As someone who worked in all of the nuclear stations in Ontario. I have to say I really appreciated watching this and yes it would certainly be illogical to build anything but the 480 tube design for both Darlington and the Bruce. Thanks again.
Im not an engineer, but used to technical subjects. Decouple discussions are always easy on the ear, mainly because of the convivial manner the podcast is laid out on such an important subject. Thank you gentlemen. 👍
Yes, an hour and a half and all about the mighty CANDU. I had to grin when you said; "It is not sexy." An engineering friend and I (retired Master Welder) enjoy talking about the various nuclear reactors, their pro's and cons etc. We both think the CANDU is woefully underrated and underappreciated. It should get way more limelight! Here is a reactor that is capable of running on unenriched uranium; that literally broke world records of the longest, safe continuous run; and is the paragon of a safe, well-behaved reactor. He always says; "The CANDU has one major problem. It isn't sexy! A PWR looks nice, and glows blue when the lid is off for a refuelling. It's a "sexy" reactor. A CANDU kind of looks like an RBMK put on its side, but then done well in terms of safety etc." Your remark reminded me of that. Thanks for all the good info you put out with these videos. I learn a lot from them😄
Perhaps they should give the plants female names like perhaps iconic, Marilyn in order to bring in the sexiness. Not sure Taylor Swift quite fits the description of iconic 😂
@@Ln-cq8zu Ha! Taylor Swift can't hold a candle against Marilyn Monroe, or the CANDU for that matter. Can't explain why, but our big friendly Canadian reactor has always struck me as a grand, old dame for some reason. Our big grumpy Russian reactor has always struck me as decidedly male. Again, I have no explanation for it, it's how it feels to me.
The point about "SMALL" modular reactors always cracks me up. The BWRX300 goes into the ground by about 30 meters... the RPV is heavier than the RPV of the 500MW Borssele PWR. I think the point about getting "smaller" customers is a valid one. I have visited multiple industrial multinationals and they are in the market for sub 1000MW on-site power production. Also, in the Netherlands where the demand is evenly distributed outside the industrial centers, and grids are relatively small (our grid-section is less than 500,000 people), smaller reactors make sense. That said, build em big where you need big (Dutch coastal industrial centers) and build em small where the business case supports that.
What I noticed about this. The new Bruce C plant that was announced today has a goal of 4,800 MW. In this video Chris talks about Darlington should've had four ACR-1000s. Which would produce 4,800 MW. So now I'm wondering if that's what they plan on building at Bruce!?
Politically, the new Bruce units should be CANDU. However, the two new units in Voglte are 2 × 1117 MW Westinghouse AP1000 design. Westinghouse, located in PA, is owned by a Canadian consortium.
About the economies of scale vs economies of numbers discussion. You really need to quantify that. Because if it is true that a FOAK BWRX300 can be built for 3300$/kW and the OPEX for a 140 person operation is taken into account, and you finance with low-cost loans, it can and will produce electricity for 40~50USD/MWh straight off the get-go and that's not just cheap, that's very cheap. Not as cheap as Darlington, but just slightly marginally more expensive. The Dutch Borssele plant produces electricity at 43 Euro/MWh and that's that high because it is late with building its own decommissioning fund which is integral in the cost to produce electricity.
My father, Dave Medwid worked for NACA then NASA. He worked on the old SNAP electrical generation reactor system. They did testing at the Sandusky Ohio Plumbrook Station neutron, generating reactor in the 1960s and 70s. He always pronounced it. “nucular”. I’ve read dictionary‘s that have commented on two pronunciations for “nuclear”. I get teased for my “bad pronunciation” till this day.
Great story Scott, there was so much pioneering work done in nuclear in those days it was amazing. The Vapors, New Clear Days, always helped keep my pronunciation on track; a great album with a great cover.
$26B refurbishment for plants that historically produced 1,600 and 800TWh over their lifecycle, compared to Green Energy Act $60B for projected 300TWh? And shitty, intermittent power at that. Great idea.
India and Canada are the only countries to exclusively focus on Candu(PHWR) designs! Why haven't we never built larger than 1GW Candu reactors? We haven't collaborated ever again on nuclear energy!
SMRs - crappy economics - compared to the alternatives? Argueing over a cent or two in wholesale prices has limited effect on retail prices. Thanks for a great interview.
I talked to a construction worker that was at the new nuc plant in Georgia. The reasons it was so over budget and took so long was not a fundamental problem with nuclear or evan the regulations with did not help manners. That job had horrible and or corrupt managment. The different bosses would have the guys do things before the previous task was complete like setting weld plates in the floor before the re-bar was complete, he had to do that job 4 or 5 times. They had cooling tents in summer and heating tents in the winter where a lot of guys spent a lot of time. If you had high melanin content in your skin HR would just talk to you and send you back to work instead if firing or disciplining you. Many of the bosses would order twice as much material as they need and sell half of it.
To your point around minute 57, the reason why the Netherlands is pursuing PWRs and BWRs is because the regulator says: "We know these machines, and we can issue licenses for them with our current competence/knowledge level"; it has communicated this with the national government, and so the national government is now talking to Kepco, Westinghouse and EDF to iron out a deal for a set of their biggies; my response to that is simple: Go for it, but commit and make sure you achieve excellence. As for my attention for smaller units. It all comes down to : Can we pay for it? Can we build it? Is there a market for it. BWRX300 fits the bill, and so that's why I try to find the best avenues for letting them land in the Dutch marketplace. I don't think it is safer than our 50 year old Borssele PWR; I don't think its better than an AP1000 technically speaking. To me, it's all about cost & can I sell it & can we build it.
Pearl #1 @1:09:00 BWRX300 vs EC9 or EC6, SMR's have a role on smaller grids - yes absolutely Pearl #2 @1:12:00 480 fuel channel more economic than 380 channel, and four-packs cheaper yet, Pearl #3 @1:17:00 Darlington B cancel the SMR and build it on the prairies. Should have 4 x EC9, agree if EC9 is a commercially available product, and there is time to go down that road.
IN THE EARLY 1990s INDIA ASKED CANADA FOR HELP TO REFURBISH THE CANDU. CANADA OFFERED IT AT A PRICE OF 350 MILLION USA DOLLARS. INDIA REFUSED AND DID IT THEMSELVS FOR 20 MILLION USA DOLLARS WHICH INCLUDED DEVELOPMENT OF THE ROBOTS. WHAT DO CANADIANS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THIS IN YOUR DEFENCE?
Just one point, a lot of non-Canadian companies are now banking on the fact that the BWRX300 is getting built at Darlington. You're the first through the wall, and that was the prerequisite for let's say two dozen X300s being planned in Europe. Are you willing to let that development collapse?
Yes, absolutely. If the prospects for moving forward were that fragile to begin with then they weren't serious about trying to actually fix their problems in Europe and More Suffering is Necessary. Ontario's got drastically lower electricity prices today and have worked hard to retain their generation, they're in a far far better place then basically anywhere in Europe. Why exactly is a supranational region like Europe waiting for Ontario's ~15 million people to pay all the first mover costs and get the ball rolling. There's 8 countries in Europe with more people then Ontario and a half dozen more that could manage to get this going if they put their mind to it. Heck the Fins have a big 1.2 GW hole in their energy planning blown by the Russo-Ukrainian war torpedoing the VVER they were planning, put two-and-two together and ask for a couple CANDUs, or a quad of BWRX300s. Europe's failures are their own because 'talk' isn't development, it's hot air. It's the same sort of hot air you hear from a number of not-Ontario Canadian provinces about nuclear. If OPG goes their own way and sticks with CANDUs it'll separate the wheat from the chaff in Europe and will indicate which countries are worth partnering with to help develop the industry in the west and get us all to a better place.
I agree with your criticism of the term "Advanced Reactor" but also disagree with your terminology of "different use case". A high-temperature reactor is simply a better reactor in every use case. (OR has the potential to be) High-temperature reactors SHOULD cost a lot less than Candu or any other pwr/bwr reactor by its physical nature. Because they start at a much lower entropy they will be better at making electricity, process heat, and co-generation. The potential is so high that when any one of the high-temperature reactors becomes commercialized, there will be no business case to ever build another low-temperature reactor ever again. YES, that's a lot of should, could's and if's but as you say, none of these reactors are advanced, they were all designed in the 1950-60's, this is not fusion. The list of reactor start-ups in this category is long and spans the globe and all it takes is for one of them to be successful.
As someone who worked in all of the nuclear stations in Ontario. I have to say I really appreciated watching this and yes it would certainly be illogical to build anything but the 480 tube design for both Darlington and the Bruce. Thanks again.
Im not an engineer, but used to technical subjects.
Decouple discussions are always easy on the ear, mainly because of the convivial manner the podcast is laid out on such an important subject.
Thank you gentlemen. 👍
Love what you do. Need CANDUs in NY to make up for the closure of Indian Point. Keep up the good work.
Yes, an hour and a half and all about the mighty CANDU.
I had to grin when you said; "It is not sexy." An engineering friend and I (retired Master Welder) enjoy talking about the various nuclear reactors, their pro's and cons etc. We both think the CANDU is woefully underrated and underappreciated. It should get way more limelight! Here is a reactor that is capable of running on unenriched uranium; that literally broke world records of the longest, safe continuous run; and is the paragon of a safe, well-behaved reactor. He always says; "The CANDU has one major problem. It isn't sexy! A PWR looks nice, and glows blue when the lid is off for a refuelling. It's a "sexy" reactor. A CANDU kind of looks like an RBMK put on its side, but then done well in terms of safety etc." Your remark reminded me of that. Thanks for all the good info you put out with these videos. I learn a lot from them😄
Perhaps they should give the plants female names like perhaps iconic, Marilyn in order to bring in the sexiness. Not sure Taylor Swift quite fits the description of iconic 😂
@@Ln-cq8zu
Ha! Taylor Swift can't hold a candle against Marilyn Monroe, or the CANDU for that matter.
Can't explain why, but our big friendly Canadian reactor has always struck me as a grand, old dame for some reason. Our big grumpy Russian reactor has always struck me as decidedly male. Again, I have no explanation for it, it's how it feels to me.
The point about "SMALL" modular reactors always cracks me up. The BWRX300 goes into the ground by about 30 meters... the RPV is heavier than the RPV of the 500MW Borssele PWR. I think the point about getting "smaller" customers is a valid one. I have visited multiple industrial multinationals and they are in the market for sub 1000MW on-site power production. Also, in the Netherlands where the demand is evenly distributed outside the industrial centers, and grids are relatively small (our grid-section is less than 500,000 people), smaller reactors make sense. That said, build em big where you need big (Dutch coastal industrial centers) and build em small where the business case supports that.
Thank you for sharing this information with us
What I noticed about this. The new Bruce C plant that was announced today has a goal of 4,800 MW. In this video Chris talks about Darlington should've had four ACR-1000s. Which would produce 4,800 MW. So now I'm wondering if that's what they plan on building at Bruce!?
Politically, the new Bruce units should be CANDU. However, the two new units in Voglte are 2 × 1117 MW Westinghouse AP1000 design. Westinghouse, located in PA, is owned by a Canadian consortium.
Keep up the good work Chris (and Chris)!
Greetings from Alberta.
Great content Chris Adlam, a superb job, clear explanations of the the options without fanboyism or hand-waving, great job 🙂
Excellent interview. I love to learn about CANDU! 💚 🥃
About the economies of scale vs economies of numbers discussion. You really need to quantify that. Because if it is true that a FOAK BWRX300 can be built for 3300$/kW and the OPEX for a 140 person operation is taken into account, and you finance with low-cost loans, it can and will produce electricity for 40~50USD/MWh straight off the get-go and that's not just cheap, that's very cheap. Not as cheap as Darlington, but just slightly marginally more expensive. The Dutch Borssele plant produces electricity at 43 Euro/MWh and that's that high because it is late with building its own decommissioning fund which is integral in the cost to produce electricity.
Great interview, learned a lot. I wish he wouldn't say "nucular" though, surprising for an industry expert.
Oh "Nucular", drives me nuts, read the word and annunciate people, it's not that hard.
My father, Dave Medwid worked for NACA then NASA. He worked on the old SNAP electrical generation reactor system. They did testing at the Sandusky Ohio Plumbrook Station neutron, generating reactor in the 1960s and 70s. He always pronounced it. “nucular”. I’ve read dictionary‘s that have commented on two pronunciations for “nuclear”. I get teased for my “bad pronunciation” till this day.
Great story Scott, there was so much pioneering work done in nuclear in those days it was amazing. The Vapors, New Clear Days, always helped keep my pronunciation on track; a great album with a great cover.
Really good discussion! And the diatribes are totally worthwhile :-)
I think you should prepare some graphics illustrating the components/functions of various Candu versions and how this ties into refurbishment.
Fascinating, thank you. Although for this layman, many of the more baroque responses from the guest, were beyond my scope.
$26B refurbishment for plants that historically produced 1,600 and 800TWh over their lifecycle, compared to Green Energy Act $60B for projected 300TWh? And shitty, intermittent power at that. Great idea.
Why is Point Lepreuu so poorly run? From N.B.
India and Canada are the only countries to exclusively focus on Candu(PHWR) designs! Why haven't we never built larger than 1GW Candu reactors? We haven't collaborated ever again on nuclear energy!
INDIA HAD TO CREATE NEW PRESSURE TUBES (ANOTHER MATERIEL) IN THE CANDU REACTORS BECAUSE ORIGINAL CANADIAN TUBES FAILED WITHIN 20/25 YEARS.
SMRs - crappy economics - compared to the alternatives? Argueing over a cent or two in wholesale prices has limited effect on retail prices. Thanks for a great interview.
I talked to a construction worker that was at the new nuc plant in Georgia. The reasons it was so over budget and took so long was not a fundamental problem with nuclear or evan the regulations with did not help manners. That job had horrible and or corrupt managment. The different bosses would have the guys do things before the previous task was complete like setting weld plates in the floor before the re-bar was complete, he had to do that job 4 or 5 times. They had cooling tents in summer and heating tents in the winter where a lot of guys spent a lot of time. If you had high melanin content in your skin HR would just talk to you and send you back to work instead if firing or disciplining you. Many of the bosses would order twice as much material as they need and sell half of it.
To your point around minute 57, the reason why the Netherlands is pursuing PWRs and BWRs is because the regulator says: "We know these machines, and we can issue licenses for them with our current competence/knowledge level"; it has communicated this with the national government, and so the national government is now talking to Kepco, Westinghouse and EDF to iron out a deal for a set of their biggies; my response to that is simple: Go for it, but commit and make sure you achieve excellence. As for my attention for smaller units. It all comes down to : Can we pay for it? Can we build it? Is there a market for it. BWRX300 fits the bill, and so that's why I try to find the best avenues for letting them land in the Dutch marketplace. I don't think it is safer than our 50 year old Borssele PWR; I don't think its better than an AP1000 technically speaking. To me, it's all about cost & can I sell it & can we build it.
40% of the cost overrun at Darlington was interest rates
Pearl #1 @1:09:00 BWRX300 vs EC9 or EC6, SMR's have a role on smaller grids - yes absolutely
Pearl #2 @1:12:00 480 fuel channel more economic than 380 channel, and four-packs cheaper yet,
Pearl #3 @1:17:00 Darlington B cancel the SMR and build it on the prairies. Should have 4 x EC9, agree if EC9 is a commercially available product, and there is time to go down that road.
O2, CANDU!
IN THE EARLY 1990s INDIA ASKED CANADA FOR HELP TO REFURBISH THE CANDU. CANADA OFFERED IT AT A PRICE OF 350 MILLION USA DOLLARS. INDIA REFUSED AND DID IT THEMSELVS FOR 20 MILLION USA DOLLARS WHICH INCLUDED DEVELOPMENT OF THE ROBOTS. WHAT DO CANADIANS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THIS IN YOUR DEFENCE?
you should talk about the new Oliver Stone film "Nuclear Now "
heavy water can be made with electrolysis of water where the electrical power comes from wind solar and nuclear.
You sure about that?
Just one point, a lot of non-Canadian companies are now banking on the fact that the BWRX300 is getting built at Darlington. You're the first through the wall, and that was the prerequisite for let's say two dozen X300s being planned in Europe. Are you willing to let that development collapse?
Yes, absolutely.
If the prospects for moving forward were that fragile to begin with then they weren't serious about trying to actually fix their problems in Europe and More Suffering is Necessary.
Ontario's got drastically lower electricity prices today and have worked hard to retain their generation, they're in a far far better place then basically anywhere in Europe. Why exactly is a supranational region like Europe waiting for Ontario's ~15 million people to pay all the first mover costs and get the ball rolling. There's 8 countries in Europe with more people then Ontario and a half dozen more that could manage to get this going if they put their mind to it. Heck the Fins have a big 1.2 GW hole in their energy planning blown by the Russo-Ukrainian war torpedoing the VVER they were planning, put two-and-two together and ask for a couple CANDUs, or a quad of BWRX300s.
Europe's failures are their own because 'talk' isn't development, it's hot air. It's the same sort of hot air you hear from a number of not-Ontario Canadian provinces about nuclear. If OPG goes their own way and sticks with CANDUs it'll separate the wheat from the chaff in Europe and will indicate which countries are worth partnering with to help develop the industry in the west and get us all to a better place.
@@AmurTiger Sorry but that's far too simplistic and naieve.
"nuclear energy requires institutional excellence . . "
I'm not comfortable
I agree with your criticism of the term "Advanced Reactor" but also disagree with your terminology of "different use case".
A high-temperature reactor is simply a better reactor in every use case. (OR has the potential to be) High-temperature reactors SHOULD cost a lot less than Candu or any other pwr/bwr reactor by its physical nature.
Because they start at a much lower entropy they will be better at making electricity, process heat, and co-generation. The potential is so high that when any one of the high-temperature reactors becomes commercialized, there will be no business case to ever build another low-temperature reactor ever again.
YES, that's a lot of should, could's and if's but as you say, none of these reactors are advanced, they were all designed in the 1950-60's, this is not fusion. The list of reactor start-ups in this category is long and spans the globe and all it takes is for one of them to be successful.
Advanced reactors like the CANDU 6, oops, I mean the enhanced reactor CANDU 6....
Sorry, couldn't help myself.
📍1:06:41
Mispronouncing nuclear is like fingernails on a chalkboard