Bashundhara Group and mini nuclear plants

Feb. 10, 2012 - PRLog -- Bashundhara Group’s (BG) memorandum of understanding (MoU) with NIC International of American to set up a 20 MW mini nuclear power plant (MNP) in Manikganj – a first in the private sector – is a milestone initiative. The plant is expected to be operational by February 2012 – hoping all paraphernalia are completed on time.

In the signing ceremony (Daily Sun, 24 April), BG Chairman Ahmed Sobhan recognised –and rightly so-- that its MNP isn’t going to add a big dent in the country’s power shortfall ; instead it sets an example for entrepreneurs to be enthused about similar groundbreaking projects.

Yes, adding 20MW to the country’s electricity shortfall of 4000MW or so is a drop in a bucket but if other enterprising industries add 20MW each -- powering their own internal demand and adding the surplus to the country’s supply grid -- would invariably lessen the woes of the multitudes of firms and businesses.

MNP is regarded as a leapfrog technology. “They’re simple and robust, with safety features to allow a country without nuclear expertise to gradually put in small plants, and get people trained and familiar with them before moving into more complex plants,” said Mitsuru Kambe of Japan’s Central Research Institute of Electrical Power Industry.

The MNPs are factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade nuclear material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased, buried underground with reinforced concrete.

Despite my exhaustive search, I failed to find if NIC International --with which BG signed the MoU -- builds their own MNPs or subcontracts them. As a result I couldn’t highlight the technical aspects of the specific MNP to be imported by BG. My best guess is that BG’s plant could be built by Hyperion–a New Mexico based nuclear engineering firm which made more headways in developing the MNP technology than its rivals.

The US government has licensed the technology in 2008 to Hyperion. Its Chief Executive John Deal said that Hyperion’s goal is to generate electricity for 10 cents a kilowatt hour anywhere in the world. They’ll cost approximately $25 million each which breaks down to $2,500 per home for a community with 10,000 households. Hyperion claims to have already received over 100 confirmed orders -- largely from the oil and electricity industries. It’s now targeting developing countries and isolated communities where large power plans are deemed unfeasible.

Hyperion factories are set to produce 4,000 plants between 2013 and 2023. The reactors, only a few meters in diameter (approximately 9 feet by 6 feet), can be delivered on the back of a truck. They’re designed to refuel every 7 to 10 years. There’s absolutely no possibility of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl or Fukushima types of catastrophic accidents with MNPs.

Hyperion MNP also called “nuclear battery” is a liquid metal reactor. Each MNP can produce approximately 27 MW of thermal energy and it’s totally self-contained, involves no moving parts, cannot overheat, no mechanical function to maintain, and therefore, doesn’t require a human operator.

The reactors are loaded with a uranium hydride core --which serves as a combination of fuel and moderator-- surrounded by a hydrogen atmosphere. Here is how the nuclear activity inside the nuclear battery is maintained:

Hyperion claims that the device is self-stabilising and requires no moving mechanical components to control nuclear criticality. In contrast with large nuclear plants (LNP), the control of nuclear activity is attained through the temperature driven mobility of the hydrogen isotope contained in the hydride. If the core temperature increases above a preset threshold, the hydrogen isotope dissociates from the hydride and escapes out of the core, the moderation drops (fission chain reaction drops) and the energy release (power production) decreases.

Once the core temperature drops, the hydrogen isotopes is again become associated by the fissile metal hydride and the process is reversed. The chemical isotope splits chemically when it gets too hot. For example, what happens when water boils? It turns into steam-- right? Hence, one can design the water system to not exceed its boiling point, which requires keeping the water under pressure to force higher temperatures.

The self-sufficient MNP is simply buried underground with reinforced concrete and once hooked up to a steam turbine, it generates enough electricity to power a 25,000-home community for at least 7 –10 years without refueling.

Building LNPs entail enormous safety concerns –let alone other unfavorables such as construction time (8--10 years), cost ($10 billion plus), location (e.g. away from city or high population areas, earthquake and Tsunami prone zones etc.) and over all complexities involved. MNPs can be built almost anywhere in large city, small city or in the backward of office buildings without requiring much safety concerns.

According Ron Moleshi of SNC-Lavalin Nuclear, Montreal, Canada, there’re at least eight different designs being pursued mainly in America and Asia. Because of regularity reviews and extensive testing not too many MNPs are going to be built until around 2017. International Atomic Energy predicts that only between 40 and 100 MNPs may be operational by 2030. Hence I have some doubts if the BG plant in Manikganj would be operational by February 2012.

Because of their modularity additional units can be added to a plant over the years – incrementally increasing power generation as demand rises and financing becomes available. This calls for BG to keep the provision for adding more MNPs in future in its Manikgang site to achieve economy of scale.

According to The Economist (9 Dec., 2009), NuScale Power of Corvallis, Oregon, offers a scalable plant consisting of 12 MNPs, each with its own electricity generating turbine producing about one third as much power as a large reactor at a cost of $2.2 billion. Large plants can cost three times as much having little or no difference in per kilowatt hour electricity cost. Additionally, MNPs can start bringing revenues within 2 –3 years --from ordering to construction-- as opposed to LNPs which takes a decade to construct and ready for power generation.

MNPs aren’t without its “cons” – however small they may be. Skeptics argue “anything that can be buried can be dug up and misused.” Edwin Lyman, a nuclear expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists said, “If sabotaged, even a 20-megawatt reactor could release a substantial amount of radiation.” If these aren’t cynical what are?

The amount of nuclear fuel loaded in a MNP is extremely small. It’s too hot to handle but would immediately cool off if exposed to air -- technical sources assert. The nuclear waste after seven years of burning is so negligible it will reportedly produce a mass slightly bigger than a cricket ball (approximately 6.5 cm in diameter) and that will be easily recycled, according to atomic energy sources.

Obviously the “cons” of MNPs are nearly meritless. For a developing country like Bangladesh, MNPs are the easiest, quickest, and least costly way private sector may profitably investment in power generation.

Bashundhara Group’s pioneering initiative -- as Ahmed Sobhan has articulated –should prompt other conglomerates to invest in MNPs to take a bite of the country’s power shortfall – providing stable power to meet companies own demand while bettering citizens’ life and living -- selling the surplus.

The writer, formerly a Physicist and Nuclear Engineer, is a Professor of Economics at Eastern Michigan University, USA.