Based in Wilmington, North Carolina, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) is a world-leading provider of advanced reactor technology and nuclear services.
GEH is committed to helping solve the world’s toughest problems through engineering innovation, and there are few sectors where this is more pressing than in energy and climate change policy.
Which innovations have the greatest potential to revolutionise energy markets, and why?
GEH has developed a PRISM reactor, a technology that will revolutionise nuclear energy generation.
PRISM is a fourth-generation nuclear technology, and is a high-energy, sodium-cooled reactor. PRISM would be the first fourth generation reactor built and operating anywhere in the world.
PRISM’s transformative potential comes from its ability to turn “waste into watts”. PRISM is designed to use fuel manufactured from plutonium, a by-product of conventional nuclear energy reprocessing or from used nuclear fuel. This effectively means PRISM can recycle products produced by conventional nuclear generation, which are currently regarded as waste materials.
PRISM can therefore help to close the nuclear fuel cycle, extracting maximum energy out of nuclear fuel. Recycling used nuclear fuel with PRISM is calculated to make approximately 95 percent more energy available from uranium than just using current conventional reactors. By achieving maximum energy generation out of nuclear material, PRISM would reduce the generation required from other technologies and the environmental footprint of nuclear power.
As well as extracting the energy potential from used nuclear fuel, PRISM provides a hugely significant benefit in that the waste resulting from recycling will only require storage for around 300 years to reach background radiation levels compared with several hundreds of thousands years for conventional nuclear waste. This makes geological disposal much less of a challenge with significant global implications given the large stockpiles of used nuclear fuel around the world which have yet to be dealt with.
PRISM also has huge generation potential in the UK. According to an analysis we have undertaken, if the goal is to maximise the energy potential from the UK’s plutonium stockpile then a fleet of PRISM reactors could provide over 14% of the UK’s future electricity needs over the next 60 years and beyond.
This is a very significant proportion of future energy generation, representing almost half of the government’s ambition to achieve 30% of generation from nuclear energy. In addition it will also achieve another goal for the UK by placing the plutonium stockpile in a more proliferation resistant state and ultimately beyond reach.
PRISM also offers a range of other potential benefits to the UK, which could collectively help the UK to meet environmental and security challenges and produce lasting value for the UK’s engineering sector.Maximising the energy potential from the UK’s plutonium assets is only the first step in utilising the full benefits of PRISM. There is the potential to recycle existing used nuclear fuel as well as that from new nuclear reactors in the UK to increase the generation of low carbon electricity and result in waste that would only require around 300 years of storage.
PRISM also shares many of the features of conventional small modular reactors (SMRs). PRISM has a small output, includes passive safety features, is based on proven technology, uses factory fabrication and modular construction, and utilizesa smaller plot than most conventional reactors.These factors mean that PRISM can potentially offer excellent value for taxpayer money in reusing plutonium. Like other SMR technologies, PRISM also offers advantages of scalability, with its modular construction approach allowing the addition of generation capacity in stages.
The construction of each PRISM represents a multi-billion pound investment in the UK at national, regional and local level, including the creation of thousands of construction jobs and over a thousand permanent jobs to which GEH has committed as far as possible to utilise UK personnel and a UK based supply chain. To support the development of the UK PRISM Supply Chain, GEH has undertaken numerous activities including a PRISM UK Launch event,a PRISM Supplier Conference where over 80 potential suppliers attended, identified 21 potential UK suppliers for specific PRISM equipment items and has establishedrelationships with UK companies, Universities, National Nuclear Lab,and Britain’s Energy Coast, as well as other organizations to promote UK supplier involvement in the UK PRISM Supply Chain.
This is a groundbreaking opportunity for the UK to lead the world into a sustainable future for the nuclear industry beginning with a new era of technological innovation and long term responsibility for the sector.
Background to PRISM and Plutonium
PRISM is the result of over30 years of technological development, and its technological heritage can be traced back to the EBR II reactor, which began operation in 1964. The technology utilised by PRISM is ready to be commercialised and can be made operational within a time period that is competitive with other potential plutonium reuse options.
The UK has the world’s largest stockpile of civil plutonium, expected to total 140 tonnes once reprocessing is complete. PRISM is one of the technologies currently undergoing evaluation by the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) with a view to its eventual deployment to re-use plutonium. The NDA declared in 2014 that PRISM offers a credible technological solution to the challenge of plutonium disposition. Following the Comprehensive Spending Review, the government has indicated this work will go forward.
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April 2016
SLX Price at posting:
$6.09 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
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