Nuclear reactors are notorious for being large construction projects that often exceed costs. Plus, when they are finally built, their supervision and maintenance requires a staff of dozens of trained professionals.
But Yasir Arafat believe that nuclear power does not have to be this way.
Arafat is the technical lead of the micro-reactor project at one of the preeminent nuclear research laboratories of the United States government, Idaho National Laboratoryand in his role there, Arafat is leading the effort to build a small, relatively inexpensive nuclear reactor. It’s more like a nuclear battery, he said.
Arafat grew up in Bangladesh before entering college in the United States, and he was driven by a profound sense of urgency to help the world decarbonise. The effects of global warming are not discussed as a distant future prospect in Bangladesh – climate change is already a part of everyday life now. Nuclear power does not produce any greenhouse gas emissions and Arafat hopes to contribute to the solution by building a prototype micro-reactor that could help the industry grow.
The prototype will be called the MARVEL . reactor, an acronym for the Microreactor Research Application Evaluation and Validation project name, and the goal is to have the first operational by December 2023, making it the first advanced microreactor in United States, Arafat told CNBC. (These photos show a prototype of the thermoelectric, not nuclear-powered MARVEL reactor, for preliminary study.)
Yasir Arafat, technical lead on the Marvel micro-reactor project, shows CNBC the prototype.
Photo: Magdalena Petrova, CNBC
Idaho National Laboratory began designing and modeling the MARVEL reactor project in June 2020 under Arafat’s leadership. If completed, the MARVEL micro-reactor “will be the first that can demonstrate how we can truly miniaturize the nuclear system into something that can be moved and transported, while also having a can provide heat and electricity to the end customer,” Arafat told CNBC in a video interview in Idaho in May.
Already has a wide range of private companies – including Oklo, Westinghouse (where Arafat worked for a decade) and General Atoms – develop micro-reactors, and their goal is the same as that of the government: To develop a reliable, zero-emissions source of energy.
A micro-reactor can power a community of 1,000 to 10,000 people, whether it’s a hospital or a remote military base. The current grid system in the United States is based on a centralized system of electricity generation and distribution to end users. But microreactors are one component of a future vision of a less centralized, more resilient power grid.
More than just potential clean energy options for remote locations or small communities, said Mr Arafat, micro-reactors could be an important part of the clean energy grid of the future. , including renewable solar and wind power and battery storage. Nuclear is a fundamental source of energy, which means it can provide power when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining, serving as a fulcrum for the ability to switch between renewables.
A prototype for the Marvel Reactor at Idaho National Laboratory.
Photo: Magdalena Petrova, CNBC
Smaller = cheaper
Small modular nuclear reactors are those that are less complicated to build and manufacture than conventional light water reactors. Microreactors take that even further.
“The whole hardware can be built in one factory, the same way we make cars or cars,” Arafat told CNBC, allowing hundreds of microreactors to be produced each year. . From the factory, a micro-reactor can be transported to a customer site, fueled and started up. The goal, he said, is to be able to deploy a micro-reactor in less than a week, so it’s more like a nuclear battery than a large-scale power plant.
“If we get really good at manufacturing these systems and take advantage of the fabrication plant, we can make them cheap enough for every campus across the country,” Arafat told CNBC. .
Micro-reactors use a different fuel enriched to less than the 20% limit imposed by the non-proliferation requirement. This fuel, known as HALEU, or highly tested low-enriched uranium, allows for a smaller reactor.
“We can actually build a much more efficient, significantly more compact core. So we’ll actually require a much smaller amount of fuel to design a reactor than a core. much bigger. That’s the biggest advantage of getting richer,” said Arafat.
The plant’s small size and fabrication mean that micronuclear reactors will be much cheaper to build than conventional light water reactors, which are frequently overscheduled and over-capacity. The Third and fourth reactors are under construction at the Vogtle plant in Georgia have become notorious examples of such an average.
Yasir Arafat, technical lead on Marvel’s micro-reactor project, told CNBC at the Idaho National Laboratory.
Photo: Magdalena Petrova, CNBC
That’s not to say that the first microreactors to ship will be as cheap or as fast as the technology evolves. But they will likely be deployed in locations where cheap and reliable clean energy alternatives are not available, like remote communities in Alaska.
“Right now, the only technology that works there is diesel generators, and they have to fly in diesel fuel in those locations. That’s how far they are. more economical than what they’re currently paying today.” , Arafat told CNBC.
In addition, because the microreactors will be located close to where the energy will be used, the transmission costs will be virtually zero, Arafat said.
Microreactors also require less manpower and less maintenance, Arafat said, in part because their fuels only need to be replaced every five to 10 years. less than 2 years compared to light water reactors.
Then there’s the safety part. Micro-reactors operate passively, meaning that systems have been designed that do not require reactor cooling, for example.
“So everything from heat generation, heat transport, heat removal to heat removal, all those coolant loops are done passively without any problems,” Arafat told CNBC. any design system,” Arafat told CNBC.
In addition, the side of the reactor is boron carbide, which is the same material used in armored vehicles.
“So if there was an artificial or extreme weather condition that could come through, there would be little or no impact on the actual operation or safety of these systems,” Arafat said.
Prototype of the Marvel Reactor at Idaho National Laboratory.
Photo: Magdalena Petrova, CNBC
An important piece of a larger puzzle, but no panacea
While Steve NesbitChairman of industrial trade group, American Nuclear AssociationIn favor of the idea of micronuclear reactors and especially the MARVEL project, he warned that they would not be a panacea for decarbonisation.
That’s in large part because a typical light-water reactor generates hundreds of megawatts of energy, and a micro-reactor will produce between one and five megawatts of energy, according to Arafat.
“I think they have a future but their ability to address our clean energy needs is limited,” Nesbit told CNBC. “Microreactors are ideally suited for remote situations with microgrids, but not so much as a means of generating gigawatt-scale clean electricity for the conventional grid.”
The same opinion shared by nuclear innovation experts and professors Alex Gilbert.
“They are distributed energy sources, intended to serve off-grid customers, small towns and industrial operations,” Gilbert told CNBC. “Alaska will likely be an initial market initially, as will other parts of the Arctic such as Canada, Russia and Scandinavia. They could play a pivotal role in microgridds, complementing solar and batteries. distributed.”
But many of the key problems facing the development of micro-reactors are similar to those of large-scale nuclear development in the US: “We have a shriveled supply chain, the start-up costs will be high. and unpredictable, and poorly managed, says Gilbert.
That said, solving these problems for the deployment of microreactors could help pave the way for similar problems “for large-scale deployment of larger advanced reactors”, said Gilbert. speak.
Arafat knew that the MARVEL project had a larger purpose: For the first time in decades, for the first time in decades, the mechanisms of nuclear innovation in the United States. “So the art, science and technology of developing new reactors is also a new field for us in many ways,” Arafat told CNBC.
– by CNBC Magdalena Petrova contributed to this report.
