• Westinghouse Wins an SMR Project in the UK
• Westinghouse Eliminated from Czech Nuclear Project
• Five Companies Shortlisted to Build Bulgaria’s Kozloduy-7 AP1000 Nuclear Plant
• Korean Shipbuilder Joins Maritime SMR Project
• Fuel Fabrication Starts for MARVEL Microreactor
• NASA Contracts for Lunar Reactor Development

Westinghouse Wins an SMR Project in the UK

Westinghouse scored a significant win for its marketing efforts in the UK this week with an agreement in principle to build four 300 MW AP300 small modular reactors in a privately funded project in an industrial region of the UK. The firm has not publicly disclosed the names of its investors.

In a press statement the firm said, “Westinghouse Electric Company today announced that it has signed an agreement with Community Nuclear Power, Ltd. (CNP) that puts it on track to deploy the UK’s first privately-financed small modular reactor fleet, with the Westinghouse AP300 SMR.”

“ It is a significant step in making this new energy sector a reality with commercial operation expected by the early 2030s. CNP is also working with strategic partners, including Jacobs and Interpath Advisory, to develop a fully licensed site for the project, with a target of 2027.”

Westinghouse added, “The project is in accordance with the recently published UK Government Alternative Routes to Market for New Nuclear Projects consultation and complementary to and supportive of Westinghouse’s participation in Great British Nuclear’s (GBN) SMR technology selection process. This collaboration will further expand scale for workforce, training and supply chain localization via multiple deployment projects.”

Lord Ben Houchen, the Mayor of Tees Valley, said one of the major issues it faced was the lack of policy clarity in the UK over SMRs. The UK government is currently holding its second SMR competition with six firms, all offering LWRs, but no date has been set for awards nor the amount of funding the government would provide to the winner(s). The UK government’s first SMR competition ended without formally declaring a winner or awarding significant funding to any SMR developer.

CNP said on its website, “Previously there was no development capability to deploy SMRs in the UK. The only route historically to nuclear energy has been via the public sector model that has struggled to deliver giga-scale mega-projects.”

SMR Site Selected

Westinghouse said on social media “it has secured an agreement for the site. This means the component parts and agreements needed to make this ground-breaking proposition happen – land, capability, technology, private capital funding, and community demand – are in place.”

The new power station will be sited at Seal Sands, a former chemical works. The plant closed on November 2021. Located on the shore of the Tees river, the proposed SMR plant site is adjacent to a Conoco Oil facility and upriver from an ecological reserve.

The North Teesside region of Northeast England, Middlesbrough, is located on England’s North Sea coast, 260 miles due north of London. Iron and steel have dominated the industry of both Middlesbrough and the Teesside area from the 1840s. Teesside had also become one of the major steel centers in the country, and one of the largest worldwide. Industrial decline in recent years has hampered economic development in the region.

Ship building and coal mining have also been major industries in the region. All of these industries would be logical customers in terms of offering robust demand for electricity and decarbonization of power intensive manufacturing processes. New, reliable power sources, which provide carbon free electricity, would be attractive incentives for new industry to move to the region.

Status of the AP300

Westinghouse noted in its press statement that in May 2023 it launched the AP300 small modular reactor, the only SMR based on an advanced, large Generation III+ reactor already in operation globally, the AP1000 technology. The firm claims that “unlike every other SMR under development with first-of-a-kind technologies and risks, Westinghouse’s AP300 SMR utilizes the AP1000 engineering, components, and supply chain, enabling streamlined licensing and leveraging available technical skills.”

That’s mostly true. The the GE-Hitachi BWRX-300 is based on the full scale version of the ESBWR, a 1500 MW design. Although several US utilities sought and received licenses to build one, none of the projects every broke ground mostly due to depressed demand for electricity resulting from the great recession of 2008.

Conceptual Design Image  of the AP300. Image: Westinghouse

Westinghouse will have to take steps to assure its customer in the UK that building AP300 SMRs will not fall victim to the significant schedule delays and cost overruns that plagued its construction of two AP1000s for Georgia Power in the US.

Westinghouse has not yet submitted its AP300 design to the UK Office of Nuclear Regulation (ONR) for completion of the generic design assessment (GDA) to license the reactor for sale to customers. The complex, expensive, and time consuming process takes three-to-four years. If the firm submitted the design in 2024, it would be 2027 or 2028 before it could break ground.

AP300 v. Rolls-Royce

The deal is a marketing setback for Rolls-Royce which has promoted it 470 MW PWR as the “home town team” SMR for the UK. Rolls-Royce has offered its PWR in the form of a 16 reactor fleet built one at a time on individual sites throughout the UK. It has not, so far, presented a potential customer with a proposal for a group of three-or-four of them. Its size puts its well beyond the 300 MW limit for SMRs set by the IAEA. (Rolls-Royce web page with a technical briefing on its 470 MW PWR)

Comparing the two PWR type reactors head-to-head yields some interesting observations. Four of the AP300s would generate 1,200 MW. Two of the Rolls-Royce 470 MW PWRs would generate 940 MW, and three of them would exceed CNP’s requirements with a total of 1,410 MW.

At $4,000/Kw the Westinghouse project would cost $4.8 billion. However, by the time the project breaks ground, 2028 at the earliest, and completes all four of the reactors, around 2032-2034, costs will undoubtedly be higher. Assuming a hypothetical completion price of $6,000/Kw, the four SMRs would cost as much as $7.2 billion. Depending on economies of scale achieved building multiple units at the same site, total costs for the quartet could be lower.

While Rolls-Royce is part way through the ONR GDA process, if it breaks ground for a first of a kind unit in two-to-three years, e.g., 2026/2027, completion of a first-of-a-kind (FOAK) unit might take place in 2031. At $4,000/Kw, one unit would cost $1.9 billion. At  $6,000/Kw, the cost of one 470 MW PWR would be $2.8 billion. A twin set would cost $5.6 billion. FOAK units always have higher costs than “Nth” of a kind. Much depends on what kinds of economies of scale Rolls-Royce can achieve with a “fleet” approach supported by the UK government. As a cost conscious entity, it has have a direct interest in building a fleet of SMRs, lined up for coordinated new builds, rather than inking one deal after another in a irregular daisy chain of commitments.

Westinghouse should be able to produce cost savings after completion of the first SMR by moving skilled trades crews from one SMR under construction to the next, as there will be economies of scale building four SMRs instead of one.

CPN noted on its website that by choosing Westinghouse its SMR project will have access to a US supply chain in addition to using UK suppliers like Sheffield Forgemasters which recently completed its process of applying for NQA-1 and related certifications.

Similar challenges await Rolls-Royce regardless of whether the firm builds its PWRs one-at-time at 16 different sites or in “fleet” mode of several units at one site. Rolls-Royce, despite having manufactured specialty SMRs to meet the defense needs of the UK Royal Navy for decades, will also face similar cost escalation challenges for its SMR, supply chain challenges, and competition for skilled workers.

Two Very Large UK Reactor Projects Are Soaking Up Resources and People

Given the rapidly escalating costs in the UK for the Hinkley C and Sizewell C reactors, caused by supply chain issues and availability of a skilled labor force, cost escalation for SMRs in the UK, regardless of vendor, is to be expected.

World Nuclear News reported last week The UK’s Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant, which was expected to be completed in 2027 and cost up to GBP26 billion, is now unlikely to be operational before 2030, with the overall cost revised to between GBP31 to GBP34 billion (in 2015 prices).

The two EDF projects are each building twin 1600 MW EPRs. As EDF, which is the vendor and the EPC for both projects, it is drawing big buckets from the well of skilled trades in the UK.

Within the UK government there are concerns whether the nation’s objective for 24 GB of new nuclear generation capacity can be achieved given the stretched cohorts of skilled trades and the need to ramp up supply chains.

Actual cost escalation for all nuclear reactor projects in the UK will occur at a rate that depends on whether there will be more skilled workers trained and if key suppliers can get investors to support ramping up production to meet the needs of new reactor projects.

The Choices that Face CNP for SMRs

The numbers for Westinghouse and Rolls-Royce noted here are hypothetical for the purpose of drawing comparisons and creating an interesting alternative look at options for SMRs. For these scenarios, while Westinghouse has scored a marketing first with the agreement with CNP, that utility might be able to get nuclear power for 940 MW several years earlier, and at a lower cost, from two Rolls-Royce 470 MW PWRs than four Westinghouse AP300s.

Many other factors will weigh in on such as comparison including timely completion of the GDA, the mix of government and investor financing that is available, the speed at which suppliers can deliver key components and systems, and the availability of skilled trades to build the plants.

If the UK government wants to have its cake, and eat it too, e.g., support Rolls-Royce as the hometown team, and avoid cost escalation for private investor driven project like CNP’s deal with Westinghouse, it will need to invest in expanding the cadres of skilled workers – steel, concrete, electrical, mechanical, etc., – and develop low cost financing for the UK firms that are needed to supply components and systems to these kinds of SMR projects.

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Westinghouse Eliminated from Czech Nuclear Project

Earlier this month the Czech Government’s State owned nuclear utility CEZ eliminated Westinghouse from a competition to build four 1200 MW PWRs, two at Dukovany and two at Temelin. The original tender was for one 1200 MW unit at Dukovany, but the utility made an abrupt update to the tender changing it to four units.

The reason Westinghouse was cut, CEZ said, is that the firm declined to submit a “binding bid.” In other words, what CEZ wants is a repeat of the performance of South Korean firms in the UAE which delivered four 1400 MW PWRs more or less on time and within budget. It is looking for a firm, fixed price.

CEZ said in statements to the news media that it “wanted all four units to be subject to binding offers to mitigate risks of price escalation and provide the highest degree of certainty on costs.”

“Our goal is to get a turnkey delivery with clear guarantees, with a clear price, with clear deadlines, with clear sanctions if those deadlines are not met, and with other clear parameters.”

Prime Minister Fiala said, “During the tender, the non-binding offers showed that the construction of several blocks, i.e,  up to four blocks in one package, even if it were to be carried out gradually, is economically significantly more advantageous than the construction of only one block, it is also significantly more advantageous than we expected, by up to 25% compared with the construction of only one block.”

The two entities that remain are France’s EDF and South Korea’s KHNP. Both are state owner or partially state funded firms which have the backing of the deep pockets of their respective governments.

Westinghouse, which is jointly owned by two Canadian firm – Brookfield, a private equity firm, and Cameco, a uranium miner, have neither the capital nor the willingness to assume debt for an open end commitment to build four AP1000s without US government export financing.

At $4,000/Kw, four AP1000s would cost $18.4 billion. That’s almost the entire market capitalization of Cameco ($19.4 billion)  Brookfield’s ownership of Westinghouse lives in the Brookfield Renewable Partners business unit which has a market capitalization of $15.8 billion.  Absent US export financing, the Czech project would a a “bet the company” risk that neither firm would take on as prudent investors. This explains why Westinghouse did not submit a “binding” bid to CEZ.

EDF and KHNP have until April 15th to submit best and final binding offers. CEZ says it will make a decision on contract award in June.

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Five Companies Shortlisted to Build Bulgaria’s Kozloduy-7 AP1000 Nuclear Plant

(NucNet) Five undisclosed companies have expressed interest in building the proposed Kozloduy-7 AP1000 nuclear plant after a construction tender for the new unit was closed for applicants last week, according to a Bulgarian energy ministry statement.

Applicants were required to demonstrate experience of construction and commissioning of a minimum of two nuclear units, and similarly a proven track record of contracts for detailed design in nuclear or turbine islands. They also needed to have supplied and installed equipment for such islands within the last fifteen years.

A financial prerequisite for the companies was that they needed to demonstrate that their turnover and profit amounted to a minimum of €5.6B ($6B) in the five-year period between 2018 and 2022.

According to the prequalification criteria listed in the Kozloduy NPP-Newbuild tender invitation, “candidates from the Russian Federation will not be considered and shortlisted.”

Rumen Radev, the Bulgarian prime minister, said in a statement the invitation for expressions of interest is specifically related to the construction of Kozloduy-7, as the first priority in new nuclear construction in the country.

The overall objective and result of the current assignment is to have an AP1000 plant [reactor] procured, constructed, commissioned and operational before 2035. The 2035 deadline for the new unit, Kozloduy-7, represents a revision to a previous government target for completion of the first new unit at Kozloduy in 2033.

In December 2023, the Bulgarian parliament approved a government proposal to inject up to €766M into the state-owned Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant corporation to fund the planned construction of the first of two proposed reactors using Westinghouse’s AP1000 reactor technology.

According to deputy energy minister Nikolay Nikolov said in a statement to the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency, the two new AP1000 units will cost €6B each, or about $5,455/Kw, with the Bulgarian state being the sole investor in the project. Nikolov also said that the main construction company will be a choice between Bechtel Corporation, Fluor and Hyundai.

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Korean Shipbuilder Joins Maritime SMR Project

(WNN) South Korea’s HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering (KSOE) plans to develop a small modular reactor (SMR) for use in shipping in cooperation with the UK’s Core Power and the USA’s Southern Company and TerraPower.

The plans were announced following a joint research and technology exchange meeting in Washington, DC, between KSOE – a subsidiary of South Korea’s HD Hyundai – and TerraPower and Core Power. In November 2022, KSOE invested $30 million in TerraPower. (MCFR conceptual image right. Image: TerraPower)

The reactor to be jointly developed centers around TerraPower’s Molten Chloride Fast Reactor (MCFR) design. The technology uses molten chloride salt as both reactor coolant and fuel, allowing for so-called fast spectrum operation which the company says makes the fission reaction more efficient.

It operates at higher temperatures than conventional reactors, generating electricity more efficiently, and also offers potential for process heat applications and thermal storage. An iteration of the MCFR – known as the m-MSR – intended for marine use is being developed by TerraPower. The firm will test a prototype of the MCFR at the Idaho National Laboratory.

KSOE plans to send an R&D team to TerraPower in March to continue cooperation with all the joint research companies from various fields including marine nuclear power plants and new nuclear applications. In addition, KSOE plans to join the establishment of a system for the application of marine reactors with the International Atomic Energy Agency and classification societies ABS and Lloyd’s Register.

Core Power President and CEO Mikal Bøe welcomed KSOE’s involvement in the project, saying, “Adding their world-class expertise in shipbuilding and process engineering and Core Power’s 60+ shareholders from the maritime and energy industries illustrates how a broader understanding that there is no net-zero without nuclear, is now being established.”

In January this year, a memorandum of understanding was signed between Lloyd’s Register, Zodiac Maritime, KSOE and Kepco Engineering & Construction for the development of nuclear-propelled ship designs, including bulk carriers and container ships. Under the joint development project, KSOE and Kepco E&C will provide designs for future vessels and reactors while Lloyd’s Register will assess rule requirements for safe operation and regulatory compliance models.

The partners will work to address the challenges involved with nuclear propulsion, such as applying existing terrestrial nuclear technology to ships, and the project will enable shipping company Zodiac to evaluate ship specifications and voyage considerations around nuclear technology.

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Fuel Fabrication Starts for MARVEL Microreactor

TRIGA International recently started fabricating fuel for the U.S. Department of Energy’s MARVEL microreactor project. MARVEL will be one of the first new reactors built at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) in more than four decades and will be used to advance new reactor technologies. The first shipment of fuel is expected to be delivered in spring 2025.  (Triga fuel briefing)

“Securing the fuel for the MARVEL microreactor project addresses a primary technical challenge,” said Dr. John Jackson, the national technical director for DOE’s microreactor program.

“The initiation of fuel fabrication represents another tangible step toward making this exciting test platform a reality.”

TRIGA International is a joint venture between Framatome and General Atomics and is the only TRIGA fuel supplier in the world. The company was awarded an approximately $8.4 million contract in November 2023 to produce 37 TRIGA fuel elements for the MARVEL project and started the fabrication process at its facility in Romans, France last month.

The fuel created for MARVEL is similar to the TRIGA fuel used in university reactors for research and hands-on training. It was selected for its high safety performance and certified use in the United States.

The Marvel design is a sodium-potassium-cooled microreactor that will generate 85 kilowatts of thermal energy. It will be built inside the Treat facility with plans to connect it to a microgrid. DOE officials said the test facility is expected to be online in 2027.

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A New Consortium For Deploying Lead-Cooled SMRs

(EuroNuclear) Five companies leading research and innovation in heavy liquid metal technology have joined forces to boost the implementation and the industrial deployment of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) using Lead Fast Reactor Technology.

Ansaldo Nucleare, SCK CEN, Westinghouse (ENS Corporate Members), ENEA and RATEN-ICN signed a Memorandum of Understanding outlining the next demonstration steps.

First, a small-size reactor to demonstrate the technological and engineering aspects of the commercial SMR-LFR will be developed at SCK CEN facilities in Mol, Belgium.

Separately, the consortium will continue to develop and build the ALFRED (Advanced Lead-cooled Fast Reactor European Demonstrator) project in Pitesti, Romania, aimed at developing a Generation IV Lead-cooled Fast Neutron Reactor (LFR) demonstrator, led by Ansaldo Nucleare, ENEA, RATEN-ICN and other European organizations within the FALCON Consortium.

Finally, the Lead-cooled Fast Reactor design will be developed by Westinghouse and will be the starting point for this project ultimately targeting its global commercialization.

Lead-cooled fast reactors have passive safety features and a more efficient nuclear fuel use than other reactors, reducing then the amount of long-lived radioactive waste, the consortium said.

Last year, Ansaldo Nucleare and Westinghouse signed a cooperation agreement to develop LFR technology, and a new milestone was achieved in May 2023, with the completion of the first testing campaign at the Passive Heat Removal Facility in the UK. The testing campaign advances within Phase 2 of the Advanced Modular Reactor (AMR) program partially funded by the UK Government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

Ansaldo is also building the ATHENA (Advanced Thermo-Hydraulics Experiment for Nuclear Application) facility at the RATEN-ICN research centre, which will host scale components for testing and demonstration of LFR technology.

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NASA Contracts for Lunar Reactor Development

• Final design to be chosen in 2025

(NucNet) NASA said it is extending contracts under Phase 1 of an ambitious project to develop a small, power-generating nuclear fission reactor that could potentially be deployed as a demonstrator on the Moon. According to NASA, fission systems, which are relatively small and lightweight compared to other power systems, could enable continuous power regardless of location, available sunlight, and other environmental conditions.

Under its Fission Surface Power Project, NASA awarded in 2022 three $5M (€4.65M) contracts tasking partners with developing an initial design that included a reactor with an output of up to 40 Kw and weight of maximum six tonnes, its power conversion, heat rejection, power management and distribution systems.

The contracts also included cost estimations, and a development schedule that could pave the way for powering a sustained human presence on the Moon for at least 10 years. NASA said at the time that the projects also had to show envisioned how the reactor would be remotely powered on and controlled, including a decade of operation without human intervention. The agency said the projects identified potential faults and considered different types of fuels and configurations.

NASA said it decided to extend the three Phase 1 contracts in order to collect more information before the start of Phase 2 of its project when industry will be contracted to design the final reactor to demonstrate on the Moon. This additional knowledge will help the agency set the Phase 2 requirements, said Lindsay Kaldon, Fission Surface Power project manager at the NASA Glenn research center in Cleveland. OH. (NASA Briefing on Fission Surface Power)

“We’re getting a lot of information from the three partners,” Kaldon said.

“We’ll have to take some time to process it all and see what makes sense going into Phase 2 and levy the best out of Phase 1 to set requirements to design a lower-risk system moving forward.”

NASA has scheduled the start of Phase 2 of its Fission Surface Power Project for 2025, with an actual deployment for the demonstrator earmarked for the early 2030s. According to the agency, the reactor will complete a one-year demonstration followed by nine operational years and if successful, the design may be updated for potential use on Mars.

The three companies which received Phase 1 contracts in 2022 were: Westinghouse Electric Company; Lockheed Martin; and a joint venture of Intuitive Machines and X-Energy.

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