New Reactor Types

Why don’t these billionaire philanthropists like Gates just stop their foundations and pay their fair share of taxes. The media everywhere has been fawning over Bill Gates and his new book, How To Avoid A Climate Disaster. But should we really be listening to the world’s third wealthiest man for advice? If his suggestions and plans of action were wise and useful then maybe. Microsoft founder Bill Gates has an estimated net worth of $129 billion. His incalculable possessions, hugely destructive habits, and the massive investments of his opaque charitable trust, do everything to contradict his message that he’s the man with the plan to solve climate change. The fundamental point is that the richer you are, the bigger your ecological footprint. There’s no escaping it. He is chairman of TerraPower, a nuclear reactor design company which has put no energy into the power grid. In October 2020, the United States Department of Energy gave TerraPower a grant of $400 million rising to $4 billion over the next seven years towards building a demonstration reactor. For reasons like this, Schwab calls Gates’ book “a long-winded advertisement for his investments”. Gates uses it to appeal to the US government to become a co-investor in TerraPower.

The Fifth State 23rd Feb 2021 read more »

Back in 2018, the Watershed Sentinel ran an article warning that “unless Canadians speak out,” a huge amount of taxpayer dollars would be spent on small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), which author D. S. Geary called “risky, retro, uncompetitive, expensive, and completely unnecessary.” Now here we are in 2021 with the Trudeau government and four provinces (Saskatchewan, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Alberta) poised to pour billions of dollars into SMRs as a supposed “clean energy” solution to climate change. It’s remarkable that only five years ago, the National Energy Board predicted: “No new nuclear units are anticipated to be built in any province” by 2040. So what happened? The answer involves looking at some of the key influencers at work behind the scenes, lobbying for government funding for SMRs. In 2018, the private equity arm of Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management Inc. announced that it was buying Westinghouse’s global nuclear business (Westinghouse Electric Co.) for $4.6 billion. Two years later, in August 2020, Brookfield announced that Mark Carney, former Bank of England and Bank of Canada governor, would be joining the company as its vice-chair and head of ESG (environmental, social, and governance) and impact fund investing, while remaining as UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance. “We are not going to solve climate change without the private sector,” Carney told the press, calling the climate crisis “one of the greatest commercial opportunities of our time.” He considers Canada “an energy superpower,” with nuclear a key asset. Carney is an informal advisor to PM Trudeau and to British PM Boris Johnson. In November, Johnson announced £525 million (CAD$909.6 million) for “large and small-scale nuclear plants.”

Watershed Sentinel 14th January 2021 read more »

A pioneering reactor in Britain is gearing up to start pivotal tests of a fuel mix that will eventually power ITER — the world’s biggest nuclear-fusion experiment. Nuclear fusion is the phenomenon that powers the Sun and, if physicists can harness it on Earth, it would be a source of almost limitless energy.

Nature 22nd Feb 2021 read more »

Plans to build a prototype fusion power plant in the United States have come into tighter focus, as a new report lays out a rough timeline for building the multibillon-dollar plant and a strategy for developing its design. The United States should strive to start construction of the pilot by 2035 and to have it running by 2040, according to a report released this week by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). To meet that tight schedule, the report calls for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to help fund two to four teams that, in collaboration with private industry, would develop by 2028 different conceptual designs.

Science 19th Feb 2021 read more »

How the US is aiming to fabricate a proprietary thorium-based nuclear fuel. The fuel will combine thorium and high-assay low-enriched uranium, which will address issues including cost, safety, proliferation and waste management. Researchers at Texas A&M and the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Idaho National Laboratory have partnered with Clean Core Thorium Energy to fabricate a proprietary thorium-based nuclear fuel called Advanced Nuclear Energy for Enriched Life (Aneel) for pressurized heavy-water reactors (PHWRs). Here, Nuclear Engineering International (NEI) takes a look at what the partnership could mean for the nuclear industry.

NS Energy 22nd Feb 2021 read more »

The Moorside site in West Cumbria has been selected as Cumbria’s contender to go forward to UKAEA’s national competition to identify the site to host the UK’s first prototype nuclear fusion plant and surrounding science, technology and business park. The site, adjacent to the Sellafield nuclear complex, emerged as the favoured Cumbrian location following a mini-siting competition led by Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership (CLEP) on behalf of a range of partners.

Cumbria LEP 12th Feb 2021 read more »

We caught up with Richard Deakin, Director of the Low Cost Nuclear Challenge about his work building industry-leading capability in low carbon energy and clean growth by integrating industry, investors and societal benefit. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) which brings together nine organisations under a single umbrella. This includes seven disciplinary research councils, such as Engineering and Physical Sciences through to industrial co-investment, bringing products and programmes forward through Innovate UK. I joined UKRI in April 2020 as Low Cost Nuclear Challenge Director. That sits within the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) portfolio, one of UKRI’s flagship funds, which is tackling the big societal challenges of the government’s industrial strategy. My role is to act as a pivot point between government policy and industry. The government allocates money in its budget to UKRI to follow a policy narrative and to support policy direction to be delivered, for example, Clean Growth. One of the grand societal challenges that the government has identified is clean economic growth only. How do we grow the economy whilst decarbonising at the same time? I lead government spending in an effort to enable the development of a UK designed nuclear power solution that can come forward at a cost that will support commercial investment and a role in the UK energy mix. There is wide agreement now that nuclear is an essential part of energy mix going forward and wider pathways to Net Zero. On a global basis, there’s lots of published data out there, e.g. International Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change 2014 makes a really strong case for nuclear, as does the World Nuclear Society, United Nations and others.

Engineering & Technology 17th Feb 2021 read more »