A small nuclear reactor for a small polar community? | Polarjournal
Akulivik is a village in Nunavik with more than 600 people and have its own airport. The municipality is powered by a thermal power plant. Image : Chouch

Small modular reactors (SMRs) could provide nuclear power to Arctic communities in Canada. The Ontario University of Technology is moving forward with the ZAN4e reactor, which is specially designed to operate in extreme conditions.

Two engineers from the Ontario University of Technology in Canada report in Nuclear Technology on the operation of a small modular reactor (SMR) designed for isolated Arctic communities. Jordan Crowell and Eleodor Nichita say ZAN4e would be capable of producing 3.5 MW of electricity for 2 years and 9 months, and would heat enough water to power the home heating system of an average community in the Canadian Arctic. “Our modeling just proved that it’s theoretically feasible,” Jordan Crowell tells us.

Researchers believe that the ZAN4e design makes the reactor technically viable, but several areas need to be improved before it can be built 1. fluid flow 2. the nature of the tanks to avoid any accidental air entry 3. Chemical interactions between lead and stainless steel.

The tank containing the enriched uranium is cooled by a liquid that circulates in a closed circuit inside the reactor. The fluid contains lead to prevent freezing, heats up and turns into steam to turn the turbine. “We can’t use water because outside it can sometimes be -50°C,” Jordan Crowell explains. ZAN4e should be used in areas with no water production or reservoirs and no other source of electricity.

Freezing the machine would lead to complications that would be difficult to resolve on site. The microstation is fully pressurized and watertight. To open it, it would have to be transported to a specialized plant where SMRs would have to be reconditioned and restocked with uranium. These plants would also be responsible for the nuclear waste, which remains radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. Their recycling remains unfeasible and storage remains the only known solution. France, for example, stores its waste in specialized pools and is studying the possibility of burying it 500 meters underground.

Visit of the SMR project developed in Texas by Last Energy, followed by the intervention of Edwin Lyman, physicist and director of the nuclear safety branch of the American Union of Concerned Scientists, who expresses his skepticism about SMRs. Video: YouTube / The Associated Press

The Canadian government believes that replacing diesel generators in Arctic communities with this technology would be beneficial in reducing carbon emissions and expenses. “The current cost of production is about 10 times higher in the Arctic than in densely populated, grid-connected areas. ” explains Jordan Crowell. The difference in cost comes from transportation. The sea lanes are blocked in winter by ice, the villages are far from the refineries, and it is sometimes necessary to refuel by helicopter.

The Canadian RMS Development Plan identifies 79 communities with electricity consumption greater than 1 MW in the regions of New Brunswick, Nunavut, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Twenty-nine isolated mining sites are also affected by the national plan. The government has organized roundtables that bring together local communities, research institutes and energy producers to establish a dialogue.

The price of construction of a SMR varies according to the models, Jordan Crowell estimates the first ZAN4e to two hundred million euros and “would be already less expensive than the current mode of production of electricity of the arctic communities, and the more one produces the more costs decrease”. The Arctic is a small part of Canada’s technology development plan to take its place in the international marketplace. Canada plans to export RMS worth 150 billion euros per year between 2030 and 2040, and expects to have its first functional RMS by 2026.

Camille Lin, Polar Journal

Link to study: Crowell, J., Nichita, E., 2023. Conceptual Design of a Micro Nuclear Reactor for Canadian Arctic Communities. Nuclear Technology 0, 1-11, https://doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2022.2135334.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email
error: Content is protected !!
Share This