atw - International Journal for Nuclear Power | 05.2020

atw Vol. 65 (2020) | Issue 5 ı May
helped integrate greater shares of
variable renewable sources, which
produced almost half of Germany’s
electricity last year and are expected
to further expand in years to come.
“The outstanding issue in many
power markets is what kind of value to
assign to these services for the grid,”
said Victoria Alexeeva, an energy
economist at the IAEA. “In the absence
of an adequate valuation for such
services, nuclear power’s economic
competitiveness is reduced,” added
Nesimi A. Kilic, an IAEA nuclear
engineer.
Amid the clean energy transition,
electrical grids may face different
challenges.
Last August, for example, the UK
suffered its most severe power outage
in more than a decade – a blackout
of between 15 and 50 minutes for
more than a million customers that
disrupted some passenger trains and
caused a temporary loss of power at
one hospital and airport. In a report
last month, Germany’s grid operators
said the country may need to import
electricity at times in the coming
years as firm sources such as coal and
nuclear are retired.
The IAEA supports countries in
understanding all relevant aspects
of flexible NPP operation through
publications, workshops and technical
meetings, including one held in
Phoenix in the U.S. state of Arizona in
December 2019. Around 60 plant
operators, regulatory officials and
policymakers from 10 countries
discussed “future energy needs and
proactive actions that would ensure
nuclear power plants continue to
provide clean, affordable and reliable
power to people around the world,”
said Robert Bement, Executive Vice
President and Advisor to the Chief
Executive Officer at Arizona Public
Service, which hosted the meeting.
The IAEA is also working with
governmental and non-governmental
bodies, including the Flexible Nuclear
Campaign for Nuclear-Renewables
Integration. The campaign – a project
of the Clean Energy Ministerial led by
the Nuclear Innovation: Clean Energy
Future (NICE Future) initiative – seeks
to model revenue for flexible
NPPs, including costs and technical
requirements.
“A clear understanding of how
flexible integrated energy systems –
that include both nuclear and renewable
energy – can meet our future
energy needs must be developed and
communicated,” said Kelly Lefler, a
Senior Advisor at the U.S. Department
of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy.
“Technical meetings and other
initiatives by the IAEA and the Clean
Energy Ministerial bring together
governments, research institutions,
non-governmental organizations and
industry to explore innovative clean
energy solutions with nuclear power.”
| Jeffrey Donovan and Matt Fisher,
IAEA Department of Nuclear Energy
www.iaea.org (201121401)
World
The Versatile Test Reactor
can help unlock the future
of carbon-free energy
(nei) The 2020s will be the decade of
innovations in nuclear energy. The
technologies and tools that will enable
advanced nuclear reactors to become
a reality are being developed now.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s
Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) is one of
those cutting-edge, specialized tools.
Just getting under way, the VTR is
intended to mimic the conditions that
would exist in a category of advanced
reactors now under development:
fast reactors, which include sodiumcooled
fast reactors, molten salt
reactors and high-temperature gas
reactors.
With a pressing need to reduce
carbon emissions and a growing
worldwide demand for electricity, it is
urgent to commercialize advanced
reactor technologies, many of which
use molten salt, sodium or helium gas
(instead of water, as current plants
do).
Fast reactors are quite different
than the reactors currently operating
in the United States. When they run,
the neutrons – subatomic particles
that sustain the chain reaction – are
moving with vastly more energy than
in today’s reactors, in some cases with
100,000 times more energy.
Those more energetic neutrons
have many advantages. They can split
a much wider variety of atoms to make
energy, including many atoms that
were produced in today’s reactors and
would otherwise be considered waste.
They can run reactors that operate at
much higher temperatures than are
common today, which would produce
steam that can be used for many more
purposes. And many of those designs
would run at far lower pressures,
making them easier and less expensive
to build.
There is a catch, though. No one
is completely sure how all of the
components of these new reactors
would behave after a few decades in
the stew of high-energy neutrons. And
engineers don’t want to wait to find
out.
With a simulated environment,
engineers can bathe the components
in neutrons at a pace three or four
times faster than they would see in an
actual power reactor, pull the parts
out for evaluation, and if necessary,
make changes and try again. This is
exactly what the VTR would provide.
“We want to do a quick screening
of these technologies,” said Kemal
Pasamehmetoglu, executive director
of the VTR project.
In fact, the reactor could also be
used to test materials for other
industries and for materials that could
be useful in today’s reactors.
To prosper, experts say the U.S.
needs its own high-tech test facility for
fast neutrons.
“The nuclear leadership that we
had in the world derived from our
technical leadership,” said Irfan Ali,
who is on the board of directors
of Advanced Reactor Concepts, a
sodium -cooled reactor developer. “For
us to maintain that, we have to keep
moving forward with the technology.”
Because of the lack of testing
facilities in the United States, Terra-
Power LLC, the company backed by
Bill Gates, has had to use a reactor in
Russia, the BOR-60. But access to
that reactor, and problems moving
irradiated materials across international
borders, make that a cumbersome
route.
Congress gave initial approval to a
versatile neutron source in the Nuclear
Energy Innovation Capabilities Act,
signed into law in September 2018.
Two companies have already submitted
a proposal to develop the
reactor.
Once completed, the Versatile Test
Reactor would enable the development
of these fast reactors. Along with
other types of advanced reactors, the
next generation of nuclear will power
our way of life into the future, without
carbon emissions.
| www.nei.org (201121455)
Research
Wendelstein 7-X fusion device
at Greifswald to be upgraded
(ipp-mpg) The next round of the
stepwise expansion of the Wendelstein
7-X fusion device at Max Planck
Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) at
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