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 offering it to us 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 sharp 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: few, but significant accidents (Chernobyl
first and foremost, but also the more recent Fukushima disaster) have
induced 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 look more closely 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
dangerousness. The abstract of their article states: "The low-,
intermediate-, and high-level waste stream characterization presented
here reveals that SMR 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 under development, there are
still no marketable SMRs. The most advanced model was 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 the majority of the "fuel" for SMRs. This is no small
matter given that 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. The reasons are various, 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 time
when energy is wasted on the "production" of cryptocurrencies or to
store, maintain and circulate petabytes of "information" for the control
of consensus by a few.
* from Ucadi in Newsletter, Number 192 - December 2024
http://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/
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