On June 9th, 2024, Belgium voted “right-wing” and “anti-green dogma”, whatever that means. Crudely summarised.
While it is downright retarded to keep describing modern society as a one-dimensional political spectrum, using terms as “left” and “right”, here’s what this election result means for our energy situation.
It seems that budgetary discipline is again a thang. And … surprise … so is nuclear power.
In 2018, when nuclear power was to be banned for eternity in Belgium, the Brigid crew predicted that the sentiment against nuclear power would change in just a few years.
So it seems we were right. Moreover, we state that it did not change because of the war, but because of structural reasons. The war just made society a bit more aware. For a while, at least: we are currently running an American shale LNG and Russian LNG, but hey, prices are affordable again, so business as usual.
But now, nuclear power may be back on the table (we remain cautious). However, back in 2018, we also predicted that the decisions on revived future nuclear power would be dead wrong. Are we right again?
1) The forming government stated its intentions to extend the LTO of Doel-4 and Tihange-3 from 10 to 20 years. Our comment: it is common practice to do LTOs of 20 years, that’s how the IAEA procedures are set up. The 10 year LTO is merely the result of a compromise between politicians who decided on a too-late too-little panic LTO, and their “green” coalition partners as well as Engie, not wanting an LTO at all. Worst of both worlds, that is. So 20 years is a fine ambition, so far so good.
2) However, Engie will argue that this change of requirements will increase the LTO cost even more. Obviously, that only holds for the variable cost. 10 years is adequate to order the next round of fuel assemblies and resins, and, more delicate, to organise the SNF flow. So this is a way to make some more money, not another reason to wine about the cost. Again, 20 years is a fine ambition. Contingency plan: be prepared to take over all responsabilities on the day Engie headquarters decide cleaning waste water and growing apples is more lucrative.
3) The forming government also stated its intentions to extend the lifetime of all the other NPP’s, even the ones already closed down. Although technically possible at this point in time, asking Engie to do so, is simply wishful thinking. They seem unable to understand that Engie is by no means willing to exploit any NPPs in the future. As in: any. The only interests of Engie in the nuclear industry at this point in time are: funding for NPP demolition, and a cap on the waste disposal cost. Oh, and a guaranteed electricity price please, now we’re asking. So the message is: yes, extend all of them, but organise that yourself. Buy for 1 EUR/pc from Engie, lure in whatever is left from the skilled work force and start operating ASAP.
4) On the long term, the forming government also stated its intentions to construct 8 GWe of new NPPs. Besides the fact that this number assumes the electrification of the car fleet (a mistake), Engie is not willing nor capable to develop and exploit new NPPs in the future. The French nuclear know-how is to be found at EDF, not Engie. The Belgian nuclear know-how on reactor technology is legacy, and the engineering club is theoretical, and virtually retired or deceased. So
once again, while claiming that Belgium has renowned nuclear expertise, we’ll have to shop abroad, or start all over. As Brigid is actually doing.
5) And here comes the next major mistake: obviously, these future NPP’s are assumed to be “modern new technology”, a.k.a. SMR. Now, the term SMR can mean any type of reactor technology combined with any type of fuel cycle, as long it’s “small”. Mostly, the nuclear industry refers to 100..300 MWe LWR reactors, fuelled with 20% enriched HALEU in an open fuel cycle. This is not progress. This is down-right regression. SMRs collide head-on with nuclear waste problems, unrealistic safety claims, proliferation issues, enrichment issues, false claims on cost reduction, and security problems.
6) The original and still main argument in favour of SMRs is that the investment lump sum is much lower, and therefore investors will be less reluctant to invest. This argument is void if you announce that 8 GWe (as in eighty 100 MWe SMRs) need to be installed in the future anyway. In fact, loosing the advantages of scale is something any investor will understand.
7) While it is true, and widely acknowledged, that the construction of new Gen-III NPPs suffers from major cost and planning overruns, at least in the West, it is forgotten that this holds as well for any other major infrastructure investment. This is no reason to stop investments. It is rather an incentive to critically audit our industrial and administrative processes. (Ask Elon Musk for some advice. Summary in 5 simple rules available in his biography.) It is also an incentive to re-think our NPP technology and fuel cycle, and then to start from clean-slate requirements (as Brigid does).
8) Other arguments in favour of SMR are: less waste (not true), more safety (not true) and almost forlorn: flexible power modulation so they can be combined with “renewables”. We keep stating that nuclear reactors should not be power modulated as a feature. Except for safe start-up and stop procedures, nuclear reactors shall run steady-state. This is a primary safety requirement.
9) While the downside of large scale “renewables” on the grid became obvious during the previous winters in the form of “Dunkelflaute”, the current summer also starts to reveal the downside of overproduction, destabilising the grid and causing negative electricity prices on EPEX, thus off-setting PV and wind investors. Reactive power reflected back and forth during overproduction may destroy our grid infrastructure. And we haven’t even started the electrification of our society as a whole.
Feel free to review the way Brigid handles these problems in a fundamentally sound way (I could explain it here again, but you can also start reading and thinking it over for yourself…)