Rolls-Royce takes a step towards SMR – Watt?

not many people know

Paul Homewood

h/t Philip Bratby

Rolls-Royce clears a key hurdle in race to build British car first small nuclear power plantAs competition intensifies across Europe.

The FTSE 100 engineering giant on Tuesday became the first developer to advance a small modular reactor (SMR) design to the final stage of review by UK regulators.

Helena Perry, Director of Safety and Regulatory Affairs at Rolls-Royce SMR, said the latest approval was “the most important milestone to date in advancing the deployment of Rolls-Royce SMR in the UK”.

She added: “We have built incredible momentum and the team will move directly into step three of a rigorous independent review of our technology – enabling us to deliver low carbon nuclear power and support the UK’s transition to net zero.”

The Derby-based company wants to build a new generation of low-cost power plants made from modular parts, produced in factories and then assembled on site.

Each SMR will generate 470MW of electricity and will initially cost between £2bn and £3bn. Rolls-Royce aims to gradually reduce this number through economies of scale.

The UK Office of Nuclear Regulator (ONR) said Rolls has now been approved to enter the third and final stage of the UK's Common Design Assessment.

that process is Expected to be completed by the end of 2026Rolls will then be able to apply for site-specific approval to build its first SMR.

A summary assessment report released by ONR on Tuesday said regulators “did not identify any fundamental safety, security or safeguard deficiencies that would prevent approval of a power plant based on GM's Rolls-Royce SMR design.”

.

Philip Bratby wrote earlier this year about the painfully slow progress of SMR:

UK progress on small modular reactors has been inevitably slow. In 2014, the British government published a report on the concept, feasibility and potential of SMR in the UK. In 2015, the government announced that it would invest at least £250 million over five years in nuclear research and development, including small and medium-sized reactors. In 2016, the UK government called for expressions of interest to identify the SMRs of greatest value to the UK. In 2017, the government announced that the SMR competition had ended and launched a new two-stage Advanced Modular Reactor competition aimed at incorporating a wider range of reactor types. It was announced in 2018 that eight organizations had been awarded contracts to conduct feasibility studies. In 2020, the government allocated £10 million to two SMR developers. In 2021, the government announced that it would establish the Future Nuclear Support Fund (FNEF), providing £120 million in funding “to help mature nuclear programs ahead of the government's selection process.”

In 2021, the government also announced that it will spend 210 million pounds on the development of Rolls-Royce SMR. The Rolls-Royce SMR is a pressurized water reactor designed for hydrogen and synthetic fuel manufacturing and power generation. The Rolls-Royce SMR consortium, which consists of a number of major British engineering companies, aims to build 16 reactors, each with a capacity of 470 MWe. In 2022, Rolls-Royce announced that it had identified priority sites for the construction of four SMR-based power stations in the UK, all located on former nuclear power station sites currently owned by the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).

In July 2023, the government launched the British Nuclear Program (GBN) to manage the competition to build small and medium-sized reactors and then co-fund any viable projects. It is designed to deliver the Government's long-term nuclear plan and support the Government's ambition to deliver up to 24GW of nuclear power in the UK by 2050. interest of. This process aims to identify SMR projects that the government will co-finance. The date for the decision kept getting pushed back. GBN has currently postponed the decision on where the first SMRs will be sited until after the next general election. Therefore, in 10 years, it is possible that the UK will start building the first SMR!

.

Of course, the successful development of small and medium-sized reactors will soon make wind and solar energy redundant. Why copy capacity?

One might almost think that the Green Group has been deliberately blocking the development of nuclear power.

related