Westinghouse leading trend for smaller reactors

- The nuclear power industry that reawakened only a couple years ago is getting a booster shot these days from much-smaller reactors that would be far more affordable.

Once again, Westinghouse Electric Co. is at the core of the trend. It's designing a small nuclear reactor the size of a bus that can be built in a factory and shipped to a power plant. It would generate up to one-quarter the power of current nuclear reactors, but cost about one-tenth as much.

Small modular reactors, as they're called, are being designed by several companies that could be installed as early as 2018, say experts. Being modular, they could gradually replace fossil-fuel power plants whose owners must cut emissions.

The simpler and smaller reactors — from 10 megawatts to 300 vs. today's 1,000 megawatts or more — would be ideal for markets here and abroad with limited power demand, power grids and money. One megawatt can power 800 homes.

"There may be hundreds, if not thousands, of these by the end of the century," said Paul Genoa, director of policy development at the Nuclear Energy Institute. "It should be cookie-cutter, once it gets going,"

Nuclear power only recently re-emerged from the cloud of the Three Mile Island radiation leak along the Susquehanna River in 1979. The big break occurred when Westinghouse won a $5.3 billion contract with China in 2007 to build four AP1000 reactors. The first two, which generate 1,100 megawatts apiece, are expected to go on line in 2013.

Westinghouse, which built the nation's first nuclear power plant in 1957 in Shippingport, landed contracts in 2008 and 2009 to build six AP1000 reactors at plants in Georgia, South Carolina and Florida.

"The small modular reactor will give us more options in our portfolio to offer clients," said Michael Anness, manager of advanced reactors for Westinghouse, which employs about 2,000 in Cranberry. "This could wind up being called 'the AP300.'"

A "small modular reactor" is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency as one producing up to 300 megawatts of electricity. A medium reactor generates between 300 and 700 megawatts, and a large one exceeds 700.

Westinghouse began working on such reactors in 1999, when the Department of Energy started funding small-nuclear programs to serve smaller markets. The company sought to shrink and streamline a reactor, and contain pumps, steam generators and other moving parts inside the reactor vessel.

"Simpler in a nuclear reactor is significant," said Anness. "It's easier to operate and presents far fewer possibilities of anything going wrong."

Westinghouse's design is a pressurized water reactor that would generate less than 300 megawatts of electricity and require uranium refueling about every three years. The containment vessel would be about 20 feet in diameter and stand less than 60 feet tall. The steam generator inside is "about the size of a human being," said Anness.

Small modular reactors have grabbed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's attention, too. The commission featured eight presentations on the technology at its annual conference in Bethesda, Maryland.

"The thrust has been isolated markets and places that don't have a developed power grid. They may need reliable power but can't support a big light-water reactor or the overall costs," said NRC spokesman Scott Burnell.

Such as Galena, Alaska. Inaccessible by road and located in the middle of the state, the town of about 700 relies solely on fuel oil for heat. About five years ago, town leaders agreed to locate a 10-megawatt nuclear power plant there from Toshiba Corp., Westinghouse's parent.

Toshiba expects to apply for design certification next fall, said the NRC. Westinghouse expects to apply for its design certification in late 2012.

Babcock & Wilcox Modular Nuclear Energy CEO Christofer Mowry calls its small reactor design "a potential game-changer for global clean energy market" that has attracted "substantial customer involvement."

For the next decade, however, big nukes are still the only game in town. The NRC is reviewing applications to construct and operate large plants in 14 states, mostly in the Southeast. They include six locations with Westinghouse AP1000 reactors, which produce 1,100 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 1.1 million households.

Other pending licenses entail reactors producing up to 1,670 megawatts, sufficient to power 1.5 million households, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. The average nuclear reactor in the United States generates about 1,000 megawatts.

Nuclear reactors take about a decade to get federal permits and construct, said the institute. The process for a large, conventional plant costs between $10 billion and $14 billion per reactor.

"Those are very large projects. It probably takes about 30 years to recover those kinds of costs," said the institute's Genoa.

It's too early to cost out a small modular reactor, but Genoa estimates they will run about "one-tenth" as much as large plants. "The main financial advantage is you're biting off a much smaller project," he said.

Skeptics warn a proliferation of nuclear reactors could provide targets for terrorists or succumb to earthquakes. Greenpeace nuclear policy analyst Jim Riccio is especially critical of the pebble-bed design.

"These designs lack a last line of defense," said Riccio. "In a post-9/11 world, it's patently absurd to have a nuclear-power design that could be turned into a bomb."

Anness says the Westinghouse design will be fortified with a "robust containment shield" and more. It would be placed below ground and fitted with "seismic isolators." Used on buildings in earthquake-prone regions, they are rubber pads that dampen a quake's shock waves.

Small modular reactors "have a long ways to go," said Jim Hempstead, an electric utilities analyst at Moody's Investors Service, but they deserve a close look.

"The ability to site a small piece of power where you need it most is something all of the nuclear industry should be working on," he said.