Regeringens el-fiasko

The Darlington New Nuclear Project is the only site in Canada with an accepted environmental assessment and site preparation licence. OPG last year selected GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy's BWRX-300 SMR for the site, where it says Canada's first commercial, grid-scale, SMR could be completed as soon as 2028."

SMR har tydligen en del tidigare okända egenskaper som kommer att driva upp priset sett över hela livscykeln.

?Our results show that most small modular reactor designs will actually increase the volume of nuclear waste in need of management and disposal, by factors of 2 to 30 for the reactors in our case study,? said study lead author Lindsay Krall, a former MacArthur Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University?s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). ?These findings stand in sharp contrast to the cost and waste reduction benefits that advocates have claimed for advanced nuclear technologies.?'

'?Simple metrics, such as estimates of the mass of spent fuel, offer little insight into the resources that will be required to store, package, and dispose of the spent fuel and other radioactive waste,? said Krall, who is now a scientist at the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company. ?In fact, remarkably few studies have analyzed the management and disposal of nuclear waste streams from small modular reactors.?'

'The study also found that the spent nuclear fuel from small modular reactors will be discharged in greater volumes per unit energy extracted and can be far more complex than the spent fuel discharged from existing power plants.

?Some small modular reactor designs call for chemically exotic fuels and coolants that can produce difficult-to-manage wastes for disposal,? said co-author Allison Macfarlane, professor and director of the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia. ?Those exotic fuels and coolants may require costly chemical treatment prior to disposal.?

?The takeaway message for the industry and investors is that the back end of the fuel cycle may include hidden costs that must be addressed,? Macfarlane said. ?It?s in the best interest of the reactor designer and the regulator to understand the waste implications of these reactors.?'