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At the end of last year, 29 countries were operating 437 nuclear power plants with an installed capacity of 370Gw(e) and 56 new units with a combined capacity of 52GW(e) were under construction in 14 countries (23 of these are in China/Taiwan and nine in Russia).
Several countries, such as Germany and Italy, which had planned to phase out nuclear power, are revising their policies and the IAEA says 60 countries have approached the association expressing interest in introducing nuclear power for the first time. The major challenge to nuclear power generation in New Zealand is a public mind-set founded from ‘no nukes’ paranoia carried over from the Cold War days. As David Lange famously once said, we have trouble comprehending the difference between an atomic bomb and a nuclear reactor. It’s a fact – nuclear energy already generates as much power around the world as hydro and is increasing at a rate of knots as the most efficient and cleanest source of energy. Thechallenge for New Zealand, according to some of our politicians who drop the subject very quickly when the question of nuclear generation is raised, is the ‘scale’ of nuclear generators. The smallest capacity nuclear MW unit would have too much continual capacity for our modest power system. This not true. A small military power plant (1.5 MW PM-3A reactor) operated at McMurdo Sound in Antarctica, right next door to our own Scott base, for a decade between 1962-72, generating a total of 78 million kWh. Small nuclear reactors are now well advanced. As Bryan Leyland wrote in this magazine two years ago – modern reactors are already available with unit sizes well below 1000MW. The CANDU reactor from Canada, for instance, is available in sizes between 350 and 650MW and have been operating successfully around the world, producing low waste levels and burning thorium that is not only abundant and found in New Zealand, but is unsuitable for nuclear weapons. Small nuclear reactors have been operating around the world for some decades. In a remote corner of Siberia are four 62MW (thermal) units producing steam for district heating and 11MW (net) electricity each since 1976. Another small reactor is the Indian 220MW Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) based on Canadian technology. The inherently safe (i.e. cannot melt down) ‘Pebble Bed Modular Reactor’ built in South Africa comes in sealed modules rated at about 200MW. A power station of 6-8 modules would be ideal for New Zealand, says Leyland, as these reactors are able to change load quite rapidly and can operate efficiently down to 40 percent of maximum output.
Energy NZ Vol.4 No.5 September-October 2010 |
Many of these countries – such as Japan, the USA, Canada, the UK and France (where 76 percent of the country’s generation is nuclear) are New Zealand’s major trading partners, that obviously don’t take much notice of our ‘nuclear free’ stance when it comes to trade.