Your Source for Energy Jobs & Industry News
As the world transitions toward renewable energy sources, geothermal power has emerged as one of the most promising, yet underutilized, options in the clean energy portfolio. Unlike solar and wind, […]
The post Modular Geothermal Power: Gradient’s Scalable Solution for Oil and Gas Sites appeared first on POWER Magazine.
The cost of building the nation’s first small modular reactor (SMR) is rapidly escalating due to the impact of as yet uncontrolled inflation in key commodity areas. According to a set of talking points prepared on January 3, 2023, by the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP) there are new details about these costs. The new cost numbers come in tandem with the completion..
Energy Central…
The post Small Modular Reactors Gain Momentum in Europe appeared first on POWER Magazine.
GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) and NuScale Power, two leading companies in the race to build small modular reactors (SMRs) for power generation, have recently announced deals that could result to new plants being constructed in Europe.
GEH on Oct. 3 said it had signed an agreement with Fermi Energia OÜ, an Estonia-based company established by nuclear industry professionals to support the development of SMRs. The two companies will collaborate on potential deployment applications for GEH’s BWRX-300 SMR design. GEH said the companies will examine the economic feasibility of constructing a BWRX-300 in Estonia, review siting requirements, and assess nuclear regulatory requirements.
The BWRX-300 is a 300-MWe water-cooled, natural circulation SMR with passive safety systems. According to GEH, the BWRX-300 leverages the design and licensing basis of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)-certified Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR), which is a 1,520-MWe Generation III+ unit (Figure 1).…
State-imposed standards and financial incentives such as those used to spur widespread adoption of renewables technologies offer a promising model to address challenges to commercialize small modular reactors (SMRs), says a report by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Nuclear Energy.
But to make a meaningful impact, nearly $ 10 billion in incentives will be needed to deploy 6 GW of SMR capacity by 2025, it acknowledges.
The report, “Examination of Federal Assistance in the Renewable Energy Market,” was prepared by Kutak Rock and Scully Capital under contract with the DOE and made public on November 15. It notes that while uncertainty attached to the rapidly evolving market environment is shadowing long-term investment decisions at electric utilities in the U.S, current trends in the power sector present an opportunity for SMR development “as a flexible, carbon-free baseload generation resource which can be built on a smaller scale than traditional nuclear plants.” However, efforts to commercialize SMR technologies have lagged owing to several challenges.…
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) wants to know whether small-scale, modular coal-fired power plants are feasible. The DOE this week put out a request for information on how to accomplish such projects, following on its announcement earlier this year that it wants to establish funding opportunities for new coal technologies in an effort to prop up the industry.
“The objective of this RFI [Request for Information] is to support DOE’s mission to lead research and technology development that promotes the advancement of coal-fired power plants that provide stable power generation with operational flexibility, high efficiency, and low emissions,” according to the DOE announcement made May 8. Among the details: a design that has a lower cost than traditional coal plants, capability to be load-following, and with an efficiency higher than 40%, well above the current average of 33% for a traditional coal plant. (The efficiency of a power plant is measured as the percentage of the total energy content of that plant’s fuel that is converted into electricity.)…
When it comes to nuclear power, the U.S. is not living up to its potential, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told appropriators during a July 20 full committee markup of the Senate’s fiscal year 2018 (FY18) Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill.
“When it comes to nuclear power, we’re just so far behind the times and I think now’s the time to catch up,” Graham said while presenting an amendment that would address language in the bill he believes to be problematic to the future development of small modular reactors.
According to Graham: “The current report language prohibits funds for engineering design or regulatory developing for next generation light water reactor technology. That language is being perceived by those in the small modular reactor world as basically an impediment to producing small modular reactors.”
Graham went to note that the U.S. has not successfully built a new nuclear reactor in decades, and those under development—the Virgil C. Summer Nuclear plant in Graham’s home state of South Carolina and Southern Co.’s…