WNN reported in later 2020 that the 24 December event - Nuclear Energy: Accelerating a clean energy future - included panel members: Mohamed Al Hammadi, CEO of Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation; Alexander Voronkov, regional vice-president and director of Rosatom's Middle East and North Africa division; and Sama Bilbao y León, director general of World Nuclear Association. It was moderated by Martin Menachery, editor of Refining & Petrochemicals Middle East.
Benefits
Barakah Unit 1 - the first nuclear reactor in the Arab world - will be the single largest power generator in the UAE when it begins commercial operations early next year. "The UAE will benefit from this clean source of baseload energy and we are expecting that once we have all four units in operation about 25% of the nation's electricity will be generated from nuclear. That's equivalent to taking 3.2 million cars off the road annually," Al Hammadi said. To match the energy density of nuclear power with solar panels would require "covering a major part of the country", and "other than hydropower, nuclear is the only form of clean energy that can work 24/7".
Adoption of nuclear power has to be a strategic decision taken at the government level, Al Hammadi said, because each new-build project entails a commitment of up to 60 years, from construction to decommissioning. The UAE has made this commitment, he said, because it understands the benefits "clean and abundant electricity" will provide many of its industries, not only existing ones but also the hydrogen market of the future.
The UAE's Energy Strategy 2050, launched in 2017, aims to increase the contribution of clean energy in its total energy mix from 25% to 50% by 2050, and reduce the carbon footprint of its power generation by 70%. "We aren’t just talking about it, we're doing it," Al Hammadi said. The Barakah project has boosted the UAE's development of a home-grown workforce of nuclear specialists, he said.
"When we started 10 years ago we had a limited number of Emirati nuclear engineers. Today 60% of our staff of 3,000 people are Emiratis. Of the 30 UAE nationals who are trained reactor operators, three are female, and 20% of the total workforce is female. Having a mix of international and developing local talent is like a mosaic - beautiful and mixed." He highlighted academic courses, such as the M.Sc. in Nuclear Engineering Program at Khalifa University, and corporate training that means UAE companies will be able to produce nuclear-grade steel and cables. Such progress gives the UAE a "competitive edge", he said.
Rosatom's Voronkov highlighted three important features of nuclear energy: reliability, environmental friendliness and efficiency. "A lot of sectors, like transportation, communication and medical facilities, work non-stop and that requires uninterrupted and steady power supply. Nuclear energy fits that profile perfectly," he said. "But social responsibility demands not only economic development but sustainable economic development, which is unimaginable without clean sources of energy and the decarbonization of our economies."
Rosatom operates 37 nuclear power units in Russia which Voronkov said avoids the emission of 100 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. All the reactors it has built outside of Russia achieve about the same reduction, which is equivalent to removing about 57 million cars, he said. "Nuclear energy should be put at the heart of low-carbon energy systems, alongside wind and solar," he said, adding that, "one small pellet" of nuclear fuel can generate the same amount of power as 400 kg of coal.
Every dollar invested into nuclear power plant project generates two dollars of additional revenue for local companies, as well as 1.5 dollars in additional tax revenue and 4 dollars in GDP, he said. The character of the nuclear industry is never to stand still, but to innovate, he said.
"The fast pace of development of nuclear energy at the global and regional levels reminds me of the quote from Lewis Carroll's book [Alice in Wonderland]: '… we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that'. And the nuclear industry is running really fast." He highlighted two developments - small modular reactors and the closure of the nuclear fuel cycle. Last year, Rosatom commissioned the first and so far only floating nuclear power plant, Akadmik Lomonosov, which has demonstrated the stable supply of heat and electricity to remote areas that are hard to access by land.
The plant serves the northern Russian city of Pevek, where it will help the 50,000 inhabitants halve their CO2 emissions and thus reduce the damage to "fragile Arctic ecosystems", he said. Russia has two fast neutron reactors in operation - BN600 and BN800 at Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Plant - which use mixed-oxide fuel made from reprocessed uranium and plutonium, and are bringing its nuclear industry "closer to waste-free and actually renewable nuclear energy", he said. Bilbao y León described the two units in Pevek as the "first in a long series of SMRs that are going to be put forward all over world", and noted the recent commissioning of a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor in China "that is going to generate heat for all applications".
Innovation has led to a new generation (Gen III) of large reactor designs - VVER-1200, AP1000, EPR and Hualong One - but at the same time there has been a "lot of excitement" about SMRs and advanced reactors (Gen IV designs), she said. "SMR concepts are moving speedily through the regulatory process and incorporate enormous amounts of innovation, while Gen IV reactors will be instrumental in closing the nuclear fuel cycle by reusing fuel and producing the maximum possible amount of energy," she said.
The nuclear industry is "taking note" of innovation in advanced manufacturing and artificial intelligence, not only for the design process, but also for the construction and operation of nuclear power plants in the future, she added.
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The article concluded that:
The outlook
Martin Menachery, editor of Refining & Petrochemicals Middle East, noted that, although the adoption of nuclear energy continues to grow in different countries, with over 450 nuclear power reactors and 398.9 GWe in net installed capacity worldwide to date, the technology currently supplies only 10% of the world’s electricity.
Bilbao y León, of WNA, said: "Electricity output from nuclear generation has increased each year for the last several years, and in 2019 reached 2657 TWh, which is more than 10% of the world's electricity needs. This is despite the fact that the global capacity of nuclear energy actually decreased a bit. This means we are running the existing fleet of nuclear power plants incredibly effectively. Nuclear plants are operating with a capacity factor in excess of 80% on average and this is true for reactors of all ages.
"Not everything is perfect and we see some challenges, particularly where markets do not recognize the value of reliable generation or they don’t recognize the cost of carbon in the electricity mix. But when they are allowed to compete equally, nuclear plants compare favorably. But the climate emergency and the post-COVID recovery are spurring policymakers and the financial community, she said, to increasingly recognize the role that nuclear power can play at a global level.
[Also see discussions of fear of radiation and history of safety record of nuclear power (here).]
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