By Ted Vibert
I WROTE an article which this newspaper published last month headed: “An opportunity to become a world leader in the use of nuclear power.”
In this article I advocated that, following the highly successful and safe development by Rolls Royce of the use of nuclear power to drive Britain’s fleet of submarines, their small modular nuclear power plants (SMRs) that they have now developed – and are becoming available – were ideal for small communities such as the Channel Islands to provide us with all the electricity we will need for now and well into the future.
Part of their attraction is that they are modular, meaning that they can simply be added to, when the need arises, by bolting on another module to the main section. They are delivered in kit form and assembled on site, having been built in a factory environment, in effect, “one design, but many builds”.
I pointed out that as a result of their research and development of this part of their business, allied to their practical experience providing Britain’s submarine fleet with a safe but small nuclear power system, RR were now positioned to win contracts all over the world.
It is clear that an energy system that provides a reliable, competitive, sustainable energy source and is safe and easier to operate in every way (other than the current systems based on fossil fuels which have served everyone so well over the years), and which can be located close to the people who will use it, and is considered to be almost carbon-free, will be the holy grail for the supply of energy to customers throughout the world well into the future.
And these mini nuclear installations, which only require a small building that would fit on half a football pitch, suit the Channel Islands’ situation perfectly.
In the past week, national newspapers and television news bulletins covering business news, have been awash with stories of how some of the world’s largest hi-tech businesses are signing contracts with companies such as Britain’s Rolls Royce and the US firm Westinghouse to build SMRs to power their giant data centres in cities across the globe.
These vast centres contain masses of computers that store the amount of data required for the huge development of artificial intelligence they are expecting. These companies anticipate that their state-run electricity suppliers will be unable to reliably provide the huge increases in energy that their future operation in data storage will require, so they are preparing for it by creating their own electricity supply using these small nuclear reactors.
Tech giant Google, which is based in Mountain View, California, has just announced that it has signed an agreement with the California start-up company Kairos Power and has ordered seven SMRs. It will be the first tech company to commission new nuclear power plants for this purpose.
Kairos Power was founded in 2016 and their demonstration reactor is due to be completed in 2027 with their first commercial reactor scheduled to come on line by 2030, followed by additional deployments through 2035.
This action by Google followed an announcement that Microsoft has committed to buying 20 years’ supply of electricity from the mothballed US nuclear plant known as Three Mile Island, if the company owning the site will restart it.
Amazon has also announced that it has just bought a stake in US nuclear developer X-energy as part of its collaboration with the company in developing their X-energy SMRs to provide low-carbon electricity power to Amazon’s existing and future data centres.
X-energy, which is backed by US chemical giant Dow, has developed a reactor that uses helium gas as a coolant rather than water to divert heat from the core. Their Xe-100 SMR “one pack” can deliver 80MWe and can be delivered as a “four pack” with an output similar to a typical gas-fired plant. Their first SMR is being developed at a site on the Texas Gulf Coast with financial support from the US government, which is investing billions of dollars in companies developing SMRs.
A report by Natural Resources Canada predicts that the global market for SMRs could exceed $150 billion by 2040.
In March 2023, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy announced that its SMR model BWRX-300 had “achieved a significant pre-licensing milestone towards regulatory approval in Canada and that deployment of this model is in various stages of planning or contracting in Estonia and Poland as well as in the United States”.
The US Nuclear Regulatory Authority recently reduced the Emergency Planning Zone (site boundary) for SMRs from ten miles for standard traditional nuclear reactors to the site boundary of the SMR plant, such is their confidence in the safety of these operations.
The UK’s Energy Minister, Ed Miliband, in laying out the new Labour government’s plans for the future supply of electricity for the UK, announced far-reaching funding proposals to develop SMRs, which he said was going to be essential in ensuring that the progress Roll Royce had made with their SMR projects would enable them to capture a large share of the global market. He also promised to remove any impediment that might hinder their installation around the UK.
It is clear that the race is now on, with major investment organisations as well as governments around the world vying to dominate this market.
It is accepted by those who have studied this field that Russia and China have taken the lead in this race and are still the only countries currently successfully operating small modular nuclear reactors. But other nations are closing in and according to the International Atomic Energy Agency there are currently 84 SMR designs being developed or seeking government licensing approval across 19 countries including the USA, Britain, Canada, Japan and South Korea.
Financial journalists have also recently reported how the potential for small modular reactors to be used by businesses to provide their energy, independent of the national grid, has presented opportunities for new funding arrangements to be developed by financial institutions.
Companies wishing to take advantage of having an independent nuclear source of electricity through their own SMR usually lack the necessary expertise to operate this type of power plant, nor do they want the responsibility for waste disposal or assume the liability that comes with operating a nuclear reactor.
This has created the opportunity for entrepreneurs to create operations that will build, finance, own and operate the plant. And this innovative approach allows potential clients, such as data centres, utilities, or hydrogen-production plants to access reliable and economic electricity without the complexity of developing or owning a nuclear facility.
In the article I referred to earlier I wrote: “This is a huge opportunity for Jersey to become a world leader in the use of nuclear power. Is there a States Member with enough gumption and interest in Jersey’s future who is prepared to get on a plane and go and talk to those companies who are deeply involved in small modular nuclear reactors and who will convince them that Jersey could be their showroom for the world where they could display their product in a full working building providing the Channel Islands with so many benefits? I could, of course, make arrangements for them to come here and meet States Members.”
No States Member responded to this offer. But the Jersey Climate Forum believes that all current forms of electricity production should be considered, and the public fully informed. With this aim in mind, the forum intends to hold a public energy discussion when highly qualified speakers will come to Jersey and will outline their various proposals including tidal, solar, wind and nuclear so that the people of Jersey are far better informed than they are at present. Full details will be made public as soon as arrangements for the event are finalised.