For some time now, also due to the policy of abandoning fossil fuels and
the decline of cheap Russian gas and oil, nuclear power has come backinto fashion, revisited. They are proposing it in a new format, small
and beautiful, clean and safe, functional and easy to handle...
manageable. But does it really exist, how real is it, how much is it an
expectation? And it is also true that it has no counter-indications ----
Here we are again with the Italian government proposing to use nuclear
power as a source of clean energy. After the boom of the 60s, there was
a sudden slowdown in nuclear programs worldwide, despite the oil crisis
of the 70s that caused a sudden and significant increase in the cost of
black gold. The only exception was China, which needed to significantly
increase energy production for the development of the country, as well
as for the production of fissile material for military purposes.
The reasons for the reduction, if not the cancellation, of new nuclear
programs have been many: from economic ones (huge initial costs for the
implementation of a nuclear power plant, accompanied by very long
construction times) to safety: a few, but significant accidents
(Chernobyl first and foremost, but also the more recent Fukushima
disaster) have led to a form of caution. In Italy, in 2011, a popular
referendum led to the repeal of a 2008 law that provided for the
construction of new power plants. Undoubtedly, however, the most serious
problem was and is that of the storage of radioactive waste which
represents an additional cost, typically included in a very partial way,
difficult to quantify, and which falls on future generations for many
years to come. In recent years, the evident climate changes induced by
an excess of CO2 in the atmosphere have rekindled interest in this form
of energy. Before considering new generation reactors, it is useful to
include some energy considerations. While it is true that the production
of nuclear energy from fission does not directly involve CO2 emissions
(not burning fossil fuels), it is also true that a massive production of
nuclear energy would require a massive extraction of radioactive
material that is, yes, relatively abundant, but very dispersed (like, if
not worse, the so-called rare earths). This implies increasing
extraction costs as the number of operational nuclear power plants
increases and the costs I am referring to are energy costs rather than
monetary costs, with the not too remote prospect that in the end the
energy balance (how much produced compared to how much consumed) could
even become negative (and this without taking into account the
environmental impact). In other words, it is not realistic to think of
nuclear as a substitute for oil.
In this context, the interest in a new class of small reactors fits in:
the so-called SMR - small modular reactors - which should generate a
maximum of 300MW. Their popularity is due both to a presumed more
efficient use of nuclear fuel and greater "manageability" (reduced
investment costs).
Under the necessary assumption that SMRs can at most be considered as
one of the many "alternative" sources, let's take a closer look at the
issue of the declared reduction of environmental impact. One might
expect that there are many scientific studies to support this thesis. In
practice, I found a work, recently published (2022) in a high-profile
journal (PNAS: Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, vol. 119,
e2111833119), where the authors seriously question the reduced danger.
The abstract of their article states: "The low-, intermediate-, and
high-level waste stream characterization presented here reveals that
SMRs will produce more voluminous and chemically/physically reactive
waste than LWRs (read: standard reactors) which will impact options for
the management and disposal of this waste". For completeness and
correctness, we add that the same authors also state that the production
of radionuclides from SMRs should be lower than that of LWRs.
The fact remains
that the type of waste and even its volume is increasing and these
materials must be treated separately with relative costs. One cannot
help but conclude that this (third generation) technology is still
premature.
In fact, while we read about many projects in development, there are
still no marketable SMRs. The most advanced model has been developed in
China. This is not strange given that it is the country where the skills
have been developed most recently (although in relation to traditional
technologies). Looking at the major powers, it should be noted that
Russia produces most of the "fuel" for SMRs. This is not a small matter
since in a context of global instability it would be necessary to ensure
complete control of the entire energy production chain. Finally, there
is the USA that is trying to enter this market, even though they too
have not yet developed a commercially attractive product. There are
various reasons, starting from the fact that the technological gap
between China and the USA in the wind and solar sectors is currently
very large and difficult to fill (for the Americans): it is better to
invest in the nuclear sector, where the USA has decades of experience.
In addition, SMRs, although relatively small, have the potential to be
economically convenient for those who produce them (will produce). First
of all, the market of potential buyers is larger than that of
traditional nuclear power plants: smaller plants have lower installation
and operating costs; the technology can be sold to many countries given
the minimal risks of producing material usable for the production of
nuclear weapons. In addition, the use of SMR requires that a multi-year
economic relationship (read dependency) be established, due to the
continuous need for safety checks, for the purchase of fuel, and its
recycling/storage. Excellent characteristics in the perspective of
maintaining control by those who hold know-how.
And the Italians? Chartered accountant Gilberto Pichetto Fratin,
Minister of the Environment and Energy Security of Italy, stated that
nuclear energy is a sector in which we are at the forefront. This was
true 60 years ago, when Italy had developed a type of reactor that was
then decommissioned in deference to our "bosses". Nominally there are a
certain number of startups or departments of companies such as Ansaldo
that are involved in various initiatives, but we must take into account
that the multiplicity of projects (which reflects what is happening in
general in the world) is the consequence of the current uncertainty
about the technology that will then turn out to be successful: as if to
say that the situation is still premature. It should be added that in
February 2023 the EU, or rather 13 countries, signed a document that
supports the development of nuclear power. Italy is not among the
signatory countries (it is included among the observer countries): how
come we are at the forefront?
Finally, remaining in the nuclear field, nuclear fusion could represent
a real decisive step, but many years after the construction of the first
H-bomb, it still remains a chimera. By bombarding a microscopic cloud of
atoms with laser pulses, it was recently stated (2022 in the Livermore
laboratories) that for the first time more energy was produced than was
consumed, but the declared excess of energy is relative to the energy
contained in the laser pulses, the production of which in turn requires
even more energy. Furthermore, there is a scalability problem to be
solved: the quantities produced are minimal and the process is very
unstable. Let the research continue, but everything suggests that the
need to reduce energy waste should soon be taken seriously; in a period
in which energy is squandered for the "production" of cryptocurrencies
or to store, maintain and circulate petabytes of "information" for the
control of consensus by a few.
Antonio Politi
https://www.ucadi.org/2025/01/02/il-ritorno-del-nucleare/
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