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U.S. company that planned to build the first small nuclear reactor power plant cancels its project [1]

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Date: 2023-11-09  

The only planned and approved small modular reactor project in the United States was canceled Wednesday, adding to the troubles the so-called “nuclear renaissance” has encountered since that term came into prominence a couple of decades ago.

At the turn of 21st Century, the Department of Energy funded research on the development of small, modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) for various uses. Idaho National Environment & Engineering Laboratory led the project with support from Oregon State University (OSU). Scientists at OSU at the time were also looking into developing passive safety systems using natural circulation to cool nuclear plants, a passive design engineers chose to make these plants inherently safer.

While critics have long criticized nuclear power as too dangerous, too expensive, and with a potential for terrorist attack, advocates have pointed to the advantages of power plants that can reliably run 24/7, have low greenhouse gas emissions over their life cycle, and take up far less space than solar and wind farms.

Although advocates argue that the overall safety record of nuclear plants has been excellent, they say SMR designs are even safer. Best of all, they assert, SMRs with a 50- to 300-megawatt generating capacity will be cheaper than the giants of 1,000 megawatts or more that make up the majority of the 92 U.S. nuclear power plants currently in operation. These modular SMRs can be built in a factory and shipped to the needed locations as opposed to the expensive, customized reactor approach used to build the current flotilla of U.S. nuclear plants.

Environmental advocates are split on whether expanding nuclear power or even maintaining existing nuclear power plants should be part of addressing the climate crisis. Currently, these plants provide more emissions-free electricity than any other single source, though solar and wind are catching up. (Note: We’re talking operationally here. The manufacture and installation of all these sources generate some carbon emissions.) Some advocates say the U.S. cannot achieve zero operational emissions from power plants without at least some new nukes. The Biden administration has made clear it favors a build-out of new nuclear technology, having budgeted a 50% increase in the DOE’s nuclear office and an additional $6 billion to keep existing reactors from shutting down. He also added $100 million to the $600 million already spent on an SMR project in Idaho.

The DOE and OSU research a quarter-century ago led to the founding of NuScale Power, owned by Fluor. After a six-year process, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a NuScale design for an SMR this February. With its Carbon Free Power Project, NuScale planned to build six 77-megawatt reactor modules at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory by 2030, a change from the original 2026 startup date made after running into technical snags and a cost estimate that soared from $3 billion to $6.1 billion.

But on Wednesday, even that date was scuttled as NuScale and its partner utility announced the cancelation of the project after estimated costs had risen to $9.3 billion. As a consequence, utilities in towns that would have received its electricity chose not to participate, and NuScale noted in a press release that "it appears unlikely that the project will have enough subscription to continue toward deployment."

Reuters reports:

NuScale Power said on Wednesday it has agreed with a power group in Utah to terminate the company's small modular reactor project, dealing a blow to U.S. ambitions for a wave of nuclear energy to fight climate change and sending NuScale's shares down 20%. In 2020, the Department of Energy approved $1.35 billion over 10 years for the plant, known as the Carbon Free Power Project, subject to congressional appropriations. NuScale has received about $600 million from the department since 2014 to support the design, licensing and siting of the project. [...] NuScale hopes to build SMRs in Romania, Kazakhstan, Poland and Ukraine. Critics have warned that Russia's takeover of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine—along with repeated shelling near it, power cuts, and perils to the plant's water cooling resources—means that reactors, which can release toxic, radioactive materials when disasters strike, should not be built in the region.

John Timmer at Arstechnica writes:

NuScale CEO John Hopkins tried to put a positive spin on the event, saying, "Our work with Carbon Free Power Project over the past ten years has advanced NuScale technology to the stage of commercial deployment; reaching that milestone is a tremendous success which we will continue to build on with future customers." But none of those potential customers had advanced any project nearly as far as the Carbon Free Power Project, so it is now uncertain whether the company can build any commercial reactors before the decade ends.

What this does to the nuclear renaissance is impossible to determine. No other SMR designs have been approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And no new large nuclear power plants are being planned now.

In the mid-2000s, four large new nukes were planned in South Carolina and Georgia, a pair of Westinghouse AP1000 designs added at existing nuclear facilities in those states. But in 2017, the South Carolina project was shuttered about half complete when it was determined the estimated cost had doubled from $10 billion to $20 billion or more. In Georgia, the two new reactors did get built, but the first one didn’t come on line until this June, seven years after its originally planned startup, with the second to switch on early next year, also seven years behind schedule. The originally estimated cost of $14 billion has ballooned to $34 billion. That’s the kind of record that gives the jitters to utilities planning new energy projects. China, on the other hand, has built four AP1000s that are now connected to that nation’s electric grid.

Unless something goes wrong as it did for NuScale, it appears the first announced SMR in North America will be built in Darlington, Ontario. The partnership planning to build the BWRX-300 consists of GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, Ontario Power Generation (OPG), SNC-Lavalin and Aecon Group. A claimed advantage of the BWRX-300 is that it is designed to keep construction and operating costs below other nuclear power generation technologies. We’ll obviously see how that calculation works out in the real world. Eighteen months ago, the Tennessee Valley Authority began planning and preliminary licensing for possible deployment of a BWRX-300 at the Clinch River Site near Oak Ridge, Tenn. TVA is collaborating with OPG to advance SMR technology, and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission are working to license the two projects, according to GE Hitachi. The plan is to have the Canadian SMR up and running by the end of 2028. Clearly an optimistic deadline.

Critics say SMRs are not economically feasible without government subsidies and that solar and wind farms cannot only be installed much faster, but also much cheaper. GE-Hitachi asserts that it can build its reactor with levelized cost of electricity of about $60 per megawatt-hour. Utility-scale solar combined with storage now pencils in at $45/MWh, wind power at $30/MWh, and stand-alone utility-scale solar at $32/MWh, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

Nuclear has provided 20% of U.S. electricity since the 1990s, about half the nation’s clean energy, and much that will continue for at least a couple of decades. But given the experience in Georgia, South Carolina, and now Idaho, nuclear advocates are likely to find it much harder to get utilities, bankers, investors, and ratepayers interested in funding them.

For more details on the NuScale design from before the cancelation: NuScale Puts Single-Minded Focus on Small Modular Reactor.

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