A new research report illustrates that the UK must take a different approach to delivering the nuclear roadmap. Any delay in making strategic decisions could jeopardise the UK nuclear supply chain from capitalising on global business opportunities, say the authors.
Delivering an expanded nuclear scenario in the United Kingdom, beyond the proposed 16 GW to replace existing capacity by 2025, could require a distinctly different approach than has been historically administered. In fact, a new report published by the Energy Research Partnership, highlights that perhaps a more dynamic approach to the UK’s nuclear capacity programme should lead with a better understanding of the fuel cycle and waste management implications, rather than by the choice of reactor alone.
The report stresses the key issues and analysis that will be needed to inform the strategic decisions on which a research and development roadmap can be based. But the core of the research lies with two possible nuclear new build scenarios – a Replacement Scenario, generating 16 GW of electricity until 2025, and an Expansion Scenario, generating 16 GW until 2025 and then building up to 40 GW in 2050 - and examines the issues and consequences that need to be addressed for both.
Maximising opportunities
The authors’ work, which was funded in part by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Energy Technologies Institute, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and the UK National Nuclear Laboratory, warn that any delays risk closing off options for future development and missing valuable opportunities for UK industry to capitalise on the global market.
Considerable effort has been put into opening the way for new nuclear power stations in the UK to replace existing capacity by 2025. However, many energy scenarios indicate that nuclear power may have to play a much greater role by 2050.
“The Nuclear Technology Roadmap report from ERP shows that delivering an expanded fleet is not a matter of doing more of the same,” Richard Heap relayed in an email statement to Nuclear Energu Insider. Heap led the work with Dame Sue Ion for ERP.
“It will require a long-term strategic approach focused on ensuring a secure supply of fuel and managing the additional waste arising, as well as maximising opportunities for the UK supply chain.”
Heap says that several systems are under development that could offer improved sustainability, safety and proliferation resistance, such as a closed fuel cycle with Generation IV fast reactors.
“Given the long lead times for developing many of these technologies, actions need to be taken now to avoid closing off options unnecessarily, which might prove costly to rectify in the future,” he says.
Fuel cycle focus
In recent weeks, plans to recycle nuclear spent fuel were revived in a new €9.4m pan-European research project led by the Royal Institute of Technology of Chalmers, Sweden.
Professor Christian Ekberg, the Chalmers nuclear chemist heading the project was quoted in a recent Nuclear Energy Insider article that if you decrease waste by a factor of ten you can get ten times more waste into the repository. Of course, the recycling also saves much more energy.
He notes that researchers studied the use of non-oxide fuels in the 1970s and considered it could be done, for instance at the Dounreay fast breeder reactor in Scotland. However, the recycling and use of the fuels was not taken up.
“This possibility has been around for a very long time - since the 1970s and even before that. But now, waste is considered more of a problem and the uranium price is going up so you need to recycle more. There’s a realisation we’ll not get rid of nuclear power in the short term so we need to do it as sustainably as possible,” argues Professor Ekberg.
Dr Bill Lee, a materials scientist at Imperial College London who is also deputy director for the University’s Centre for Nuclear Engineering indicated in the article that people are starting to demonstrate a concern about the nuclear end-of-life cycle and that research in this field is already starting to take pace: “There’s a need for non-oxides for a range of applications, not just nuclear – it’s the next big thing in ceramics for instance.”
Early advantage
Dame Sue Ion, a Member of the Energy Research Partnership and who chaired the Steering Group for the recent research report, had this to say: “The UK has world-class R&D capabilities in key areas across the nuclear fuel cycle, and significant expertise in decommissioning, safety management, regulatory frameworks and advanced manufacturing, so we should be well placed to take early advantage of the growing global market for nuclear power.”
Ion, a nuclear fuels expert, also says that it is vital that pathways and opportunities are identified and analysed in detail so that the UK is in a position to make the appropriate supportive investment to keep options open and maximise the long-term value to 'UK plc'.
“We need a properly developed comprehensive roadmap that highlights the decisions to be made on a number of key areas and how soon these decisions need to be made to avoid foreclosing options,” says Dame Ion.
In addition to calling for the roadmap, the ERP report also makes a number of recommendations, including further detailed assessments in order to understand the issues and realise the potential opportunities for UK industry, and the establishment of a co-ordinating body for research and development which should include Government, industry, NNL, NDA, regulators, academia and research funders.
Such a body would own, develop and advise government on a long-term nuclear R&D strategy and roadmap, and underpin the realisation of the commercial opportunities and international collaboration.
Home grown energy generation
In February of this year, UK Prime Minister David Cameron agreed a deal to strengthen nuclear power links between the UK and France, stating his commitment to developing nuclear “as part of a diversified energy mix”, which prompted Caroline Flint MP, Labour’s Shadow Energy and Climate Change Secretary, to recognise its role “as part of a more sustainable, balanced and low-carbon future energy mix, to make us less reliant on volatile fossil fuel prices, increase our energy security, and keep prices down for families.”
Re-shaping the various lifestages of the nuclear energy cycle as a homegrown market opportunity in the UK could be an excellent job creation exercise for this heavily indebted economy. Any hesitation could be fatal to the UK nuclear supply chain. In echo to the Chinese, the UK could follow China's lead by not only developing their own reactor technology, but also developing a domestic third generation supply chain that is robust enough to subsequently supply the new generation of nuclear markets, such as Saudi Arabia.
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