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Dr. Peter Hosemann is a professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is also the department chair. He received his MS and PhD degrees in material science from Montanuniversität Leoben, Austria.
Prior to joining the Department of Nuclear Engineering at UC Berkeley, Dr. Hosemann was a graduate research assistant and a post-doc at Los Alamos National Laboratory. His research focuses on experimental materials science for nuclear applications, with a focus on the structural materials used in nuclear components.
Dr. Hosemann spoke to OnlineEngineeringPrograms.com in 2020.
Statistically speaking, very few people know how nuclear energy works. But practically everyone has some idea of what happens when it doesn’t. The safety failures of nuclear power plants, which have been extremely infrequent, have had disproportionately large effects: certain areas of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone may not be habitable for over 20,000 years.
The disasters at Fukushima and Three Mile Island are still vividly present in the collective public memory. Based on this, some groups that push for a greater commitment to green energy either disregard or actively denounce further investment in nuclear energy.
On the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, Greenpeace released a report that documented nearly 200 ‘near misses’ that had occurred at American nuclear power plants since 1986. But a ‘near miss’ in nuclear power is merely a statistical aberration in other, less volatile fields; in the eight most significant events documented in the Greenpeace report, no event had a larger than 0.6 percent chance of resulting in core damage. Still, to nuclear watchdogs, a 0.6 percent chance of failure is far too high.
“I think the safety aspect of nuclear energy is largely a success story, at least in the United States,” Dr. Hosemann says. “It comes down to knowing how to operate, how to have a safety culture that works to address issues that pop up, and to do your due diligence, just as you’re supposed to do as an engineer in any field.”
Today, there are 450 nuclear power reactors across the globe, with a cumulative operating experience of nearly 18,000 reactor years (the total of all years that all reactors have been running). A 2003 study sponsored by the European Commission estimated that a severe core-damage incident is likely to occur once every 20,000 reactor-years; a 2008 study by the Electric Power Research Institute estimated the chance of such an event as once every 50,000 reactor-years in the US. New regulations and improved tech continue to push the possibility of failure down even further, but the damage done to the public perception has a long half-life.
“People who work in the nuclear field are very aware of this perception,” Dr. Hosemann says. “It’s a scary subject, there’s no doubt about it, and we take those concerns very seriously. At the same time, we also want to make sure that people really understand what type of risk we’re talking about. As the record in this country shows, we have demonstrated that in the years since 1979, we’ve been able to grow nuclear power and keep operating without really any issue. We do everything humanly possible to minimize risk. Once you do that, and you’re truly committed to that statement, I think you can do this very safely.”
A more practical challenge to the greater adoption of nuclear energy is the enormous upfront cost it requires, with the massive amounts of capital and technical expertise needed to build and operate a nuclear power plant generally excluding it as a possibility in the developing world. The associated costs of a Gen-II or Gen-III nuclear plant are seen as infeasible for a nation with a GDP of under $50 billion, and such nations might instead opt for more environmentally harmful methods of energy production, such as coal.
“Building a plant is extremely expensive due to the size of the plants, redundant subsystems, and safety features put in place,” Dr. Hosemann says. “Now, once it’s running, the fuel costs and the operational costs are relatively small in comparison. And for a small continued investment, you generate a large amount of electricity.”
Cost isn’t just a problem for developing nations, either. In 2017, the VC Summer nuclear generating station in South Carolina added its name to the list of infamous atomic disasters, but its failure was financial instead of technical. What should’ve been the first nuclear generator constructed in the US in decades was instead a total fiasco: cut corners, project mismanagement, financial malfeasance, and accusations of fraud.
Westinghouse, the nuclear power concern leading the project, went bankrupt due to $9 billion in losses incurred along the way. Industry experts have expressed concern at the chilling effect that this could have on future nuclear power projects in the US over the next few years.
Nuclear power thinks on a longer timeframe, with the lifespan of a reactor being a 50- to 100-year proposition. And the future of nuclear energy may look different than the past: technological innovations have the potential to reduce cost, limit waste, increase safety, and facilitate the development of nuclear power in the nations that need it most.
Advanced nuclear technologies, such as Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) could be one way forward. With a capacity of approximately a third to a fifth of a traditional power plant, these reactors are smaller, making them cheaper and enabling their design to be largely off-site. Furthermore, a higher surface-to-volume ratio means that many of an SMR’s heat-removal aspects are inherently resolved within the design, enhancing overall safety.
“Small modular reactors can address the issue of upfront cost to some degree,” Dr. Hosemann says. “These are smaller units, perhaps to the degree that they may even be transportable, and you can then add multiple units over time to increase power generation.”
Russia’s latest floating SMR, which isn’t all that far off from a nuclear submarine or nuclear aircraft carrier in theory or practice, provides a proof-of-concept: an SMR can be built elsewhere and then transported into place; it doesn’t even need to sit on land.
Detractors say that SMRs, while promising, can divert attention from more plausible and proven climate solutions. Concerns about the disposal of radioactive waste and the revival of a ‘plutonium economy’ continue to temper expectations. But a measured approach to the use of SMRs could yield tangible benefits both environmentally and economically.
A 2010 study estimated that a 100MW SMR could provide enough energy for 75,000 homes, and cost approximately $500 million to build, install, and commission. That would represent significant savings over the cost of traditional nuclear plants and could also generate over $1.4 billion in annual sales, along with 7,200 jobs, to offset the upfront costs.
Generation IV Nuclear Power Plants (GEN IV NPPs) are a new family of nuclear reactors, some members of which share characteristics with SMRs. They’re expected to become an important source of baseload power in the coming decades. Many GEN IV NPPs will operate for about 30 years on the same fuel source, and, since they won’t need to be recharged, they’ll ideally leave less waste. Most will be able to use existing nuclear waste to generate electricity, thereby forming a closed nuclear fuel cycle.
“GEN IV typically means it’s not light water-cooled—it can have a different neutron spectrum, and it can have some other purposes besides just making electricity with higher efficiency,” Dr. Hosemann says. “You may consider a lead-cooled, lead bismuth-cooled, or a sodium-cooled fast reactor a GEN IV reactor, among other thermal spectrum reactors. The purpose there is that your neutrons maintain a high velocity. Those fast neutrons now have the ability to transmute nuclear waste in other isotopes. So you can have a way to treat your spent fuel, for example, among other benefits.”
Detractors, particularly those living Stateside, worry that open market economies (like the US, the UK, France, and Japan) cannot match the levels of funding and support seen in more top-down economies like Russia and China. Private-sector investments in the nuclear arena would need to be matched with public-sector support to mitigate financing, construction, and operational risks. The more optimistic segment of the nuclear community looks to the working prototypes of GEN IV NPPs and forecasts that new investment patterns could bring more GEN IVs to life.
In 2010, the European Sustainable Nuclear Industrial Initiative (ESNII) supported three GEN IV fast reactor projects as part of the EU’s plan to promote low-carbon energy (alongside initiatives supporting wind, solar, biomass, and other forms of clean energy). ESNII sought to demonstrate how GEN IV reactors could close the nuclear fuel cycle, provide long-term waste management solutions, and expand the applications of nuclear fission beyond electricity production to include hydrogen production, industrial heat, and desalination. The total cost of deployment for all three reactors and supporting infrastructure totaled over €10.8 billion.
“The question always comes down to the country, the geography, the politics, the boundary conditions,” Dr. Hosemann says. “Do the benefits outweigh the costs? In some countries, the answer is yes, and in some countries, the answer is no. It really depends on what the local energy strategy is. But some GEN IV designs have been realized. They’re operating today.”
Small but significant steps are being taken in the US to further prioritize nuclear energy.
Building on President Biden’s push for a radical expansion of advanced nuclear technology, President Trump’s second term has set an aggressive pro-nuclear agenda that includes deploying advanced nuclear reactors and reinvigorating the nuclear industrial base.
“What shouldn’t be forgotten is that there are a lot of peripheral technologies which come out of nuclear power that benefit humanity,” Dr. Hosemann says. “If you get cancer treatment today, it’s very likely you will get injected with a radioactive substance. That technology is born out of the nuclear enterprise. Without reactors, you wouldn’t have it. There are numerous examples of the benefits of nuclear engineering beyond just nuclear power.”
In the developing world, SMRs can bring clean energy to nations that were once unable to afford or operate nuclear reactors. These low-pollution power generators could revolutionize the infrastructure of a continent like Africa, where an estimated 600 million citizens still lack access to electricity. There are currently 54 reactors under construction in 18 countries, 14 of which are in emerging and middle-income nations. If entities like the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) are appropriately involved and consulted, the low risk of SMRs could be mitigated even further.
“For each energy source, there are compromises,” Dr. Hosemann says. “Each society, each country, and, to some degree, each state has to decide what compromises they’re willing to accept. There is no single answer for what works globally, only for what works locally.”
Humans are inherently flawed, but nuclear power isn’t. According to the IEA, if the technology can be developed, operated, and maintained efficiently, nuclear power can be a major tool in reducing the world’s dependence on high-emission power sources. To what extent governments and businesses decide to harness that power safely, affordably, and effectively, however, remains to be seen.
Matt Zbrog is a writer and researcher from Southern California. Since 2018, he’s written extensively about a wide range of engineering disciplines, with a particular focus on the potential impacts of major technological breakthroughs. His work largely centers around conversations with engineering faculty at top universities, highlighting their research in areas such as nuclear power, artificial intelligence, soft robotics, and semiconductor design. He’s also worked with leaders and subject matter experts at the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE).
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