Arjun Makhijani: Building small modular reactors senseless
Arjun Makhijani: Building small modular reactors senseless
The highly touted nuclear renaissance is ending with a whimper.
...Now the Tennessee Valley Authority is looking to Small Modular Reactors...The rationale for this venture was set forth at a recent University of Tennessee colloquium by Dan Stout, TVAs senior manager for SMRs. He claimed mass-manufacturing techniques, the economics of replication in building multiple SMRs, would replace the economies of scale gained from large reactors.
Stout said the contracting challenge is that B&W cant afford to build a factory for SMRs based on one order. The first unit for TVA most likely would be cobbled together at existing facilities, not on an assembly line dedicated to SMRs. But if B&W could get 100 orders for SMRs from countries such as China and India, he said, the company would be able to get financing to build a new factory with a dedicated assembly line.
...It also stretches credulity that China and India, the main centers of nuclear power construction today, along with Russia, would place orders for 100 reactors. Why would China, with 28 large reactors under construction and an established supply chain, not license the design and set up an assembly line in Shanghai or Chengdu? So a possible, even likely, outcome, in the event of technical success, is that the federal government subsidy to B&W and TVA would pave the way for an assembly line in China.
And what happens if a common design or manufacturing problem is discovered...
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2013/mar/09/arjun-makhijani-building-small-modular-reactors/