{"id":27272,"date":"2017-10-26T06:21:19","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T11:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=27272"},"modified":"2017-10-26T06:21:19","modified_gmt":"2017-10-26T11:21:19","slug":"small-nuclear-reactors-a-50s-nightmare-come-back-to-haunt-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=27272","title":{"rendered":"Small Nuclear Reactors, a 50s Nightmare Come Back to Haunt Us"},"content":{"rendered":"

Small Nuclear Reactors, a 50s Nightmare Come Back to Haunt Us<\/a><\/span><\/h3>\n
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Photo by Neil H | CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It\u2019s easy to see why Rolls Royce and other companies in the nuclear engineering business are pushing the UK government finance the development a new generation of \u2018small modular reactors\u2019 or SMRs. Whether the project succeeds or fails, there are juicy profits to be had for them at taxpayers expense.<\/p>\n

Rather harder to understand is why the government should see the slightest merit in the idea.<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0a recent report by Rolls-Royce<\/a>\u00a0and its partners in the \u2018SMR Consortium\u2019 (SMRC), a UK SMR program could create 40,000 skilled jobs, contribute \u00a3100 billion ($132 billion) to the economy and open up a potential \u00a3400 billion global export market.<\/p>\n

Nuclear Industries Association chairman Lord (John) Hutton claims in the foreword that a UK SMR programme could\u00a0\u201chelp the UK become a vibrant, world-leading nuclear nation.\u201d\u00a0He asserts his belief that\u00a0\u201cit is fundamental for the UK to meet its 2050 decarbonisation targets and will deliver secure, reliable and affordable electricity for generations to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

The SMRC report envisages an approximate doubling of the UK\u2019s 9.5 GW existing nuclear capacity by 2030, then another doubling by 2050 to around 40GW. That implies that come 2050, SMRs would be delivering some 30GW \u2013 the output of 100 300MW units scattered around the UK.<\/p>\n

There are just two problems with the rosy scenario. First, the techno-optimism that oozes from every page is a fantasy. Nuclear power stations have got bigger to achieve economies of scale: it\u2019s much cheaper to build a single 1.2GW unit than four 300MW units, or a dozen 100MW units.<\/p>\n

As an illustration of the principle, take a look at the wind power industry. One of the main reasons why offshore wind has come down so much in cost is the\u00a0move to ever-larger wind turbines<\/a>. A single new 8MW turbine may now be bigger than an entire wind farm of 20 years ago.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Small Nuclear Reactors, a 50s Nightmare Come Back to Haunt Us Photo by Neil H | CC BY 2.0 It\u2019s easy to see why Rolls Royce and other companies in the nuclear engineering business are pushing the UK government finance the development a new generation of \u2018small modular reactors\u2019 or SMRs. Whether the project succeeds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5493,12180,16688,16687,820,2080],"class_list":["post-27272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-counterpunch","tag-oliver-tickell","tag-rolls-royce","tag-small-nuclear-reactor","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27273,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27272\/revisions\/27273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}