How to bring more companies into nuclear power generation
In this blog post, I discuss how we could:
Bring more companies into the UK nuclear power business
Achieve this while keeping the nuclear knowledge concentrated where it’s needed for the benefit of all new nuclear plants
The nuclear power industry’s safety record is achieved by a highly skilled and specialist workforce. And in the UK, the people with the skills and experience of operating nuclear power plants are mainly found in one power company and the regulator.
This arrangement has allowed the existing fleet to operate reliably for several decades. It hasn't however prompted investment and innovation in new nuclear at the scale needed to maintain the existing nuclear generation capacity, let alone grow to compensate for diminishing fossil-fuel fired capacity.
Encouraging more companies into the nuclear power industry could unlock investment and innovation. But how does this happen when all the nuclear knowledge and expertise is centralised in Power Company 1?
The UK government announced in April 2022 that ‘Great British Nuclear’ would be set up as a body to develop new nuclear projects. It's not clear, almost a year on, how many projects GBN will be able to develop and to what stage of development they will take them. In any case, who would build and operate the developed projects?
A simple but potentially game-changing technology concept could be the solution to bring competition into the UK nuclear power generation market. All while maintaining the centralised knowledge and competence needed for ‘the nuclear bit’.
Natrium, a next-generation nuclear design by GE Hitachi and TerraPower introduces the concept of Nuclear and Power Generation islands being spatially and operationally separated, with one or more heat exchange stages in the middle to decouple the production of heat in a nuclear fission reactor from the use of the heat to produce steam and eventually electricity.
The Natrium design was primarily conceived to simplify the nuclear part of a nuclear power plant and then reduce the total cost by separating nuclear and power islands. The designers hoped to demonstrate the potential to regulate the ‘power island’ as a non-nuclear power production facility and limit the nuclear quality standards and regulation to just the ‘nuclear island’. Hence the capital and operational costs of the steam and power generating part of the power plant reduce significantly.
In future, all the UK-based nuclear islands could be operated by a single, regulated nuclear heat producer
… Let’s call them ‘Great British Nuclear’. Then, on the other side of heat purchase agreements (HPA), there could be an energy company adjacent to each new nuclear site receiving heat and turning it into power, which in turn could be used to make low-carbon hydrogen, or marketing it directly as high and low grade heat to nearby industry, businesses and homes.
The ‘power island’ (the steam generating and power producing bit) is still going to be significant. And across the country will require billions of pounds in investment and significant operation and maintenance activity. So de-centralising this part of the nuclear energy market would allow for many of the benefits that come with private investment and competition in construction and operations. Whilst at the same time, avoiding the dilution of a finite workforce with the knowledge and skills required for the ‘nuclear island’ from one power company to many.
What do you think?
Could this help open up the UK nuclear energy market?
What other opportunities or threats do you see coming with new, next generation nuclear?
https://www.terrapower.com/our-work/natriumpower/
A big thanks to Hal Gatewood for the thumbnail image. Sourced via Unsplash.
Hopefully it goes without saying. But, all opinions expressed in the blog are my own (unless expressly stated otherwise) and don’t necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of companies or organisations I work for or am affiliated to now, in the past or in the future. My opinions will also change over time. The intention is to add to the conversation, to educate and inform. Therefore, facts and information are provided in good faith and should be checked against other sources if you intend to use them for something you deem important.
