Technical Meeting to Examine the Techno-Economics of and

Opportunities for Non-Electric Applications of Small and Medium

Sized or Modular Reactors

22 – 24 May, 2017 VIC

Tatjana Jevremovic, NPTDS

OUTLINE

NPTDS WCR Team Activities

Nuclear Power: Status and

Prospective

Near/Long-Term Challenges and

Trends

OUTLINE

NPTDS WCR Team Activities

Nuclear Power: Status and

Prospective

Near/Long-Term Challenges and

Trends

• Fosters sustainable nuclear energy

development by supporting existing and new

nuclear programmes around the world

• Provides technical support on the nuclear fuel

cycle and the life cycle of nuclear facilities, and

builds indigenous capability in energy planning,

analysis, and nuclear information and knowledge

management

S

M

R

Fast Reactors

WCR

GCR

NEApp

Technology Development for Advanced Reactor Lines

NPTDS Sub-Programme Structure

MSR

WCR Technology Development Team Core Business

HWRs

SCWRs

Severe Accidents

RTA

E & T

Simulators

LWRs

Assist MSs with national nuclear

programmes;

Support innovations in nuclear power

deployment;

Facilitate and assist international

R&D collaborations.

Information Exchange

Modelling and

Simulations

Safety

Development of

Methodologies

Technology Support

Education and

Training

Knowledge

Preservation

OUTLINE

NPTDS WCR Team Activities

Nuclear Power: Status and

Prospective

Near/Long-Term Challenges and

Trends

NPP Status in the World: 449 in Operation

https://www.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/OperationalReactorsByType.aspx

NPP Status in the World: 60 Under Construction

Under Construction Reactors

https://www.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/OperationalReactorsByType.aspx

NPP Status in the World: 160 Shutdown

Permanent Shutdown

https://www.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/OperationalReactorsByType.aspx

NPP Status in the World: New Connections to Grid

https://www.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/OperationalReactorsByType.aspx

ARIS Data Base https://aris.iaea.org/

OUTLINE

NPTDS WCR Team Activities

Nuclear Power: Status and

Prospective

Near/Long-Term Challenges and

Trends

WCR Activities in 2017

• Coordinated Research Projects (CRPs) – 3 ongoing and 2 new 1. Computational Fluid Dynamics Codes for Design (2012-2018)

2. Prediction of Axial and Radial Creep in Pressure Tubes (2013-2017)

3. Thermal Hydraulics of SCWRs (2014-2018)

4. Probabilistic Safety Analysis [Benchmark] for Multi-unit, Multi-type NPP Sites (2017-2020)

5. Methodology for Developing Pipe Failure Rates for Advanced Water-cooled Reactors (2017-2020)

• International Collaborative Standard Problems (ICSPs) 1. Numerical Benchmark Database for PHWR Transients (2016-2019)

• Technical Meetings on New Concepts in Innovative Water Cooled Reactor Technology, 13 – 17 March

Developing a Systematic Education and Training Approach Using Personal Computer Based Simulators for Nuclear Power Programmes, 15 – 19 May

Workshop on Advances in Understanding the Progression of Severe Accidents in BWRs, 17 – 21 July

Status and Evaluation of Severe Accident Simulation Codes for Water Cooled Reactors, 9 – 12 October

• Consultancy Meetings Two meetings to develop proposals for two new CRPs: Presentation

Effective Utilization of THERPRO Data Base, 22 – 23 February

• Data Bases ARIS

THERPRO

• Training Courses on: Understanding Physics and Technology of WCRs through Simulators: 3 new courses

Reactor Technology Assessment (forthcoming Ghana)

Use of CFD in NPP Design, China

New Concepts in Innovative Water

Cooled Reactor Technology

13 – 17 March

19 participants from 16 Member States

Current & Near-term Mid-term

Drivers for Innovations?

Technical Meeting on New Concepts in Innovative Water

Cooled Reactor Technology, 13 – 17 March

1. Growth of Nuclear Power - Perspectives on Energy Demand

•Goal 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

•Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

Average annual population growth

2050: 9 and 10 billion,

compared to the 7.6 billion

today

Relation between energy use

of the countries per capita and

gross domestic product (GDP)

Many factors are contributing the increased demand for global energy use. Global population growth is a strong driver for increased global energy needs.

Drivers for innovations: • New reactor types

• Cogeneration

• …

Technical Meeting on New Concepts in Innovative Water

Cooled Reactor Technology, 13 – 17 March

1. Growth of Nuclear Power - Perspectives on Energy Demand

•Goal 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

•Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

Example about the interconnection

between atmospheric CO2 content

and global temperature change

during the historical time period

more than 100 years

Paris Convention on Climate Change set a goal

of limiting global warming to less than 2 °C

compared to pre-industrial levels.

The agreement calls for zero net anthropogenic

greenhouse gas emissions to be reached

during the second half of the 21st century. 2017: 392 GW(e)

15% total energy consumption Importance of

continuous

development of

NPP technology

highlighting

radically

innovative WCR

designs for

electric and non-

electric use

Technical Meeting on New Concepts in Innovative Water

Cooled Reactor Technology, 13 – 17 March

2. Non-Electrical Advanced Applications of WCRs

Non-electric applications for nuclear power:

• District heating

• Nuclear (CO2 free) desalination

• Process heat supply

• Ship propulsion

• Hydrogen production

• Coal gasification

• Other synthetic fuels

• Oil extraction

require high process

temperatures } limited market

Various markets and/or regulatory drivers What is needed to further nuclear desalination (150 reactor-years of experience):

Develop key attributes and a prototype or pilot programme plan for developing

licensing regulations and activities for coupling an approved nuclear plant design

(WCRs) with a desalination facility.

Perform an optimization of the steam cycle, system, and component design, for

prototype examples of the coupled facilities.

Develop a template for follow-on evaluations.

Perform a study to determine the range of desalination options and capacities to be

supported.

Identify options for alternative energy sources for the thermal portion of the

desalination facility when the nuclear facility is experiencing an outage.

700 reactor-years of experience

Technical Meeting on New Concepts in Innovative Water

Cooled Reactor Technology, 13 – 17 March

3. Drivers for WCR Design Innovations

Safety

Public Acceptance

Competitiveness

Simplicity

• Severe accidents and extreme external hazards

• Passive safety systems (only?)

• Small OR large reactor designs

• Robust and reliable cooling systems to remove residual

decay heat that can function for both DBA and BDBA

• Strengthen containment integrity by ensuring availability of

monitoring, cooling, and venting functions under severe

accident conditions

• Strengthen severe accident management guides (SAMGs)

• Robust capability to monitor key plant parameters

• Innovate fuel designs to improve safety of large and small

reactors (to reduce release of radioactive materials and

reduce spent fuel volumes)

• Boron free reactor designs

• Dramatic reduction of the EPZ (zero EPZ?!?)

• Resistance of large WCRs to extreme seismic events

• NPP underground (whole or partially; innovatively compact

designs; earthquake resistant designs?)

• Floating reactors (electricity, process heat, desalination)

• Renewables with innovative small & compact NPPs

• New construction methods / Licensing

Innovations: small – compact designs that

can replace retiring NPP and coal plants,

install in rural areas, flexible to adapt to non-

electric applications and integration with

renewables

Plug-in plug-out

New CRP on Probabilistic Safety Analysis (PSA)

for Multi-Unit, Multi-Reactor Sites

• At many nuclear sites world-wide, several NPPs,

either of the same or of different types, designs, or

age, are co-located on a single site.

• Regulations generally recognize the potential for

multiunit accidents, PSA of NPPs have mainly

focused on estimating the risk arising from damage

to a single NPP.

• Safety assessments based on deterministic and

probabilistic approaches in which the risk at a site with

multiple reactors can be represented by summing up

the risks of individual units.

• simplified approach with several limitations

ignores complex interactions during a severe

event impacting a multiunit site.

Fukushima accident lesson learned: Need to improve PSA

methodologies when applied to multi-unit, multi-reactor-

type nuclear sites.

Several methods are being explored around the world to extend

or “translate” per-unit PSA results to multi-unit site PSA results,

such as core damage and large release frequencies.

This CRP will bring together experts from LWR and PHWR MSs

to benchmark their practices, compare assumptions and

results and recommend improvements to the "Framework and

Process for Multi-unit Site PSA" (parallel NSNI Activity).

Example – Atucha, Argentina:

• 2 unique PHWRs operating

• 1 SMR under construction

• 1 CANDU planned

• 1 PWR possible

One NPP site with five

different reactor types

New CRP on METHODOLOGY FOR DEVELOPING PIPE

FAILURE RATES FOR

ADVANCED WATER-COOLED REACTORS

• Objectives: – Increase the knowledge and understanding of the methodology in MSs

on how to predict pipe failure rates for advanced WCRs that utilize the current state-of-knowledge regarding the five decades of extensive and well documented operating experience data on piping system components in WCRs

– Provide specific guidelines in consideration to the effect of new materials on piping reliability

– Develop common set of benchmarks

• 1st CM:

– February 27 – March 2, 2017

– 4 MSs and OECD participants developed a detailed proposal for

launching the CRP in 2018

Thank you!