In a major setback personally and for the future of all life on earth, this week I said goodbye to my environmental Fluor Corporation consulting job, as did many others receive “Reduction-In-Force” (RIF) notices, after the NuScale small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) project in Idaho got cancelled. For the past 13-months, I joined several consultants preparing permitting documents for review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). We completed numerous pre-application activities including attending meetings around the country, submitting the first Limited Work Authorization for early construction and we were on track for completing the license application and an environmental report to U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) this year. The project received significant federal funding and support including being remotely sited along with about 50 other nuclear reactor projects at Idaho National Laboratory (INL).
So what was the CFPP and why did we say sayonara or ‘SayoMaRa’ to the proposal? The Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP) planned to build six SMRs in a connected series of units that would have produced 77 megawatts (MW) each for a total of 462 MW. One MW can provide power for about 750 homes so the proposed CFPP at a 90% capacity would provide power to about 310,000 homes.
Increasing inflation and other factors caused the project to fail. Anticipated construction costs doubled so utility customers became reluctant to subscribe to the CFPP. With extensive research and working with other experts, I concluded the benefits far outweighed the potential costs comparing all the options available. Unfortunately, to my knowledge this information did not get shared with the public. Ironically, favorability of nuclear power is growing in America: currently at 57%, up from 43% in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center.
Many people think we can solve all our energy needs with renewables like wind, solar, hydroelectric dams, geothermal, or biomass. That’s like driving a car without understanding how and how often to add fuel. According to The Urbanist, a SMR needs only about 0.1 square mile of land mass as compared to hundreds of square miles for equivalent wind or solar farms producing only intermittent energy.
Obviously, there is not enough land space, continuous sunlight or wind, battery storage facilities, dammed rivers, hot rocks, or wood pellets to burn on the earth to meet our ever increasing energy demands. The only baseload power plants are from burning coal, natural gas or radioactive decay from elements like thorium and uranium. SMRs are designed to provide grid stability and work with alternative energy sources to keep the lights on consistently.
This is a global problem and what happened to America’s drive for energy independence? Microsoft founder Bill Gates knows the importance of nuclear power - he’s very involved in energy and climate issues such as creating advanced nuclear TerraPower designs starting with proposing to replace a coal plant in Wyoming.
NRC previously approved the NuScale design, originally developed at Oregon State University, for a larger 12-unit SMR plant which contains numerous advances in passive safety features. NuScale is the only SMR design currently approved by NRC.
Here are some additional new articles:
NuScale Ends Utah Project, in Blow to US Nuclear Power Ambitions
“On Wednesday, NuScale and its backers pulled the plug on the multibillion-dollar Idaho Falls plant. They said they no longer believed the first-of-its-kind plant, known as the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP) would be able to recruit enough additional customers to buy its power.”
“The Department of Energy, which was due to host the plant at Idaho National Lab, awarded $1.4 billion to the project over 10 years.”
“UAMPS spokesperson Jessica Stewart told WIRED that the utility group would expand its investments in a major wind farm project and pursue other contracts for geothermal, solar, battery, and natural gas projects”
Axios reported, “The Energy Department had provided $232 million for the project since October 2020. An agency spokesperson said the work will be valuable in the future, adding: "While not every project is guaranteed to succeed, DOE remains committed to doing everything we can to deploy these technologies to combat the climate crisis and increase access to clean energy."