The photo is sourced from wired.com
New points on the map of NPPs
One of the drivers of the nuclear industry is the construction of reactors in the countries that do not yet have an operational NPP. This refers to, first of all, Turkey where construction is in progress on the Akkuyu NPP, which will have four VVER-1200 reactors with an overall capacity of 4.8 GW. Reactors of this type are already in use at the sixth and seventh power units of the Novovoronezhskaya NPP, which were connected to the grid in 2016 and 2019 respectively, as well as at the first unit of the Belarusian NPP launched in 2020. VVER-1200 reactors are notable for using so-called passive safety systems, which can function during full blackouts without the operator’s involvement.
VVER-1200 reactors will also be installed at the Rooppur NPP in Bangladesh and the El Dabaa NPP in Egypt where the share of nuclear generation in the national generation mix is currently zero. By building NPPs, both countries will be able to increase the share of low-carbon sources in their generation mix. For instance, fossil fuels accounted for 97.8% of power generation in Bangladesh and 86.9% in Egypt as of October 2022.
Nuclear renaissance in developed countries
The points of growth will be located in the developed countries of Europe, North America and East Asia where the launch of new nuclear reactors will help not only reduce emissions but also ensure the reliability of energy supplies. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that the generation of one kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity at an NPP produces 12 grams of carbon dioxide, while the emissions produced by coal and gas-fired power plants total 820 grams and 490 grams per kWh respectively. It should be noted that, being less dependent on the weather, NPPs have higher utilisation rates than renewables-based capacities: in the United States, average NPP utilisation rate in the first ten months of 2022 stood at 92.3%, while the utilisation rate for solar panels and wind generators reached 25.4% and 35.6% respectively.
These advantages will make it possible to launch new nuclear power units, such as the third and fourth power units of the Vogtle NPP (Georgia state) with an overall capacity of 2.5 GW in the United States, two 3.4 GW reactors at the Hinkley Point C NPP in Somerset County at the Atlantic coast of the United Kingdom, and the third and fourth units of the Saeul NPP with a capacity of 1.4 GW each, as well as the eighth power unit of the Hanul NPP with a capacity of 1.4 GW in South Korea. Meanwhile, several projects for small nuclear power plants (SNPPs) are currently at the pre-investment stage in Europe and North America: the U.S. company NuScale plans to build six small modular 0.3 GW reactors at Idaho National Laboratory, and the U.K.-based Rolls-Royce SMR, a subsidiary of the famous car giant, has chosen three sites for factories that will produce equipment for SNPPs.
Energy of new forms
However, the first land-based SNPP will be built in China, where concrete pouring was completed in 2022 for a 125 megawatts (MW) ACP100 reactor, which will be located at the Changjiang NPP in Hainan Province in the south of the country. After the SNPP goes into operation in 2026, it will be able to generate 1 bln kWh of electricity annually, enough to power 526,000 households. In addition, the reactor will be used for water desalination, as well as for generation of heat and industrial steam.
Also in 2022, China approved the launch of an experimental molten salt thorium reactor in Gansu Province, central China. The project, dubbed SINAP, will use thorium fluoride dissolved in the salts of lithium, beryllium (a light gray alkaline earth metal) and zirconium (a silver-white metal) as a fuel. The last project of this kind was the molten salt reactor at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the United States, which used uranium fluoride as a fuel.
Drivers of low-carbon demand
However, the overwhelming majority of the 23 power units with an overall capacity of 25.4 GW, which are under construction in China are Generation III light-water reactors, in which water serves as a coolant and the U-238 isotope of uranium as a fuel. The largest among them are the third and fourth power units of the Xudapu NPP (1,274 MW each) in Liaoning Province in northeastern China, as well as the seventh and eighth power units of the Tianwan NPP (1,265 MW each) in Jiangsu Province located on the coast of the Yellow Sea.
A similar correlation is observed in India, where the only under-construction Generation IV reactor is the 500 MW PFBR project, which is being implemented at the Madras NPP in the southern state of Tamil Nadu: it will use liquid sodium metal as a coolant and a mixture of oxides of plutonium and natural uranium as a fuel (so-called MOX fuel). The other projects are dominated by light-water reactors, except for the fourth unit of the 700 MW Kakrapar NPP in the western state of Gujarat, where heavy water (deuterium oxide) will be used as a coolant, which will make it possible to use less-enriched uranium as a fuel.
Overall, China and India account for more than half of the global capacity of the under-construction nuclear reactors (34.8 GW out of 63.9 GW), which is largely similar to the situation in other segments of the power industry. According to Ember research centre, the share of these two countries in the global capacity increase stood at 52% for wind generators and at 47% for solar panels in 2021.
