Small Modular Reactors Big On Nuclear Waste?

Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton says he’s not afraid to have a debate about nuclear energy. That’s great, but do we *really* need to have another one?

Mr. Dutton was commenting on his choice of Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Ted O’Brien MP. 

Back in 2019, Mr. O’Brien said:

“Australia should say a definite ‘No’ to old nuclear technologies but a conditional ‘Yes’ to new and emerging technologies such as small modular reactors.“

That was in relation to a problematic report on nuclear power released by the House Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy – which Mr. O’Brien was chairing.

The report suggested Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) would make nuclear power economically viable. Small Modular Reactors are basically miniature nuclear power plants that can be pre-fabricated off-site. Operational terrestrial-based electricity generation using SMR technology was vapourware at the time of the report – and more than 2 years on it still is.

The Legacy Of Small Modular Reactors

There has been a lot of hype around the potential for SMR tech, but a very recent study out of Stanford University published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests most small modular reactor designs are inferior to conventional nuclear reactors in several very important aspects.

Among the concerns is SMRs will experience more neutron leakage than conventional reactors, which will affect the amount and composition of their waste streams.

“We found that small modular reactors will generate at least nine times more neutron-activated steel than conventional power plants,” said study co-author Rodney Ewing, the Frank Stanton Professor in Nuclear Security at Stanford. “These radioactive materials have to be carefully managed prior to disposal, which will be expensive.”

The research team also estimated radiotoxicity of plutonium in spent fuels discharged from the designs studied would be at least 50 percent higher than that from conventional plants’ spent fuel per unit of energy extracted – after 10,000 years. Another issue is some designs requiring “chemically exotic” fuels and coolants that can result in waste that will be difficult to safely dispose of.

Co-author Allison Macfarlane noted her research team shouldn’t have been the ones to do this study – that responsibility was on the shoulders of SMR vendors chasing (and getting) US government support for these facilities.

Flogging The Dead Nuclear Horse

But back to yet another potential round of debating the virtues of allowing nuclear power in Australia. Putting aside the myriad other issues,  Australian power stations will never go down this path as nuclear energy is too expensive.

This will remain the case for the foreseeable future whether it’s SMR technology or big-ass conventional nuclear power plants. As SQ’s Ronald has previously pointed out, if by some miracle nuclear power – with all costs considered – becomes as cheap as chips, that’s the time to start building it.

“Building nuclear before it’s cheaper than other low emission options would be what economists call freaking stupid.”

And the time when nuclear power *may* become cheaper is so far down the track, any further discussion now is incredibly premature. Pursuing more of these already-held debates is a distracting and time-burgling exercise taking focus away from full-steam ahead (so to speak) on clean power solutions currently available that *already* and *will continue to* push down the cost of electricity – renewables backed by storage.

If all the effort that has been put into protecting fossil fuels, stymieing renewables and indulging in vapourware teasers over the last decade had been directed that way, we’d be a heck of a lot closer to the clean, reliable, safe and cheap energy future we crave than we are now. And many Australian households and businesses may not be facing the world of hurt that looks to be heading their way in the form of jacked up power bills.

Original Source: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/smr-nuclear-waste-mb2503/