Small Modular Reactors: Nuclear's Next Act? - Ep116: Tom Samson
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- Опубликовано: 7 фев 2025
- This week on Cleaning Up, Michael welcomes Tom Samson, CEO of Rolls-Royce SMR. Rolls-Royce SMR are among a raft of new companies innovating in the field of Small Modular Reactors, hoping to provide nuclear energy in smaller, more repeatable modules at a lower price point than traditional gigawatt-scale reactors.
Michael had questions for Samson on nuclear’s “desperately poor track record” for price control, the practicalities of factory-building a nuclear reactor, and the feasibility of nuclear finding a role in an energy landscape full of increasingly cheap renewables.
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Links and Related Episodes:
Learn more about Rolls-Royce SMR: www.rolls-royc...
Watch a walkthrough of Rolls-Royce SMR’s nuclear technology here: • Video
Watch Cleaning Up Episode 5 with Kirsty Gogan, “Fighting for Nuclear”: www.cleaningup...
Watch Cleaning Up Episode 94 with Julia Pyke, “The Fight for GW Nuclear”: www.cleaningup...
Watch Cleaning Up Episode 74 with Francesco Starace: www.cleaningup...
Watch Cleaning Up Episode 97 with Julio Freidmann: www.cleaningup...
Guest Bio
Tom Samson is the CEO of Rolls-Royce SMR Limited. He has over 30 years of experience in the power industry in various senior level executive positions in the UK and internationally.
Samson joined Marubeni Corporation in 2009, where he undertook a number of CEO and Board-level assignments in the UAE and USA. Samson was appointed Chief Operating Officer for ENEC in the UAE in 2012, where he helped establish Nawah Energy as the operator of Barakah, the first nuclear power plant in the region. Samson was appointed CEO and Board member at NuGeneration Ltd in 2015, which was responsible for developing a new nuclear power station at Moorside in Cumbria. In early 2020 Samson joined Rolls-Royce to lead their SMR Consortium and is a Board Member of Rolls-Royce SMR Limited.
Samson holds a degree from Edinburgh Napier University in Energy Engineering. Samson began his career as a Chartered Engineer at GEC Alstom designing combined cycle gas-fired power plants.
Thank you for the discussion. With many SMR's and when the wind and sun are creating electricity, hydrogen can be produced with the excess energy. However we need many SMR's plus renewables to provide the energy for heat pumps to replace gas boilers and we need a large increase in the National Grid system to distribute that extra energy. This issue of the increase needed in the National Grid system is not being discussed enough.
Of course there will always be a base load need. Mr Samson needs to say the solution to load follow dysfunctional wind and solar power plants (WASPPs) is by simply combining a UK SMR with a low cost ($300/kW---->$200/kW) PEM electrolysers. The response between supplying grid electricity and manufacturing greenH2 is in milliseconds and that's fast enough to load follow the crazy generation patterns of WASPPs. The UK SMR plant operator will benefit from 4 revenue streams - grid electricity; greenH2 supply; load following grid service; frequency correction grid service. The SMR operates at 100% availability and every one knocks out 470 MW of gas powered plant, which are an indispensable requirement at the moment, to 'solving' the humongous 'Intermittency Problem'.
GreenH2 is as fundamental to decarbonisation as is low carbon electricity. The fact that SMRs can supply all of the base load electricity and can profitably load follow demand to the point where the greenH2 can be sold very competitively opens up the prospect of WASPPs, with their atrocious environmental impact, not being needed in the low carbon electricity space as soon as SMR deliveries ramp up. And won't that be an environmental blessing!
Assuming SMRs, when or if they do come online, can beat green power production on cost, including green H2 (and storage), at least for the last fraction of grid demand variable renewables can't alone cost-effectively supply.
I find it astonishing how the intermittency caused by renewables always seems to be everyone else's problem. The idea that base load generation somehow causes the balancing problem is turning the entire issue on it's head. Essentially what some claim is 'baseload is dead', without acknowledging that it's the renewables messing up the load profile by taking away the load, but only when it suits them. Everyone loves to talk about how cheap renewables are, but if you add in the cost of storage and/or demand reduction it's not cheap at all. Unless you have abundant hydro, 100% renewable is a dangerous and unachievable fantasy, even if using demand response, storage and interconnects. We got here because a certain amount of 'head in the sand' about the intermittency problem, was needed to kick start renewables, but now it's established it's impossible, politically, to backtrack from this.
@Enemy of the state we are in! Most analyses I see recently includes LCOE plus system costs (eg transmission, storage etc). Even on that basis renewables still come out on top. In any event, I expect ultimately nukes will only be competing with hydrogen for the last fraction of the pie (~5%) which can't be met with renewables
@@jarrodf_ Sources? I find those analyses tend to come from anti-nuclear lobbyists and are filled with hopelessly optimistic projections for cost reductions for both renewable and storage. The reality is, both are already at or near the bottom of the cost curve, as we see for example in the cost rebounds of solar and batteries.
Whatever technology fills that last 5% will have a seriously high LCOE, because the entire capital & fixed operational cost must be amortized over just a 5% capacity factor. Today, even using legacy CCGT for this (for which most costs are already sunk) many providers are struggling to stay solvent. Once these plants age out, the true cost of balancing intermittency will be seen.
The value of nuclear is simply to reduce the size of the variable fraction of the energy mix, and thus reduce the size of the difficult balancing problem. Talking about nuclear 'not being able to load follow' completely (and perhaps deliberately) misses this point. I have no doubt that it's an argument that originates from the anti-nuclear lobby.
@Enemy of the state we are in! Eg GenCost produced by Australia's national science institution (CSIRO). Believe IEA tend to use system costs nowadays too
Wind power is easy to shut off,no cost
Interesting that Tom allowed Micheal to essentially keep taking the the flawed LCOE cost argument while not properly addressing whole system costs i.e. balancing. Julia Pike would not have allowed him to get away with that for one second! In fairness I'm pretty sure Micheal does get it, but he was playing devils advocate, because unfortunately, it's the state of the energy market that currently exists. As the penetration of intermittent renewables increases, the problems will become apparent and the market structure must be adapted.
Electron beam welding can weld it up in a day
Natium reactor might be better,will take 5 yrs to license
Great interview, especially the questions around cost and flexibility. Frankly, seems difficult to see nuclear having any long-term future, outside of that relatively narrow industrial case you mentioned, where the industrial customer shuts down and the nuclear plant then provides grid firming for that duration; those relatively narrow use cases, however, would limit experience curves and economies of scale efficiencies. The other key question is whether green hydrogen can beat nuclear on cost; if that point does come, difficult to see nuclear having any remaining use cases.
In the US, paid for power plants are shutting down because the uranium fuel costs more than natural gas. Promoters of nuclear power never talk about the cost of the fuel for their dream reactors.
The fuel costs are insignificant. The operating costs are what make nuclear so expensive
Thorcon is aiming for 30$ meg
Rolls roys up300% 18 months
why was he fired? He knows this business well. Worried out this new CEO
Maybe drugs
No Innovation, in Switzerland are in the Beznau nuclear power plant two 400MW SMR in service since more then 50 years. I see no economic case for this technology on the long run.
I think maybe you miss the point. Henry Ford didn't invent the car either, but he sure as hell sold a lot of them. This is what RR are trying to do.
@@enemyofthestatewearein7945 Massproduction with limited quantity like other investment goods or Military equipment have not the same huge scale effects as for consumer products as cars or TVs.
Even massproduced Rolles Royce cars would still be expensive compared to Toyota cars.
The nuclear fuel cost will not be lower and the cost for operation oft the SMR plant could be higher due to the higher number of reactors.
Finaly the probability of a accident will statistically increase due to the much bigger number of reactors in service. No Insurance company will cover this Risk in future.
As Bill Clinton said: Its the economy stupid!