I’ve been waiting to see a story come out about this for a while. A few weeks ago I saw that Poland may be building as many as 79 of the General Electric Hitachi BWRX-300 reactors, the exact same design chosen as SaskPower. This story indicated 20 at this point, but hints it could be more.
Ontario Power Generation is building the first one. Tennessee Valley Authority is building the second. Saskatchewan may have thought we were all that and a bag of chips by announcing four. But we won’t finish our second until around 2038. In the meantime, Poland might have built all 79 by that time.
We might have thought we’d be driving the bus on this SMR rollout. We’re not. In other words, the instruction manuals will likely be written in Polish. But it also means a lot of confidence is being expressed by the Poles in the design, if they build 20, or 79, or whatever.
As for how much uranium will go into these, I sat at a banquet a few weeks ago with some Cameco reps. They explained that SMRs actually use very little uranium. You fill them up at the start, and basically that’s it. That was very insightful, I thought, because that’s exactly how current US nuclear submarines (with small reactors) work.
Not just that, Poland is also building two possibly three large conventional nuke powerplants. The protests from Germany are an amusing bonus.
You have to keep perspective. When (or if) Saskatchewan builds 4 SMRs, that would amount to one reactor per 325,000 persons. If Poland build 79 SMRs, that would amount to one reactor per 477,000 persons, and if “only” 20 are built that would be one per 1.89 million persons. Such projects are a much bigger deal for SK than for Poland.
This is true. Poland has a population very close to Canada, at 37.75 million. And they’re looking at essentially a wholesale change from coal. As for Colonialista, the contrast with Germany is remarkable to the point of shocking.
Does one build these or install them? Or is build being used like auto makers’ web sites where they encourage you to “build” the car you want?
Thought the whole point of SMR’s was they came ready to hook up like a big water heater.
Depends entirely upon the design. Some are very small and can be moved by a truck. Others are larger and have to be assembled. The whole point of Small Modular Reactors is that their major components are assembled in a factory and then moved to the site needed and put together. The point of SMR is to improve enormously the quality control of assembling a reactor’s components.
What you are thinking of is sometimes referred to as “micro modular reactors.” They are in the 10-50 megawatt range, applicable for industrial or mining applications. The -300 in the name indicates 300 megawatts. That’s the size of Shand Power Station near Estevan. SaskPower has four coal units that size. So SMRs that size swap out nicely. If one unit goes down for maintenance, it doesn’t take the grid. The AP1000s that Poland is going to build from Westinghouse are 1000 to 1600 in size. Yesterday, one reactor alone that size would have accounted for half of SaskPowers’ entire production for the whole province. If that goes out for any reason, you have big problems. That’s why Saskatchewan never built big nukes. Even at the 800 megawatt size of the typical CANDU, it was too big for us. That’s why SMRs at 300 are such a good fit.
Stupid question here:
assuming these are built, what energy can be exported, if at all?
Thanks.
That’s not a stupid question. Short answer: depends entirely on what adjacent customers you have and what the transmission link capacity is. Electricity cannot be exported to Manitoba. That province is a large net exporter to Ontario. The most likely importer of electricity is Alberta which is growing rapidly. The interconnection through Lloydminster can be readily expanded.
The states immediately to the south, Montana and North Dakota, have no significant demand for additional electricity. Both states are large net producers of coal-fired generation to other states further south.
Will we also be required to install screen doors on the reactor chambers?
Maybe its my ignorance, but when you consider American warships, it seems like SMR’s are decades and decades overdue. The first American nuclear sub hit the sea in 1954.
Of course Canada may as well buy its subs at Subway…
Key difference with US Naval Reactors: US Navy reactors burn weapons grade U-235. Doubt these reactors have more than a couple percent U -235.
No, they don’t. Submarine propulsion units use uranium fuel enriched to about 20% U235. Weapons grade uranium is enriched to about 90+% U235.
We could buy it from Iran.
cgh – the Virginia class uses HEU for the reactor. The nuclear disarmament “ community “ wants all US naval reactors to go to lower enrichment, meaning larger reactor cores – a typically dishonest way of pushing nuclear disarmament on the US. ( larger cores = smaller weapons load per submarine )
HEU gives higher power output, everything else being equal, permitting smaller reactors using less of the hull’s volume, a key concern in naval architecture.
I am a big believer in Nuclear Power. It is safe and very reliable as it has matured from the 1970’s. I hope the new SMRs are not overpromising, only to under-deliver. It will be interesting to see how these new nuclear reactors live up to the promises that were made when they were sold to these utilities.
The 500 MWe GE BWR I first worked at was promised to be “Staffed by a dedicated crew of 50.” when it was sold in the 1960’s. By the 1990’s when I arrived, it had a staff of about 15 times that, as they were completing all the Post TMI actions and modifications. When I moved on, they had cut back to about 500-550 total employees, but the plant was also operating at about 10% higher output too, and was late increased in power output about another 20%. The six operations crews each had eight operators, and there were a chemist, radioactive waste operator, and a health physics tech on each shift too, along with a big bunch of security guards to man the site 24/7/365. That is in addition to all the engineers, maintenance, training, and administrative staff that worked M-F days.
A more recent problem? I think the new Vogtle plants were promised to be up and running several years ago. Hopefully the first will be operational this year.
By and large, you are correct. Post-TMI refits drove up the cost of new nuclear construction enormously. The additional station crew needed were significant, but the real difference was the greatly enhanced training and certification programs required.
As to Vogtle, they are first of a kind AP-1000 units for Units 3 and 4. They’ve never been built before, so there’s always delays for the first one or two. The first of them was grid-connected this month, while Unit 4 will be connected this fall. The project was slowed by a number of regulatory requirements forced through by the Obama administration. The most damaging was the requirement that all work had to be done by unionized labour only.
The design was acquired by China, and China has already completed six of the new reactor design.
cgh,
Thank you for the update. I am glad to hear those units are coming on line.
Now we just need about 20-50 of these Westinghouse (or whoever owns the old Circle Bar W) in the US. We need a minimum number of reactors to support the manufacturing base required for new and replacement equipment, and for the training, scientific, and engineering support needed to improve these units too.
I remember the old GE Engineer that explained the unit I worked at, “This unit was built 1971-1974, using a 1967 design with state of the art 1950’s equipment.”
Most welcome, rd. Westinghouse is now owned by a partnership of two principal owners: Brookfield Business Partners (which acquired it outright in 2018 from Toshiba) and Cameco Corporation, which became the major equity partner with Brookfield in 2022. Cameco is the world’s largest underground uranium miner. It owns and operates two very large mines in Saskatchewan: McArthur River and Key Lake. All of the ore has been mined from Key Lake, but its uranium mill continues in full operation. McArthur River is the world’s richest uranium mine. At its peak, McArthur River ore was up to 70 per cent pure pitchblende.
I’ve personally visited the underground mining galleries at McArthur River and I’m highly familiar with the mine and its operations.
In short, between the two of them, Westinghouse is now a wholly Canadian managed and owned corporation. Both Brookfield and Cameco are publicly traded on the stock exchange with head offices in Canada.
“I am a big believer in Nuclear Power. It is safe and very reliable as it has matured from the 1970’s”
I agree, but only where hydroelectric power is unfeasible.
Poland is laying the groundwork for becoming the preeminent military and industrial power in Europe. A key part of this project is defeating Putin’s kleptocracy in the current war and bringing Ukraine into the EU. If they succeed in this, the entire character of the European Union will change as the centre-of-gravity shifts from Franco-German axis to one dominated by the Eastern European states.