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Nuclear holiday
ANALYSIS NUCLEAR POWER
Nuclear holiday Four years ago, we were supposed to be entering a nuclear renaissance. Now plants are shutting and firms going bust. Is it terminal, asks Lisa Grossman of non-emitting power,” says John Keeley of the Nuclear Energy Institute, a lobbying group in Washington DC. That may sound like lobbying enthusiasm, but it is borne out by research published in April by Edson Severini at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh linking the shutdown of nuclear plants in the Tennessee Valley in the 1980s to increased air pollution and lower infant birthweights, a measure of overall health.
ERIK S. LESSER/EPA/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
Natural experiment
IT’S not a great time to be a nuclear fanfare. The Bush and Obama reactor engineer. Plants are closing administrations increased all over the world, even before the spending on nuclear energy R&D end of their usable lives. The most by billions of dollars. Radical new recently shut was a £15 billion designs for the next generation power station in Cumbria, UK. of reactors were supposed to In the US, the only four reactors spread safer, cleaner, sustainable being built are years late and energy around the globe. billions over budget. Should the Instead, we seem to be four Westinghouse models under stuck with a dwindling supply construction in South Carolina of mid-20th century models. and Georgia ever be finished, “Even if they finish those it’s hard to say who will service [Westinghouse] reactors, they them. Westinghouse Electric, will not be monuments to the their manufacturer and one of the nuclear renaissance,” says last private companies building economic analyst Mark Cooper at nuclear reactors, filed for Vermont Law School. “They will be bankruptcy on 29 March. mausoleums to the end of nuclear What happened? Just four “New reactors will not be years ago, we were supposed to be entering a nuclear renaissance. monuments to the nuclear renaissance – they will be The US had started building its mausoleums” first reactors in 30 years to much 20 | NewScientist | 20 May 2017
The Tennessee nuclear plant was one of many shut after a partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island power plant in Pennsylvania in 1979 raised safety concerns. Almost all nearby energy production shifted to coal-fired power plants. That made it an –Back to the drawing board?- excellent natural experiment to compare the health effects of coal and nuclear. The results were power.” Can the next generation clear: nuclear is a better way to of reactors still save the day? generate energy, not just for the Between 1996 and 2016, climate but for short-term health. the share of global electricity Letting the world’s 449 operating generated by nuclear power dropped from 17.6 to 10.7 per cent. nuclear power plants reach the end of their lifespans without The downturn is perhaps replacing them would have surprising given nuclear’s green significant consequences. credentials. The typical nuclear But for most of the world, power plant splits uranium atoms building new plants hasn’t in a process called fission, and been on the cards (see diagram). uses the heat from that reaction A few serious nuclear incidents – to produce steam, drive a turbine including at Three Mile Island, and generate electricity. This Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima offers cheap, clean energy – in 2011 – have put deep dents in nuclear power plants produce no greenhouse gases or air pollution, public trust of nuclear energy. The industry’s bigger problem they run day and night, and are relatively inexpensive to operate. is money. Large reactors like those Thus, much of their appeal is as being constructed in the US a bulwark against climate change. typically cost between $6 billion “The last thing you would want to and $10 billion to build. “One of the do is lose your largest contributor reasons for the high cost is to make
For daily news stories, visit newscientist.com/news
If you don't build them... Construction of new nuclear reactors isn't enough to make up for those being decommissioned. Of the few being built, most are behind schedule and some may be scrapped Asia US Western Europe Latin America Middle East Oil crisis
240
Three Mile Island accident
200
Fukushima accident
Projected start-ups
120
80
40
0 1950
1960
1970
1980
worth spending more money on these things, throwing good money after bad.” “The nuclear industry is sort of riding into the sunset,” he says. “The question is how fast is it going to ride into it.” Others think reports of nuclear’s death have been greatly exaggerated. The next generation of nuclear reactors is still under development – largely by small companies that are backed by venture capitalists and billionaires like Bill Gates and Peter Thiel. More than 50 “advanced nuclear”
dangerous to mine and refine. For more than 50 years, people have been trying to achieve break-even fusion, after which point you get out more electricity than you put in, and there are other companies working on small-scale fusion. Apollo Fusion started in a garage. Co-founder Ben Longmier, a nuclear engineer who once worked on spacecraft propulsion at NASA, had an idea for a new kind of fusion reactor while building an ion thruster in a garage laboratory.
1990
2000
2010
2020
SOURCE: BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTIST
160
SUPER NUCLEAR Last month, former Google executive Mike Cassidy launched a company called Apollo Fusion, which is “working on a revolutionary fusion hybrid power plant to serve safe, clean, and affordable electricity to everyone”. Where nuclear fission splits atoms, fusion reactors would fuse deuterium and tritium atoms to make helium nuclei and a stray neutron. Oh, and a massive amount of energy. It doesn’t rely on uranium fuel, which is expensive and
Central and eastern Europe Africa
Chernobyl disaster
Reactors under construction
it safe,” says M. V. Ramana of the University of British Columbia in Canada. “If you think about the cost of cleaning up after a major accident, you will be very happy to have spent that money up front.” Still, with climate change becoming a more immediate threat, many had already begun to investigate radical new nuclear designs capable of emissions-free energy without safety trade-offs. The designers of these “Generation IV” reactors tried to take innovative approaches to safety, moving away from standard ways of making power from uranium – which accounts for most of the safety measures – to less dangerous ways like depleted uranium and other materials that don’t require enrichment or reprocessing, reducing proliferation risks. Other safety measures included burying the reactor or simply making them small and modular. These reactors were moving steadily through the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s approval process, but there has been no sign of them. Some think the stall is permanent. “The story the nuclear industry tries to offer, is that while old reactors may have been afflicted with problems, the new generation is going to be immune. But while they will get around some, they will also have a new set of problems,” says Ramana. “If it were up to me, I would say it’s not
safety regulations and cost. We don’t yet know if that will be a deal-breaker for advanced nuclear. “This isn’t an app, you can’t just tinker around and see if it works,” Brinton says. “You have a massive amount of regulatory oversight, which means it’s going to be a couple of years.” Some places will keep building the old models. Adoption is up in Russia and Asia, particularly South Korea. Other places will keep their ageing fleet on life support as long as they can. Three plants in New York, each more than 40 years old, will remain operating for another 12 years. Even if new models do come online, it leaves a long time between the decline of the ageing fleet of nuclear reactors and the emergence of the first credible alternatives. In the meantime, something will be needed to provide electricity. If municipalities build capacity with ever improving wind and solar devices, which
companies exist in the US today, according to a report by US think tank Third Way. “This has become a start-up “A next generation nuclear industry,” says Samuel Brinton, reactor isn’t an app – you an energy analyst formerly at can’t just tinker around the US Bipartisan Policy Center. and see if it works” “There’s a lot of private work on it, but they’re not building yet.” Most of the companies are aiming have much lower set-up costs, to have a working reactor by 2025, it could render new nuclear and Brinton expects the first wave plants unnecessary. to hit the market by 2030. There’s even a potential The reason Generation IV challenge from the nascent reactors won’t be here sooner is small-fusion industry the same as for the big reactors: (see “Super nuclear”, below left). For those who see a nuclear sunset on the horizon, the clearest solution to the problem of both “I can’t go into detail about what energy production and climate exactly that is now, but it worked change is renewables. Nuclear well,” Longmier says. “We ended up energy might be sustainable, in generating a little bit of fusion power the sense that it will last a long in the garage.” time, but ultimately Earth’s Longmier says the company is uranium supplies will run out. planning for the first power plant to Not so wind and sun, says Cooper. generate 5 megawatts, which in the “Anyone who wants to buy US should power a small city. that small modular reactor can He isn’t anywhere close to the look up in the sky and feel the break-even point. But the payoff for breeze blowing and know they success will be huge. “Whoever cracks don’t have to go that route,” this will solve energy for the next Cooper says. “Nuclear is never thousand years,” Longmier says. going to catch up.” n
Analysis_1200517
20 May 2017 | NewScientist | 21
CO
PA
OK
Nuclear holiday Four years ago, we were supposed to be entering a nuclear renaissance. Now plants are shutting and firms going bust. Is it terminal, asks Lisa Grossman of non-emitting power,” says John Keeley of the Nuclear Energy Institute, a lobbying group in Washington DC. That may sound like lobbying enthusiasm, but it is borne out by research published in April by Edson Severini at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh linking the shutdown of nuclear plants in the Tennessee Valley in the 1980s to increased air pollution and lower infant birthweights, a measure of overall health.
ERIK S. LESSER/EPA/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
Natural experiment
IT’S not a great time to be a nuclear fanfare. The Bush and Obama reactor engineer. Plants are closing administrations increased all over the world, even before the spending on nuclear energy R&D end of their usable lives. The most by billions of dollars. Radical new recently shut was a £15 billion designs for the next generation power station in Cumbria, UK. of reactors were supposed to In the US, the only four reactors spread safer, cleaner, sustainable being built are years late and energy around the globe. billions over budget. Should the Instead, we seem to be four Westinghouse models under stuck with a dwindling supply construction in South Carolina of mid-20th century models. and Georgia ever be finished, “Even if they finish those it’s hard to say who will service [Westinghouse] reactors, they them. Westinghouse Electric, will not be monuments to the their manufacturer and one of the nuclear renaissance,” says last private companies building economic analyst Mark Cooper at nuclear reactors, filed for Vermont Law School. “They will be bankruptcy on 29 March. mausoleums to the end of nuclear What happened? Just four “New reactors will not be years ago, we were supposed to be entering a nuclear renaissance. monuments to the nuclear renaissance – they will be The US had started building its mausoleums” first reactors in 30 years to much 20 | NewScientist | 20 May 2017
The Tennessee nuclear plant was one of many shut after a partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island power plant in Pennsylvania in 1979 raised safety concerns. Almost all nearby energy production shifted to coal-fired power plants. That made it an –Back to the drawing board?- excellent natural experiment to compare the health effects of coal and nuclear. The results were power.” Can the next generation clear: nuclear is a better way to of reactors still save the day? generate energy, not just for the Between 1996 and 2016, climate but for short-term health. the share of global electricity Letting the world’s 449 operating generated by nuclear power dropped from 17.6 to 10.7 per cent. nuclear power plants reach the end of their lifespans without The downturn is perhaps replacing them would have surprising given nuclear’s green significant consequences. credentials. The typical nuclear But for most of the world, power plant splits uranium atoms building new plants hasn’t in a process called fission, and been on the cards (see diagram). uses the heat from that reaction A few serious nuclear incidents – to produce steam, drive a turbine including at Three Mile Island, and generate electricity. This Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima offers cheap, clean energy – in 2011 – have put deep dents in nuclear power plants produce no greenhouse gases or air pollution, public trust of nuclear energy. The industry’s bigger problem they run day and night, and are relatively inexpensive to operate. is money. Large reactors like those Thus, much of their appeal is as being constructed in the US a bulwark against climate change. typically cost between $6 billion “The last thing you would want to and $10 billion to build. “One of the do is lose your largest contributor reasons for the high cost is to make
For daily news stories, visit newscientist.com/news
If you don't build them... Construction of new nuclear reactors isn't enough to make up for those being decommissioned. Of the few being built, most are behind schedule and some may be scrapped Asia US Western Europe Latin America Middle East Oil crisis
240
Three Mile Island accident
200
Fukushima accident
Projected start-ups
120
80
40
0 1950
1960
1970
1980
worth spending more money on these things, throwing good money after bad.” “The nuclear industry is sort of riding into the sunset,” he says. “The question is how fast is it going to ride into it.” Others think reports of nuclear’s death have been greatly exaggerated. The next generation of nuclear reactors is still under development – largely by small companies that are backed by venture capitalists and billionaires like Bill Gates and Peter Thiel. More than 50 “advanced nuclear”
dangerous to mine and refine. For more than 50 years, people have been trying to achieve break-even fusion, after which point you get out more electricity than you put in, and there are other companies working on small-scale fusion. Apollo Fusion started in a garage. Co-founder Ben Longmier, a nuclear engineer who once worked on spacecraft propulsion at NASA, had an idea for a new kind of fusion reactor while building an ion thruster in a garage laboratory.
1990
2000
2010
2020
SOURCE: BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTIST
160
SUPER NUCLEAR Last month, former Google executive Mike Cassidy launched a company called Apollo Fusion, which is “working on a revolutionary fusion hybrid power plant to serve safe, clean, and affordable electricity to everyone”. Where nuclear fission splits atoms, fusion reactors would fuse deuterium and tritium atoms to make helium nuclei and a stray neutron. Oh, and a massive amount of energy. It doesn’t rely on uranium fuel, which is expensive and
Central and eastern Europe Africa
Chernobyl disaster
Reactors under construction
it safe,” says M. V. Ramana of the University of British Columbia in Canada. “If you think about the cost of cleaning up after a major accident, you will be very happy to have spent that money up front.” Still, with climate change becoming a more immediate threat, many had already begun to investigate radical new nuclear designs capable of emissions-free energy without safety trade-offs. The designers of these “Generation IV” reactors tried to take innovative approaches to safety, moving away from standard ways of making power from uranium – which accounts for most of the safety measures – to less dangerous ways like depleted uranium and other materials that don’t require enrichment or reprocessing, reducing proliferation risks. Other safety measures included burying the reactor or simply making them small and modular. These reactors were moving steadily through the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s approval process, but there has been no sign of them. Some think the stall is permanent. “The story the nuclear industry tries to offer, is that while old reactors may have been afflicted with problems, the new generation is going to be immune. But while they will get around some, they will also have a new set of problems,” says Ramana. “If it were up to me, I would say it’s not
safety regulations and cost. We don’t yet know if that will be a deal-breaker for advanced nuclear. “This isn’t an app, you can’t just tinker around and see if it works,” Brinton says. “You have a massive amount of regulatory oversight, which means it’s going to be a couple of years.” Some places will keep building the old models. Adoption is up in Russia and Asia, particularly South Korea. Other places will keep their ageing fleet on life support as long as they can. Three plants in New York, each more than 40 years old, will remain operating for another 12 years. Even if new models do come online, it leaves a long time between the decline of the ageing fleet of nuclear reactors and the emergence of the first credible alternatives. In the meantime, something will be needed to provide electricity. If municipalities build capacity with ever improving wind and solar devices, which
companies exist in the US today, according to a report by US think tank Third Way. “This has become a start-up “A next generation nuclear industry,” says Samuel Brinton, reactor isn’t an app – you an energy analyst formerly at can’t just tinker around the US Bipartisan Policy Center. and see if it works” “There’s a lot of private work on it, but they’re not building yet.” Most of the companies are aiming have much lower set-up costs, to have a working reactor by 2025, it could render new nuclear and Brinton expects the first wave plants unnecessary. to hit the market by 2030. There’s even a potential The reason Generation IV challenge from the nascent reactors won’t be here sooner is small-fusion industry the same as for the big reactors: (see “Super nuclear”, below left). For those who see a nuclear sunset on the horizon, the clearest solution to the problem of both “I can’t go into detail about what energy production and climate exactly that is now, but it worked change is renewables. Nuclear well,” Longmier says. “We ended up energy might be sustainable, in generating a little bit of fusion power the sense that it will last a long in the garage.” time, but ultimately Earth’s Longmier says the company is uranium supplies will run out. planning for the first power plant to Not so wind and sun, says Cooper. generate 5 megawatts, which in the “Anyone who wants to buy US should power a small city. that small modular reactor can He isn’t anywhere close to the look up in the sky and feel the break-even point. But the payoff for breeze blowing and know they success will be huge. “Whoever cracks don’t have to go that route,” this will solve energy for the next Cooper says. “Nuclear is never thousand years,” Longmier says. going to catch up.” n
Analysis_1200517
20 May 2017 | NewScientist | 21
CO
PA
OK