First private British nuclear power plant

The first fully privately-fund nuclear power plant is in development in the U.K., with the goal of providing power to up to two million homes. The project is being developed by a group called Community Nuclear Power, which has already selected and secured a site.

The plan is to deploy four Westinghouse AP300 small modular reactors on a site on the north bank of the River Tees, in Teesside, U.K. The local authorities are backing the company's plan to locate the new plant on a site was previously home to a chemical plant and adjacent to the renowned Saltholme bird reserve. The new facility may be welcomed, in fact, as a way to help clean up both the air and the water in the area, since nuclear power emits no toxic chemical or carbon dioxide emissions.

Community Nuclear Power evaluated options from a number of SMR developers, most likely including Rolls-Royce and EDF, which is developing an SMR based largely on reactors already being built and used for nuclear-powered submarines. The company, however, is reported as having inked a deal with Westinghouse, although the formal announcement has to be made.

According to a company representative, the plan will be fully privately financed and will not be seeking government or taxpayer support. Nevertheless, it is a step along the path that was recently set out by the U.K. government's recently issued Civil Nuclear Roadmap, originally championed by former prime minister, Boris Johnson, which references SMRs and their advantages for expediting deployment because they are smaller and can be made in factories and shipped in modules to the construction site, making construction faster and less expensive.

According to Jonathan Leake, writing in The Telegraph (and reposted by Yahoo Finance), there is a definite chance that the Community Nuclear Power project, if successful, could be in operation ahead of both Hinkley Point C, already in construction in Somerset but delayed, and Sizewell C, already being planned for the Suffolk coast and putting 1.5 Gigawatts of power onto the grid by the early 2030s. It would likely benefit from the government's commitment to accelerate the deployment process towards achieving a quadrupling of U.K. nuclear power.

This is an exciting development for those working to commercialize SMRs and will most certainly be a boost to others looking to accelerate the deployment of clean energy around the world with privately financed SMR projects.

Read more at Yahoo Finace "First ‘private’ nuclear reactor to power 2m British homes," by Jonathan Leake, February 7, 2024.

Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear, Advanced Nuclear Customers, Capital reallocation, Construction costs, Future of Energy, Great British Nuclear, History Timeline, History-making, International support for nuclear, Investor activity, LINKS, Nuclear competitiveness, Nuclear financing, Private companies, Solving climate, UK Climate Policy, Zero emission energy

February 11, 2023

Nuclear wins inclusion as “green” source for hydrogen

French energy minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher

France appears to wins another round against Germany in the fight to have nuclear included as a clean energy source within EU Commission rules. The EU has agreed that nuclear energy powered hydrogen will be classified as "green," so long as the carbon-intensity of the country's electricity is below 65 grammes of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour.

Early reporting on the EU Commission's decision regarding classification of hydrogen as "green" indicates that, once again, the EU will be recognizing low-carbon nuclear power as "green."

For more than a year, the EU has been assessing and evaluating the best way to ensure that hydrogen producers can't easily claim "green" production by using existing renewable energy, in a form of greenwashing, that simply takes credit fo renewable power that was being used elsewhere. This has forced the EU to look closely at both "additionality" and "carbon intensity."

The new rules, a draft version of which leaked out but which have not been formally published, seek to ensure that that green hydrogen is made only from “additional” renewable power, by forcing the producer to correlate its production in time and space to prevent cannibalisation of existing sources of clean energy. The Commission has finally arrived at a decision and set out two important additionality criteria:

By 2030, hydrogen production must be matched to renewable energy production on an hourly basis. Until then, the correlation is set on a monthly basis.
By 2028, hydrogen producers must prove that their electrolysers are connected to renewable energy installations no older than 36 months.

This decision enables investments in new hydrogen production to move forward with a clear understanding of how that production can benefit from the benefits available to clean energy until 90% of electricity production in a given country is produced from low-carbon sources.

While Germany has sought to exclude nuclear energy as a clean power source, France has been lobbying Brussels on the opposite side, arguing that hydrogen produced by nuclear power is also be considered "green." It appears that France has won its case in the draft rules.

In recognition of nuclear's low-carbon production, the EU has agreed that hydrogen produced in a country like France with the intensity of electricity is lower than 18 gCO2eq/MJs (or approximately 65 grammes of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour), then the hydrogen can qualify as green.

Among all 27 EU countries, only France and Sweden meet this criteria. In 2021, when its nuclear fleet was almost fully operational, French power was 70% of its energy, 85% low-carbon and emissions stood at 56g CO2e per kWh. Sweden, for its part, powered predominantly with hydropower, stands at an average of 28gCO2e/Kwh.

Not only is this EU rule a win for pronuclear countries, it is laying an important precedent in setting out a base level of carbon-intensity that recognizes that what matters is the carbon-intensity of the total grid, not the amount of renewable energy. We believe this will be of increasing importance over time.

Read more at EURACTIV LEAK: France wins recognition for nuclear in EU's green hydrogen rules, by Nikolaus J. Kurmayer, Feb. 11, 2023.

May 3, 2022

Kirsty Gogan

Kirsty Gogan is the founder and managing partner of LucidCatalyst and TerraPraxis, and is an internationally sought-after advisor to governments, industry, academic networks and NGOs. Kirsty is an expert who has traveled the world in support of clients, doing research and serving as a speaker on topics as diverse as nuclear energy, science communication, climate change, competitiveness and innovation at conferences and events around the world. Together with some partners, Kirsty recently co-founded Synergetic, a new technology-enabled project developer that is working to deliver large, highly standardized projects, to produce cost-competitive, clean, synthetic fuels at the scale required by a nation to replace fossil fuel use through world-class, high-volume manufacturing supply chain and 100% clean power.

Kirst has more than 15 years’ experience serving as a senior advisor to Government on climate and energy policy, including 10 Downing St, and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Kirsty is also a managing partner of LucidCatalyst, a highly specialized international consultancy focused on large-scale, affordable, market-based decarbonization of the global economy. LucidCatalyst was recently commissioned to produce the widely cited Energy Technologies Institute Nuclear Cost Drivers Study, and by ARPA-E to conduct a study on Cost and Performance Requirements for Flexible Advanced Nuclear Plants in Future U.S. Power Markets.
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Kirsty chairs the UK Government’s Nuclear Innovation Research and Advisory Board (NIRAB) Cost Reduction Working Group. In 2019, NIRAB recommended investment of $1.3 billion between 2021 and 2025 to boost the progress of innovation, leading to a package of measures designed to support UK net zero goals in 2020.
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Kirsty’s voluntary work includes having co-founded Energy for Humanity (EFH). She serves on the Board of Nuclear Innovation Alliance, as well as Voices for Nuclear. The US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has appointed her to serve on a new committee to identify opportunities and barriers to the commercialization of new and advanced nuclear energy technologies over the next 30 years.
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Publications Kirsty has recently contributed to include: Advancing Nuclear Innovation: Responding to Climate Change and Strengthening Global Security (2019) as a Board member of the Global Nexus Initiative. She is a regular contributor to climate-related efforts at the IAEA, OECD-NEA and the Clean Energy Ministerial (NICE Future Initiative). She has peer-reviewed and provided expert input to the International Energy Agency Nuclear Power in a Clean Energy System (2019) and IEA Energy Technology Perspectives (2020) as well as CleanTech Group’s investor report on advanced reactors in the clean energy transition (2020) and the Royal Society report on Nuclear Cogeneration: civil nuclear energy in a low carbon future (2020).

Watch Bloomberg New Energy Finance founder, Michael Liebreich interview Kirsty at Cleaning Up – Leadership in an age of climate change.

Source:

Slate: Women have been disappearing from science for as long as they've been allowed to study science,by Karmela Padavic-Callaghan and Hossein Taheri, May, 2, 2022

Published by editor in Advanced Nuclear, Carbon emissions, Climate change, Construction costs, Future of Energy, Government support, International support for nuclear, Nuclear competitiveness, Nuclear innovation, Private companies, UK Climate Policy, Women in Nuclear, WOMEN IN NUCLEAR GRID, Zero emission energy

November 17, 2020

Boris Johnson’s green plan puts advanced nuclear in top three

Boris Johnson, the UK Prime Minister, penned an oped in the Financial Times calling for a 12 billion-pount, 10-point plan to effect Britain's green recovery. Johnson wants to create 250,000 new jobs and turn the UK into the world's number one centre for green technology and finance. It is worth quoting the first three points of his plan verbatim.

"One — we will make the UK the Saudi Arabia of wind with enough offshore capacity to power every home by 2030. Two — we will turn water into energy with up to 500 million pounds of investment in hydrogen. Three — we will take forward our plans for new nuclear power, from large scale to small and advanced modular reactors."

Britain, which hosts the COP26 global climate change summit in Scotland in 2021 and has committed to a net zero carbon economy by 2050, seeks to use its commitment to tackling climate change to help build a strong partnership with U.S. President-elect Joe Biden. Johnson even uses the phrase "build back better," to show that he's in synch with Biden, who has used those words for his transition plannning site.

According to Fortune, the most radical policy is the phasing out diesel and gas car sales by 2030, 10 years earlier than previously scheduled, and head of France and Spain, which have 2040 target dates. Interestingly, the Greenpeace U.K. head of politics, Rebecca Newsom, welcomed the "landmark announcement" signalling the end for polluting cars and vans, as "a historic turning point" in addressing climate change. "Although there are some significant question marks and gaps, overall this is a big step forard for tackling the climate emergency," Newsom said.

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