Go nuclear – and go small
Small modular reactors (SMRs) are the future of nuclear energy, says Dominic Frisby. They are far more efficient than solar and wind energy – making them a silver bullet for the energy crisis
Sheepwash is a tiny village in North Devon with a population of just 250 or so people. The Sheepwash
Chronicle is the local magazine for and about the residents. It’s not what you might call the mainstream media. I have some close family down there, so I visit quite often. Last week I stumbled across an article in the Harvest 2021 edition. It might be the best one I’ve ever read about green energy and our future electricity needs.
Clean and safe
It’s by Dr Philip Bratby of the Countryside Charity and it’s called: Small Modular Reactors – An Opinion
Piece. The subtitle is The ultimate low-carbon renewables.
It’s worth declaring upfront that Bratby is pronuclear. It often seems that the energy debate is no longer about the cleanest, most efficient energy source. The discussion has been politicised and corrupted, often by those with their snouts in the trough of government subsidies, so anyone who suggests that fossil fuels have done a lot for mankind or that nuclear power might not be all bad is branded a heretic.
But Bratby’s views seem particularly pertinent at present because of the current energy crisis, spiking natural gas prices and the fact that only recently, with no wind, the government has had to switch coal-fired plants back on.
I googled Bratby, and there isn’t much online. He has a first-class honours degree in physics from the Imperial College of Science and Technology (London University); a doctorate in physics from Sheffield University; he worked in the military and civil nuclear industry as a energy consultant and is now semi-retired.
There are a couple of anti-nuclear websites that have a go at him, using straw-man arguments, quoting out of context and so on, so I won’t mention them here.
Let’s get to the article.
If the government has its way, says Bratby, we will need much more electricity for heating and for charging all those millions of electric vehicles. To meet these needs, the electricity supply will need to be both expanded and more reliable.
Commercial nuclear power stations have been operating for nearly 70 years. They have provided huge amounts of reliable, affordable, “clean” and almost infinitely renewable electricity. Nuclear energy has the best safety record of any energy technology.
All environmental concerns, such as waste disposal, have been solved.
A bad reputation
So why hasn’t nuclear power been widely accepted? One reason is that over the course of many years environmental activists have persuaded much of the public, many politicians and the media that nuclear energy is unsafe. However, some activists have recently changed their minds.
For example, James Lovelock, who proposed the Gaia hypothesis, has said that “nuclear power is the only green solution”. Bryony (now Baroness) Worthington, a lead author of the Climate Change Act, who once said that she was “passionately opposed to nuclear power” has more recently said: “I urge you on moral, ethical, scientific and environmental grounds to rethink your opposition to it”.
One-time anti-nuclear campaigner, environmental activist and author Mark Lynas, who has said that he “grew up hating nuclear power”, has now declared that “continuing to oppose nuclear was a mistake… it’s extraordinarily safe… and we must learn to love nuclear power”.
So why do some environmental organisations still oppose it and prefer environmentally destructive wind and solar farms coupled with batteries? The reason, says Bratby, is not that it doesn’t produce abundant lowcarbon energy, but that it does, and that conflicts with their aim: to halt economic growth.
I think there is a lot of truth in Bratby’s statement. I often feel that that’s the main agenda behind a lot of activism today. The idea, as well as to impose their views on others and dictate how to behave, is to stop capitalism, progress and economic activity altogether. Hence the hashtag #endcapitalism, which you find everywhere.
Anyway, back to Bratby: thanks to anti-nuclear propaganda, regulators require multiple, excessive layers of safety in nuclear-plant design, which needlessly pushes up costs. The regulatory process is therefore complex, slow and cumbersome, and takes years to complete.
The long lead time between building and operation adds to the expense. And so political uncertainty is one reason why many recent proposals for nuclear power stations in the UK have been abandoned, leaving the twin power stations at Hinkley C in Somerset as the only ongoing project.
“James Lovelock, who proposed the Gaia hypothesis, says ‘nuclear power is the only green solution’”
To overcome these problems, the focus has switched to small modular reactors (SMRs). SMRs have operated for 60 years in submarines, aircraft carriers and icebreakers, but only recently has attention been paid to developing land-based SMRs for commercial electricity generation. Their advantages over nuclear power stations are legion:
• They use relatively simple, proven technology.
• They can be manufactured in factories and built on site rapidly.
• They are safer than current nuclear power stations.
• They occupy very little land and have scant impact on the landscape. Some can even be constructed underground – surely preferable to wind turbines and solar farms.
• They provide generation that can be controlled to create baseload and load-follow capability. In other words, they can provide around-the-clock electricity and output can be adjusted as demand fluctuates throughout the day
• Their output is not weather-dependent. l They use very high energy-density fuel and thus require a lot less land. A 440 megawatt (MW) SMR would require about 25 acres of land and would produce about 3.5 terrawatt hours (TWh) of electricity per year, enough for about 1.2 million homes. A solar farm would require about 13,000 acres (20 square miles) for the same output; wind farms would need approximately 32,000 acres
(50 square miles).
There are about half a million homes in Devon. So Devon’s domestic electricity needs could easily be met by a single 440MW SMR occupying a small area of land. By contrast, a huge area of Devon’s farmland would need to be covered in solar panels or wind turbines to provide the same amount of electricity.
Even then, alternative sources would be needed for when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine.
I read that the biggest solar farm in the country is planned for Holsworthy, about 15 miles up the road from Sheepwash: 76,000 panels over 165 acres. It won’t come close to meeting Devon’s electricity needs.
In the UK, it is envisaged that SMRs would be constructed on the redundant sites of closed nuclear and coal-fired power stations – on brownfield land where grid connections are readily available. If they really are such a silver bullet, SMRs are going to happen whether activists oppose them or not. A shortage of energy will demand it.
“Devon’s domestic energy needs could be met by a single SMR”
HowtoinvestinSMRs
Several competing designs are being developed around the world, ranging in size from tens of megawatts to 500MW. But at present none of the pure-play SMR companies are publicly listed. RollsRoyce (LSE: RR) has built seven generations of SMRs for use in nuclear submarines and, with its design for a 440MW SMR, it is a contender. So that is one option. The group is about to land a load of orders from Eastern Europe, I hear.
Another contender is NuScale, an American company, which is unfortunately still private. There is a way to get exposure to NuScale, however. The majority shareholder is engineering company Fluor Corp (NYSE:
FLR). It has been through the wars and its share price is low, so it might represent an opportunity.
First published in Money Morning, MoneyWeek’s free daily email newsletter – sign up to receive it at moneyweek.com. Dominic’s book Daylight Robbery – How Tax Shaped The Past And Will Change The Future is available in paperback and on audiobook.