A Nuclear Reactor By Any Other Name…

All nuclear reactors do the same thing – create heat from the decay and fission of radioactive materials. However, there are six different types of reactors used to generate electricity, differentiated by fuel, coolant and moderator.

Reactor Type	Locations	Number	Fuel	Coolant	Moderator
Pressurized Water	US, France, Japan, Russia, China	265	Enriched UO2	Water	Water
Boiling Water	US, Japan, Sweden	94	Enriched UO2	Water	Water
Pressurized Heavy Water	Canada	44	Natural UO2	Heavy Water	Heavy Water
Gas-cooled	UK	18	Enriched & Natural UO2	CO	Graphite
Light Water Graphite	Russia	12	Enriched UO2	Water	Graphite
Fast Neutron	Japan, France, Russia	2	PuO2, UO2	Liquid Sodium	None
Other	Russia	2	Enriched UO2	Water	Graphite

Source: World Nuclear Association

The fuel is usually uranium oxide (UO₂) in cylindrical pellets placed end-to-end in long tubes. Most reactors use enriched uranium which contains from 3.5 to 5.0 per cent U-235 (the really active ingredient) and from 95.0 to 96.5 U-238. A few reactors use natural uranium which consists of 0.7 per cent U-235 and more than 99.2 per cent U-238. In Fast Neutron reactors, plutonium oxide (PuO₂) is used

The moderator slows neutrons released during fission so that there is more chance they will collide with uranium atoms in the reactor core, releasing more neutrons and heat energy and sustaining a chain reaction.

The coolant is what carries the heat from the core to the either a steam generator or the turbines.

All reactors operate in the same basic way. The fuel is induced into a fission reaction wherein unstable U-235 atoms release neutrons and heat. The released neutrons are slowed by the moderator and collide with other atoms and more neutrons are released and a self-sustaining chain reaction develops. The coolant, contained in separate pipes running through the reactor core, absorbs the heat and, in all reactors but Boiling Water Reactors, carries it to a steam generator. The steam generator is a separate circuit in which water is turned to steam that turns the turbine that turns the generator. After passing through the turbine, the steam is condensed into water and continues the cycle. All this is housed in a containment structure designed to contain any material or vapour that could escape from the reactor in the event of a nuclear mishap.

With Pressurized Water Reactors, the water used as coolant is kept at very high pressure, and consequently, very high temperatures without boiling.

In Boiling Water Reactors, the coolant water is allowed to boil and become steam and that steam drives the turbine. There is no secondary steam circuit.

Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors operate are identical to Pressurized Water Reactors except they use heavy water as both coolant and moderator. Heavy water consists of deuterium oxide. Deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen with two neutrons instead of one. Heavy water slows neutrons so efficiently that the uranium fuel doesn’t need to be enriched, and natural uranium can be used. The primary Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor is the CANDU reactor, developed in Canada, hence the name – CANada DUterium.

Graphite-moderated reactors sit in a solid block of graphite and use either light water or carbon monoxide as coolant.

Fast neutron reactors use neutrons from plutonium derived from U-238 surrounding the plutonium. They are sometimes called Breeder Reactors.

All of the reactors generating electricity in Canada are Pressurized Heavy Water CANDU Reactors. The reactors at Fukushima Dai-ichi are Boiling Water Reactors. The Chernobyl reactor was a Light Water Graphite Reactor with no containment structure. Three Mile Island was a Pressurized Water Reactor.

Uranium Present and Past

The global uranium market has had three different drivers since the mineral’s commercial value was recognized in the early 1900s.

Demand for radium, an element often found with uranium, was the initial driver. Radium was used in the treatment of cancer. In 1931, uranium with radium was found near Echo Bay on the east shore of Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories. The Eldorado Mine at nearby Radium City, produced from 1933 to 1940.

From the 1940s until the mid-1960s, uranium demand was driven by the development of atomic weapons. The Eldorado mine re-opened in 1942 and mines were developed at Uranium City, Saskatchewan in 1952; Elliot Lake, Ontario in 1954; and Bancroft, Ontario in 1956. The Bancroft mines closed in 1964 when the military use of uranium declined.

In the late 1960s, use of uranium in nuclear power plants drove the market. Three mines at Bancroft reopened from 1972 to 1982. At its peak, Uranium City had more than 50 mines and open pits, but by 1983, the mines had all closed. Twelve mines at Elliot Lake produced a total of 550,000 tonnes of U₃O₈ from 1954 to 1996, when the ore ran out.

Currently, all Canadian production comes form three mines in north-central Saskatchewan. In 2009, this totalled 12,020 tonnes of U₃O₈, about 20 per cent of global production, second only to Kazakhstan.

Canada reserves of uranium totalled 287,350 tonnes of U₃O₈ in 2009, fifth largest in the world overall. However, Canadian is considered to have the largest reserves of high-grade natural uranium.

Image: esask.uregina.ca

Kapow! Nuclear fusion with a bullet

If John Woo had decided to get into the energy sector instead of bullet-ridden action movies, he might have proposed something like this: firing a diamond bullet into a chunk of solid methane to produce nuclear fusion. And you thought nuclear energy was already exciting.

Of course, the idea of using a high-speed projectile as an energy source is just a theory at the moment, proposed by a group of Chinese researchers at Beijing University in a pair of papers (“Hypervelocity Macroscopic Particle Impact Fusion with DT Methane” and “Fast Ignition Impact Fusion with DT methane”). Even though the energy required to fire a millimetre-sized bullet at 1,000 km/s is considerable, the papers’ authors believe there would still be a net energy gain.

According to the Popular Science article linked above:
The collision’s peak energy is 4 petawatts, at a rate of 1.5 petawatts over 40 nanoseconds. That’s four quadrillion watts. About 80 percent of that energy is wasted in the form of scattered neutrons, but the remaining electrons and radiation are enough to heat things up to fusion temperatures.

Novel alternatives to the current model of nuclear generation are cropping up every day, from alternative fuel sources like uranium nitride to DIY enthusiasts (link to DIY nuclear). But when it comes to exciting alternatives, it’s going to be hard to beat a diamond bullet. Unless, somehow, they can also include a golden gun.

Via Popular Science

A balanced approach

Canadian Nuclear Association Annual Conference Report 5

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall has challenged the energy sector and its public-sector overseers to take a fresh look at how they handle cap-and-trade.

“The major achievements of humankind have been made not by new systems of reporting on balance sheets or shifting, in the case of the current dialogue, emissions around balance sheets,” he told a Canadian Nuclear Association conference audience. “The achievements of humankind have been about technological and innovative achievement.”

Wall said that there has been a lot of talk about cap-and-trade and its potential effect on the North American economy, and while he said his province is “not opposed in principle” to the idea, a new approach is critical.

Moreover, there was no reason why Saskatchewan, which has mined uranium since 1944 and now accounts for a nearly quarter of global output, cannot be in the vanguard. And if it was “first and foremost an innovation challenge . . . why can’t Canada take a leadership position?”

Wall cited a Bruce Power feasibility study which concluded, that nuclear power could be an important element of Saskatchewan’s energy mix and have a major positive economic impact. It also indicated that public support in Saskatchewan is among the highest in the world.

Capitalizing on that sentiment, the province set up the Uranium Development Partnership, presided over by University of Saskatchewan Vice-President Richard Florizone, whose degrees include nuclear physics. Its members also include Patrick Moore, a Greenpeace co-founder.

Saskatchewan is looking at small reactors of the kind installed for decades on aircraft carriers and submarines as a way of providing electricity to remote populations and to generate heat for heavy oil and oilsands deposits, rather than burning fossil fuels.

Wall also challenged the federal government to cede more regulatory sovereignty and shift the focus of environmental due diligence to performance in an effort to speed up the uranium mine and mills approval process. Although he said environmental reviews need both levels of government, he called for a more balanced approach to energy development.

A need for change

Canadian Nuclear Association Annual Conference Report 3

It’s common practice to present conference speakers with a token gift for their efforts. Brad Wall, a 10-year veteran of the Saskatchewan legislature and Premier since November 2007, enjoys these perquisites.

When he mentioned Saskatchewan’s beef industry to one audience, he was rewarded by the industry with some beef jerky and a stockman’s tie. When he told another audience that Saskatchewan accounts for 25 percent of the world’s mustard production, the growers sent him a mustard-coloured tie and pocket square and an assortment of mustards and seeds.

So when he spoke at the Canadian Nuclear Association’s recent annual conference, he joked that he was particularly mindful of his audience. His expectation that “any gifts that I may receive I can actually store at my house” elicited hearty laughter.

From there on, however, Wall was all business. ”By any measure, Saskatchewan is to uranium what Saudi Arabia is to oil,” he said, adding that a significant percentage of homes in the United States can trace their electricity back to his province’s uranium.

(pictured above: McArthur River Mine, northern Saskatchewan). While the industry spends more than $188 million on salaries, wages and benefits in a sector where half of its workers are First Nations or Metis, which Wall believes is unique in North America, simply mining uranium was “not good enough” and he wants to change that.

He pointed out that in July 1949, Dr. Harold Johns of the University of Saskatchewan, visited the Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories near Ottawa to get the country’s first therapeutic cobalt wafer. Installed in a “cobalt bomb” at the university hospital’s new cancer wing, it was used to treat a 40-year-old woman with advanced cancer in November 1951. The patient lived to be 90.

“Just as 1949 was a year of discovery, 2009 can be the beginning of a new era in sustainable nuclear energy development or the next medical application or development in science” Wall said.

Nuclear energy is here to stay

Energy is a cornerstone of the national economy – in some regions, the very bedrock – but polls suggest it’s not a “top of mind” issue. A key component in that energy foundation is nuclear energy, a clean, reliable, affordable source. 

But not everyone is in favour of this energy source. Nuclear energy has been a polarizing issue in many Canadian regions. Nuclear energy has its strong supporters, but it also has its objectors. While a recent Ipsos Public Affairs poll found support for nuclear energy has never been higher in Canada, Canadians overwhelmingly prefer other “alternative” sources of power to nuclear.  

Nuclear power has been in the news of late. In January, the federal government allotted $351 million towards nuclear power through Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL). Bruce Power in Ontario is in the refurbishing two nuclear power plants and plans are afoot to refurbish or build new nuclear power plants in  eastern Canada. As well, Alberta and Saskatchewan governments have been publicly musing nuclear operations.

Fact: Canada is one of the world’s foremost nuclear energy producers

Canada is the top exporter of uranium, and 15 per cent of the country’s total electricity is generated in nuclear plants – a deceptively low figure, considering Canada’s nuclear-generated power is intensely regional. The vast majority of the country’s  22 reactors are in Ontario, which generate over half of the province’s electricity. Quebec and New Brunswick each have a single reactor, the latter generating 30  per cent of the New Brunswick’s electricity prior to its being refurbished which began in April 2008 with plans to be operational early in 2010.

Nuclear power has come a long way since the 1970s, offering a viable solution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Where nuclear power is abundant, says Canadian Nuclear Association (CNA) Director of Communications & Media Relations Claudia Lemieux, support is highest. In Ontario, support for nuclear power is the highest in the country, as around two-thirds of the population supports it.

Despite the role nuclear energy plays in Canada, it has received scant attention. “Nuclear hasn’t been part or taught in the broader discussion of energy in schools,” says Lemieux. The CNA had done some preliminary work on educational resources in the mid 1990s, but it was out of date. “It was just left there, and I felt that was such a shame,” says Lemieux. She decided to do something about it.

For the past several years, Lemieux and the CNA have been working with leaders and experts in the nuclear, electricity, political and education realms, and are nearing completion.

The project is nothing less than a fully interactive educational resource for high schools – hopefully to be used as part of a pan-Canadian science curriculum.  

The result is the Nuclear Science Technology High School Curriculum Website. It’s a tool developed to explain concepts, issues and people related to energy and in particular, nuclear energy. The website was developed for the public, for teachers and specifically for students in grades 9 to 12.

The CNA’s motivation for this is twofold: one, the nuclear industry is growing and will need an infusion of skilled labour, and two, statistics demonstrate conclusively that support for nuclear power is directly tied to the amount of information available. Simply put, the more people know about nuclear power, the better they feel about it.   

Clean, reliable, affordable

The information tends to support increased use of and investment into nuclear power. Using nuclear power to produce electricity, Canada annually avoids the emission of 85 million tonnes of greenhouse gases that would be produced using conventional means. That’s about 12 per cent of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions, or about the same amount produced by 17 million cars and trucks. 

In addition, Canada’s nuclear reactors emit virtually no sulphur dioxide or nitrous oxides, the gases that cause smog and acid rain. Using nuclear power to produce electricity in Canada, we avoid the emission of an additional 10 per cent of these smog and acid rain producing gases of total national emissions.

Reliable can mean “dependable” or “safe.” The evidence suggests nuclear is both. First, it’s the very definition of dependable; unlike other green energy sources such as solar or wind, nuclear power doesn’t depend on meteorological conditions.  

The Canadian nuclear industry boasts an exemplary safety record and a strict regulatory system. In June 2002, a Senate Committee concluded Canada’s domestic nuclear reactors are among the safest in operation anywhere in the world.  

Nuclear power is also increasingly cost competitive when compared to other sources of electricity generation   

The World Nuclear Association (WNA) says nuclear power is cost competitive with other forms of electricity generation, except where there is direct access to low-cost fossil fuels. 

Nuclear energy in Canada

Perhaps, Québec and BC, with their abundance of hydro, don’t necessarily need to examine adding nuclear power.  But, for other  provinces, nuclear is viable both economically, and as a means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As the WNA says, if the social, health and environmental costs of fossil fuels are also taken into account, nuclear is outstanding in terms of cost-effectiveness. Coal and oil-rich Alberta, for example, is considering a nuclear plant.  

So if that’s the good news, what’s the bad news? 

While the Ipsos poll reveals Canadians tend to rank energy low on their list of national priorities, when they do consider energy, they tend to be skeptical. Slightly more than half (55 per cent) felt there was enough electricity in their provinces to meet future needs. In nuclear-dominated Ontario, that confidence was lowest – just 43 per cent. While conservation is broadly supported, 63 per cent of the national sample Felt that conservation efforts will not be enough to offset demand for electricity. 

Broadly speaking, then, Canadians believe more, not less, energy sources will need to be found and/or exploited – while still supporting conservation and green energy in general. 

The bad news is that nuclear tends not to be Canadians’ first choice to fill that void.  

When it came to choosing ways to supplement energy supplies, 97 per cent preferred solar power while 95 per cent would opt for wind generation, 91 per cent hydro, 75 per cent natural gas, 48 per cent nuclear and 24 per cent coal. “While this is what people say they would like to see, it is unrealistic that intermittent sources like and wind and solar can meet demand” says Lemieux. “In Canada, these sources generate less than 1% of electricity generation and require large amount of land. 

Furthermore, nuclear power is while firmly opposed by 16 per cent of Canadians has 48% of strong support which is at record highs in 2009.  

“While there still is a strong anti-nuclear lobby in Canada,” says Lemieux. “Their thinking is firmly rooted in the 70s.”  

The CNA believes increased education and awareness will be on their side. In Canada, the US and Europe, support for nuclear power is always highest where it already exists, and where the most information is available. With the federal government onside, public awareness can only increase.  

Nuclear energy is here to stay

Investing in nuclear energy, including the $351 million earmarked for AECL in the 2009 budget, is part of Canada’s ecoACTION plan, designed to ensure “a cleaner and healthier environment.”  

There are a number of reasons for the federal government’s increased interest in nuclear energy, including growing demand for energy worldwide, rising fossil fuel prices and concerns over global warming. 

If there is a “green energy revolution” in Canada and elsewhere, it seems certain nuclear energy will be part of it.

The case for a world energy market

Canada’s federal government has stated clearly that developing a Canada/U.S. partnership on energy and the environment is a priority. This idea finds support across the spectrum of opinion in Canada, creating common ground between environmental and energy interests. But what’s in it for the new U.S. administration?

Assuring the U.S. of our reliability as a supplier of energy is good. But this isn’t new and could easily be construed as an attempt by Canada to lock in its market access for natural gas, oil, electricity, and uranium – commodities for which we are already the number one supplier to the U.S. Signalling our willingness to partner on environmental management is also positive, but from a U.S. perspective it adds complexity to an extremely difficult domestic challenge.

Rather than focussing on our bilateral relationship, Canada’s strongest leverage on U.S. policy may in fact come from contributing to a broader international agenda where Canada and U.S. interests converge. Prime Minister Mulroney succeeded well with Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush by following such a course. More recently, our military mission in Afghanistan has gained us far more credit in Washington than any other Canadian initiative in the past decade.

Energy creates such multilateral opportunities. Canada can partner with the U.S. in promoting a stable world energy trade, investment and carbon management system that builds on energy markets rather than getting in their way.

The mantra in the U.S. is energy independence. It is a powerful sound byte yet impossible to achieve. North America will be dependent on imported oil as far into the future as we can see. Although the continent is virtually self-sufficient in natural gas, we also have access to world gas markets through liquefied natural gas (LNG) re-gasification capacity equivalent to over 15% of our domestic use. Even ethanol might be better sourced in places like Brazil if the objective were to find the most economic and environmentally preferable supplies. With our effectively functioning markets and flexible pipeline and storage systems, Canada and the U.S. can fulfil their energy needs strategically from either domestic sources or world markets. And of course we will be increasingly tied into a world carbon management system.

Clearly, Canada and the U.S. have a substantial and growing interest in a well-functioning world energy market. There is potential for cooperation in several areas, including energy markets, the yet-to-be defined carbon market, investment rules, northern development and technology. Canada has a great deal to contribute to the conversation if we decide to step up.

Canada has earned its place at this table. We have learned the hard lessons of the National Energy Program – how bad policy can wreak havoc on energy markets and sow interregional discord. We went through the tough political fight over energy in the free trade agreement. Many voices claimed in 1988 that the FTA energy chapter was a sellout of our sovereignty and our energy security. Twenty years on we have enjoyed unprecedented wealth creation and energy stability for producers and customers based on open markets complemented by North American trade and investment rules. We are a free market champion with the scars to prove it.

Meanwhile much of the world has lost faith in markets. The reaction to the recent financial meltdown (markets don’t work, let’s regulate) is piled on top of a longer trend away from open energy markets in non-OECD countries. Price management, state control of investment and energy assets and geopolitical market manipulation have become prevalent. Soon we may add ill-conceived carbon management systems to this witch’s brew.

The recurring natural gas price dispute between Russia and Ukraine, and its impact on European energy security, is a window on a world without solid trade and investment agreements. At a time when we can least afford such instability, the threat of this contagion of national self-interest is clear.

The United States and Canada have a fundamental interest in building a stable world energy market, not Fortress North America. President Obama’s visit to Canada is an ideal opportunity to begin forging an integrated approach that shapes international energy trade and investment rules, and develops mechanisms for cooperation on energy and carbon management that are necessary for those markets to work.

Pierre Alvarez, Chair, Canadian Centre for Energy Information,
Michael Cleland, President & CEO, Canadian Gas Association
Roger Gibbins, President, Canada West Foundation.

This is the first commentary in a three part series on national energy security. The series is based on a paper prepared for the recent North Pacific Energy Security Conference.

 

Recently, the Globe and Mail published an article by Canadian Centre for Energy Information Chair, Pierre Alvarez. The piece is based on a White Paper Mr. Alvarez wrote with Michael Cleland, President of the Canadian Gas Association and Roger Gibbins, President of Canada West Foundation. Another article by the same authors was published in the Edmonton Journal on the day President Obama visited Canada.