Advanced Nuclear Energy –

An Overview

April 19, 2022

Prepared for Wyoming Public Service Commission

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Dr. Steven Aumeier

Senior Advisor, Strategic Programs

Idaho National Laboratory

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National Laboratories – Unique Capabilities and Innovation in the National Interest

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INL - Our Roots: The National Reactor Testing Station

• First nuclear power plant
• First U.S. city to be powered by nuclear energy
• First submarine reactor tested; training of nearly 40,000 reactor operators until mid-90s
• First mobile nuclear power plant for the army
• Demonstration of self-sustaining fuel cycle
• Basis for LWR reactor safety
• Aircraft and aerospace reactor testing
• Materials testing reactors

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Enabling energy and security R&D at scale through

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Replacement plant value*

Gross square feet*

Advanced Nuclear Energy: Past, Present and Future

Overview

• Yesterday, today and tomorrow – Perspective on fundamental differences in deployment environments and markets

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• Why the different technologies now? What's new, and what's not.

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• The role of the national laboratories v. industry

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• Economic potential in a net-zero world

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• Questions that might be considered

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At the beginning of the age of commercial nuclear energy 65 years ago

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Global population 2.8 B

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Nuclear technology is new and novel; First commercial power plant at Shippingport, PA comes on-line

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130 quads global primary energy consumption; angst about American energy supply security

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U.S. per capita GDP $3 K (current USD)

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Today

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Global population 7.8 B

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444 reactors, 31 countries, 388 Gwe, 11% of global generations, $2.6 T / 2-decade global market

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540 quads global primary energy consumption, angst about climate security and energy distribution

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U.S. per capita GDP $58 K (current USD)

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Our future. 2040 and beyond

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Global population exceeding 9 B

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Asymmetric global growth in baseload commercial nuclear energy; markets expand as nuclear powers more industry and non-baseload operations

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800 quads global primary energy consumption

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U.S. per capita GDP > $90 K (current USD)

From a New Invention to a Mature Global Market –

The Evolution of Civilian Nuclear Energy

Nuclear Energy Provides 20% of US’s electricity

• Currently 55 operating nuclear power plants with 93 light water reactors
• These plants are producing electricity > 90% of the time.
• Two reactors under construction in Georgia to start up in 2022 and 2023
• Reactor operations being extended to 80 years in many plants
• Other plants are shutting down due to financial pressures – States taking actions to keep plants operating

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THE U.S. CAN CAPTURE GROWING GLOBAL MARKET FOR NEW NUCLEAR ENERGY SYSTEMS

ESTIMATED $8T+ GLOBAL NUCLEAR ENERGY MARKET THRU 2050

Source: https://www.nei.org/CorporateSite/media/filefolder/resources/reports-and-briefs/UxC-NEI-(IPCC-2050-Nuclear-Market-Analysis-PUBLIC)-2020-07-01.pdf. Slide Courtesy of John Kotek, NEI

Graphic Courtesy Nuclear Innovation Alliance

Nuclear Energy Basics – Boil Water ……

Nuclear Energy Basics – Fuel

• All current commercial reactors are light water reactors (LWRs)
• LWRs are fueled by enriched uranium (UO₂) fuel (assemblies) with zirconium cladding
• Assemblies are made of ~225 UO₂ rods
• LWR fuel is normally used for three 18 or 24 month cycles
• After ~5 years, it is declared spent nuclear fuel (SNF)
• No longer useful in the current LWR
• The spent fuel is then moved into spent fuel pools (“wet storage”)
• Pool storage provides cooling and shielding of radiation

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Slide Courtesy of Josh Jarrell

Existing (large) nuclear reactors

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Coming soon: Hydrogen production

Slide courtesy of Kortny Rolston-Duce

Small modular reactors

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*NuScale SMR has completed NRC design approval with plan to start operation on INL site in 2029

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Slide courtesy of Kortny Rolston-Duce

Microreactors

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Slide courtesy of Kortny Rolston-Duce

Why Size Matters, and Why This Evolution?

• Large size pursued principally for efficiencies of scale and to match rapidly growing electric markets
• Larger the better

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• Implications:
• Significant for safety systems: System pressure, decay heat removal, reactor control mechanisms
• NOT modular – generally each a unique massive construction project
• Construction complexity (capital at risk, financing costs, etc)
• Mis-match in market (load) and generation size as economies mature (growth rate) = underutilized capital

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• Size (power) increase as industry matured –
• Learning
• Chasing efficiencies of scale
• Application space

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Advanced Reactors Are Trending Smaller, Integrated, and Modular – Why?

• Versatile applications due to range of sizes and ability to integrate with future energy needs
• Reduced cost by enabling factory fabrication
• Ability to modularize creates intriguing economics
• Not all small reactors are modular, but no big reactor is ……
• Capital / cash flow timing
• Match generation to load
• Based on decades of research and development at DOE national laboratories

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Integrated Small Reactor

SMR reactor and full primary system in one vessel

Typical PWR Reactor

IPWR Reactors

Simplified systems

Fewer Failure Modes

Slide courtesy of George Griffith, INL

Key Enablers

• New materials
• High-assay, low-enriched (HALEU) nuclear fuel central to most all advanced reactors
• Today's commercial fuels contain less than 5% uranium-235
• HALEU slightly less than 20%
• Longer core life, smaller size, advanced performance
• TRISO fuel form

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• New digital techniques
• Remote monitoring, security, performance
• Entirely new business models for deployment ?

TRISO Fuel Particle

Advanced Reactors and Passive Safety � – The Important Role of Demonstrations

• Many decades of experience in demonstrating advanced technologies
• Similar to approaches in other industries Develop, demonstrate, improve

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• Experimental Breeder Reactor – 2
• Sodium cooled fast reactor
• Operated very successfully for 30 years
• Demonstrated power production, plant operations, and ”inherent safety” of this class of technology
• Most aggressive accident scenarios tested: Loss of coolant flow and loss of heat sink

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• Lean on this knowledge base

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EBR-II, a sodium cooled fast reactor, demonstrated inherent safety in 1986 and operated successfully and effectively for 30 years

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1. Demonstrated natural circulation
2. Loss of flow without shutdown
3. Loss of heat sink without shutdown
4. Demonstrated industrial operations
5. Demonstrated decommissioning

Accelerating advanced reactor demonstration and deployment

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MARVEL

DOE

2023

DOME Test Bed

NRIC

2023-2024

Project Pele Microreactor

DoD

2023-2024

MCRE

Southern Co. & TerraPower

2025

SMR

UAMPS &

NuScale

2029

Natrium Reactor

TerraPower & General Electric

2028

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LOTUS Test Bed

NRIC

2024

Hermes

Kairos

2026

Aurora

Oklo Inc.

TBD

Xe-100

X-energy

2027

2030

Fuel Cycle Overview

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Slide Courtesy of Josh Jarrell

Source: International Atomic Energy Agency, Spent Fuel and Radioactive Waste Management, Decommissioning and Environmental Remediation e-learning curriculum, Module SFM1: Policy and Strategy for Spent Fuel Management (elearning.iaea.org – requires free IAEA Nucleus account)

U.S. “once-through”

Current Spent Fuel Management Practices (2)

• Due to lack of Federal Government progress with ”accepting” spent nuclear fuel due to repository delays, US spent fuel pools have reached capacity limits
• To allow continued operations, utilities have implemented dry storage
• Each site generally loads a few storage casks every other year

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Slide Courtesy of Josh Jarrell

There are thousands of dry storage canisters across the US (1)

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https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/maps/isfsi.html

Slide Courtesy of Josh Jarrell

(source: http://www.connyankee.com/html/fuel_storage.html). Slide Courtesy of John Kotek, NEI

The 40 used fuel casks hold all the fuel from 29 years of Connecticut Yankee operations

If the electricity produced by this fuel instead came from natural gas, the emitted CO2

would fill the Superdome. More than 3,000 times.

Sources of HALEU?

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• New Enrichment

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• Downblend
• Existing HEU stocks
• Recovered HEU stocks

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Enriched Uranium

Slide Courtesy of Monica Regalbuto, INL

NRC Licenses

Slide Courtesy of Monica Regalbuto, INL

Meeting the Needs of a World of 9 B People: The Broader Potential for Economic Value and Climate Impact

• In the model of the past, nuclear energy touches a very small share of global energy
• Projections that electricity accounts for ~25% of 800 quad energy demand in 2040
• Nuclear accounts for 10%-15% of electricity in the 2040 scenario
• Baseload electricity is ~40% of electricity market (U.S.)

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• What if?
• Innovation allowed lower cost, easier to operate plants (advanced SMR, microreactors, etc.)?
• Innovation allowed integration into broader energy economy– decarbonize hard to address industry
• Innovation introduced game-changing embedded nuclear-industrial process designs and “smart reactors”?
• Smaller scale, niche markets, affordable – key tool to achieve net-zero economy

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Conceptual Functional Layout for Quantum Battery - MIT

Value chain (what one produces with the energy) is likely much larger than supply chain (stuff that goes into a plant)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission Licenses Commercial Power Reactors

• All commercial power reactors operate under NRC licenses
• Originally issues for 40 years
• Subsequent licenses extended to 60 and 80
• Two current licensing approaches
• 10 CFR 50 – Construction licenses followed by Operating License
• 10 CFR 52 – Design approval/Combined Construction and Operating License
• 10 CFR 53 – Technology inclusive regulatory framework under development
• Recent/current experience
• NuScale SMR – 10 CFR 52 – 42 months for design approval
• Oklo Aurora Microreactor – 10 CFR 52 - 36 month planned review period; recently NRC denies license application

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Question, Plan, Engage-

• Rely on and engage with your university, your energy authority and regulators
• Regulatory oversight: Air, water, land, cultural, utilities
• Operations excellence
• Jobs, supply chain, value chain – what's the reality?
• Broader value ala engaging global markets
• Build partnerships for talent development, process learning, manufacturing, etc
• Fuel cycle – short / long term plan
• Consider facts – esp demonstrations past and future: What can be learned? What can be leveraged?

Other Slides of Possible Interest

Raw Material Inputs per TWh

Source: How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, Bill Gates, 2021

Imagine If ……

• New System architecture
• Address some of these challenges
• NOT a one size fits all ….. Some applications and needs will not scale
• Industrial applications, adaptive communities, mission-critical loads, growing markets, etc
• Embedded systems for advanced production – it goes like this:
• Embed energy modules in/with industrial processes (or other loads) – advanced nuclear + advanced production
• Incremental provisioning of energy – match load requirements at a given time with incremental modules of energy (think batteries, Lego approach, etc)
• Optimizes investment “stack” / cash flows, de-risk, localized approach, de-emphasize massive capital projects
• Focus on non-commodity (or specialty commodity) production
• Trade efficiencies of size for economies and resilience of numbers
• Shift energy provisioning from large capital projects to advanced manufacturing / ultra-modularity
• A slightly different take on microgrids, and its not built on SMR
• How is this different than CHP, collocated energy, etc?
• Incremental provisioning, operational plug and play nature of nuclear battery
• Industrial application architecture-centric

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There are thousands of dry storage canisters across the US (2)

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The Department of Energy is now restarting the consent- based siting process to identify consolidated storage sites

• With uncertainty on a repository program, interim storage is the de-facto option
• DOE is currently focused on identifying consolidated storage sites (per Congressional direction)
• Goal is to find a site to consolidate dry storage systems
• Earlier government acceptance of SNF
• Reduction of liability and costs to taxpayers
• Increased public confidence in consent-based siting process
• Show meaningful progress on the waste challenge
• https://www.energy.gov/ne/consent-based-siting
• Request for Information comments closed March 4, 2022
• Next steps for the Department of Energy:
• Analyze responses to request for information
• Further develop consent-based siting process
• Clarify our broader strategy for integrated waste management system
• Issue a funding opportunity later this year

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Private interim storage facilities have also been moving forward

• Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance and Holtec International (NM)
• https://holtecinternational.com/communications-and-outreach/faqs/
• Interim Storage Partners (Waste Control Specialists and Orano USA) (TX)
• https://interimstoragepartners.com/
• NRC granted License – 9/13/2021 (SNM-2125)
• Texas Legislature and Governor: July 23, 2021 letter to NRC
• “As Texas State Legislators, we join Governor Abbott in strongly opposing Interim Storage Partner’s application to store high-level radioactive waste in Texas … Holtec International proposes a similar facility in nearby New Mexico … Both licenses should be denied”
• NM Attorney General Balderas filed a federal lawsuit (March 2021)
• NM Governor Grisham (among others) has publicly opposed NM site
• NRC is continuing to review
• https://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent-fuel-storage/cis/waste-control-specialist.html
• https://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent-fuel-storage/cis/holtec-international.html

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Applications?

• Modular production
• Industrial precursors (H2)
• Fertilizers
• Iron ore reduction and steel processing
• Mineral processing

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• Critical loads
• Flood control / pumps, desalination, key microgrids,
• Transport charging stations, etc

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• The steel example (Freda et al)
• Initial results show strong economics
• Very favorable debt / return timing
• Applicable for new, modular mills

modular H2 electrolysis

modular metals and ceramics

fleet charging stations

modular data centers

Technologies and Layout

• Microreactors are the key, but –
• ”Fission battery” or “quantum battery” approach
• Plug and play
• Extended core life, practical to remove / replace modules
• Secure intelligent monitoring and control
• Possible new business model – fleet operation remotely, energy as leased service

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MIT Conceptualized NB w/ integrated gas turbine

MIT Conceptual Functional Layout

Westinghouse e-Vinci

Business Sensitive

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Energy Products and Services