Federal regulator approves Canada's first small modular reactor

[OnlinePoker]

The federal nuclear safety regulator has authorized construction of an American small modular reactor (SMR) at the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station in Clarington, Ont., a crucial milestone for a project that has garnered worldwide attention.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission granted the license to Ontario Power Generation on Friday for its Darlington New Nuclear Project. OPG has said it will finish building the first 327-megawatt reactor by the end of 2028, and begin supplying electricity to the province’s grid the following year. The reactor’s cost has not been disclosed publicly, but estimates suggest it could be several billion dollars.

“We now await the go-ahead from the Ontario government to proceed,” said OPG spokesperson Neal Kelly.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-federal-regulator-approves-canadas-first-small-modular-reactor/

[NNadir]

1. Chris Keefer is going ballistic over this.

He argues that since the United States is run by a thug, Canada should use its endogenous nuclear infrastructure, specifically the CANDU, for its own use.

I agree.

The world can certainly use more CANDU infrastructure. The CANDU is the best thermal spectrum reactor in the world.

[applegrove]

2. And the Candu can use spent fuel rods to make power.

[NNadir]

3. This is true. However from my perspective would be to isolate plutonium from used fuel, and make a ternary fuel...

...with plutonium, depleted uranium (or "once through" CANDU uranium) and thorium to achieve very high burn ups. The resultant fuel would effectively be enriched with ²³³U, ²³⁴U, and ²³⁵U, along with traces of ²³²U, as well as significant isotopically complex plutonium.

These resultant used fuels would represent a resource to run the rest of the world's thermal reactors without need for enrichment plants.

A drawback to CANDUs using natural uranium is low fuel utilization, typical burnups of considerably less than 10K MWd/ton, whereas other thermal reactors have burnups of 40-50 K MWd/ton for the best thermal reactors. Ultimately this means more mines, less plutonium.

A CANDU with a ternary fuel containing thorium might achieve burnups as high as 60K MWd/ton, perhaps even more, and with reprocessing, the uranium removed from the fuel would be directly usable in many other thermal reactors, perhaps even requiring dilution with depleted uranium stocks which are readily available. This could go a long way to putting the enrichment business - currently centered in Russia - out of business.

If and when some team actually makes a viable fusion reactor - something I don't actually expect in my lifetime - CANDU's will represent the world supply of tritium. As of now, there isn't enough tritium on the planet to run a full power fusion reactor for a year.

[applegrove]

4. Wow. You know your stuff. I can't compute.

[NNadir]

5. Thank you. I have spent an enormous amount to time wrapping my head...

...around nuclear issues.

I am always amazed to hear from people who know clearly know nothing at all about the topic who nonetheless feel qualified to have extreme reactions, often bordering on hysteria, to it.

As it happens in this case the aggressive assertion of willful ignorance, as is the case in so many issues, causes huge damage to humanity.

Nuclear energy will never be risk free; no energy system is. However compared to all other alternatives it is the lowest risk, by far. No other system of energy can compare to it in terms of safety, reliability, and sustainability.

[applegrove]

6. My worry about it is the waste and how long the rod

fuel has to be buried or stored till it is spent.

[NNadir]

7. Again in term of so called "waste," the superiority of nuclear should be self evident.

Used nuclear fuel has a long history, well over half a century of above ground storage without causing major losses of life, in any setting, accidental, or in normal use.

This is not true of fossil fuel waste, also known as "air pollution" and more recently extreme global heating. Air pollution kills just shy of 20,000 people a day without a wiff of concern leading to restrictions on the use of fossil fuels. In the entire history of commercial nuclear power, stretching over 70 years, used nuclear fuel has not killed as many people as will die in the next six hours from air pollution.

To me, complaining about so called "nuclear waste" is the equivalent of attacking Hilliary Clinton for sending emails in a non-goverment server with having unqualified morons in Moscow texting US war plans as happened last week. It's actually worse than that.

Concern about so called "nuclear waste" is driven by selective attention that in a rational world would be understood to be absurd. It is the result of media hype, and nothing more.

It turns out that radioactive materials are subject to a mathematical structure known as the Bateman equation, which actually works a set of coupled differential equations. Any accumulating radioactive material will approach, asymmtotically, secular equibrium, a point at which it is decaying as fast as it is formed. It is often reported in the scientific literature, depending on the fuel management scheme used, that over a relatively short period of time, the radioactivity associated with fission products will be lower than the radioactivity associated with the uranium ores from which the fuel was made. Full actinide recycling which I enthusiastically endorse will mean that in about 1,000 years the planet, which has always been radioactive, will be less radioactive than it would have been without the use of nuclear energy. This may or may not be a good thing.

[applegrove]

8. Are you AI?

[NNadir]

9. No, I'm quite human, a scientist with an extensive journal here stretching over two decades.

If you are interested in environmental issues, particularly with respect to nuclear energy, you are invited to review my writings on this, other scientific issues (I work in pharmaceutical analytical chemistry) or, to the extent you may or may not be interested, my personal beliefs and life.

Thanks though for asking. I may take it as a complement even though I will always pass the Turing test.

[applegrove]

10. Yes. You are very knowledgeable. I had not thought

of storing nuclear waste in comparison to the release of carbon and pollution from fossil fuels. Both externalities. My head went BABoom!!!! I recognized your name. I know you have been on here for ages. I had just never engaged in such a scientific discussion. Thank you for informing me. I feel better about nuclear fuel.