Michael Liebreich So, the spur for the conversation today is the unfolding situation at Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. Let's start with, what does it do? How big is it? Could you describe the plant for us?
Chris Gadomski So, it's the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. It's made up of six VVER, water-water energetic reactors. Russian designed, these are good reactors, solid reactors. They've been operating for 40 years, nearly. The last one, I think, came on in '85. So, they're established, sound reactors, and they're operated somewhere below US standards or European standards for capacity factor. In the US, we have a very high capacity factor of 90, 95. These reactors been operated like high 60s, low 70s. These are Pressurized Water Reactors, the most popular. Westinghouse sells them, the French sell them, the Chinese have adapted several technologies. So, it's a mainstream technology that is out there, and they're 1000 megawatts each.
ML What is the difference between this plant from the design that would have been in place in Chernobyl?
CG So, Chernobyl used an RBMK design, which are graphite-cooled reactors, which did not have containment on them. So, something goes wrong, poof, it goes up. Whereas these have 1.2-metre-thick, concrete on the sides and their cylinders, and plus, I think 22 millimetres of steel lining inside. So, these are well protected containment vessels. There was an explosion at Chernobyl and it went right through the ceiling. That I would imagine would be very unlikely to happen over here, because of the status of the reactors. So, Chernobyl we were operating, these are in cold shutdown - all except for one.
ML Okay, so let's get to the point of the invasion. So, Russia invades, and for a while, they said, we're in charge, but keep operating. Then at some point, they were shut down?
CG From end of June, there was a period when all the reactors were shut down, in various stages. So, the maintenance people have been reduced by three quarters, the operators by one third. And so, they're gradually shutting down the nuclear power plants, because quite frankly, there's much less demand for electricity because of the war. And there is some sort of tension between the Ukrainian operators and the Russian military that's running the plant right now. So, we've had five of the reactors in cold shutdown, which is the best place for them to be. One of the reactors is in hot shutdown, which means that there's still a chain reaction going, they're still producing cesium and iodine. And it's a much more dangerous situation if somehow that reactor vessel was breached than if they're in cold shutdown. My sources in Ukraine have told me directly that they ordered that reactor number five be shut down, and the Russians did not allow that to happen. Which suggests nefarious intent, perhaps, on one side of the table.
ML When it comes to the dam - the Kakhovka dam which was destroyed this year - for me the smoking gun is that that dam was being run down. And that dam is critical to keeping the plant safe, correct?
CG Right. And regarding the water levels of the dam, what's very, very important is having water available to cool all of the reactors and the spent fuel ponds at the power plant. Without water, and without electricity to continue circulating the water through the cooling ponds and through the reactors, you have unpleasant opportunities. You could solve it with some pumps. The problem right now is that you have this counter offensive going on, and that's creating increased tensions in the area. And two things are critical for the safety of the plant - availability of water and availability of electricity. They do have electricity, but since the war started, power has been cut off to the plant six or seven times. It has been cut off, it's come back, various transmission lines have been damaged, been restored, the emergency diesel pumps have worked for 24 hours, 36 hours. So, it's a constantly changing thing.
ML What about the sabotage scenario? Those containment vessels, is it possible to breach them with explosives? How big might the evacuation need to be? How bad would it be?
CG I imagine if you have a large enough explosive, that's possible, but they are designed to withstand the full impact of a jet airline crashing into them. So, the Ukrainians claim there are explosives in certain parts of the nuclear plant, though the head of the IAEA denies seeing them, none of his staff has seen them. One of the complicating issues here is that there's nobody in control. And so, if nefarious activity sets off a radiation release, what do the Russians do? Do they leave? Or are they going to stick around and get turned green themselves? The number of times that there have been artillery shells in close proximity to the nuclear reactor makes it a very, very difficult situation to address how quickly the problem could be fixed, so we're not able to really imagine how much of a problem would be created by some sort of radiation. We're in a good situation where we have five of the reactors in cold shutdown. And if we were all in cold shutdown, we'd be in a much better situation. And if we had a way to ensure that there was water and electricity supply to the reactors, I think we should be confident that there should be less danger. And the IAEA is really working hard to ensure these things happen. But in wartime, anything goes.
ML Let’s look at the wider nuclear landscape. There's a sort of pre-Cambrian explosion of different types of plants at present - small modular reactors, micro reactors, everybody's got their favourite reactor design. How many of them use HALEU – whose supply chain is controlled by Russia?
CG Nine of the ten advanced reactors that are being designed or are being developed in the United States will use HALEU. Under the IRA, there are provisions to begin producing HALEU domestically in the US. But to build up a HALEU enrichment facility in the US is going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Where's the profit, where's the demand for that coming? It's going to come in the future, so when you're talking to investors, it's a pretty risky proposition. I'm very, very suspicious that a lot of these new reactor designs will not be able to come across the finish line, simply because of the capital requirements and the Licensing and Regulation gauntlet that they'll need to run through to go ahead and deliver that. The history of building large reactors in the West is rather dismal in the last few years. What has changed in the last fifteen years is all of a sudden we have this tremendous increase of renewable energy capacity. And so, we need to find nuclear reactors that can complement that deployment of renewable energy, and large reactors pushing 1.6 gigawatts on and off the grid is very, very inefficient. The penetration of renewables onto the grid has changed the type of nuclear reactor that the utilities will ask for in the future. It's going to be a smaller reactor, it's going to be an agile reactor, and it's a reactor that will be able to be deployed to respond to intermittency of demand, and will have other opportunities to provide industrial heat, hydrogen, desalination in markets where it is necessary. The biggest challenge I see for SMR development is having the deep pocket that is necessary to support and develop those technologies, and the regulatory gauntlet that is in front of them, which is very, very problematic. I believe that net-zero has to have a fission or fusion component going forward. And I also question all these net-zero aspirations. I mean, without fission or fusion, I really question how they're going to cross the finish line. And I'm very, very impressed about some of the things I'm seeing in the fusion space - they're very well capitalized. I mean, $2.2 billion goes a long way to commercialize a fusion power plant, prove its prototype. And there's a drive and an interest and excitement there that I find lacking in a lot of the advanced reactor companies. If you had a fusion plant and Zaporizhzhia, as opposed to fission plant, you wouldn't have a lot of these worries that we're talking about. I'll tell you, fusion is closer than you think.