 12 unit – (I am “tripping out” a little to Star Trek and VGER now!)

Onwards

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