Sparsely Populated Nunavut Considers Micro-Nuclear to Cut Fossil Energy Costs

April 26th, 2011 by Susan Kraemer

Nunavut in Canada spends an extraordinary amount for energy, far more than most other provinces, and it is all fossil energy. Try as much as a dollar a kilowatt-hour. At wholesale.

Where consumers in the other Canadian provinces average 8.5 cents, the electric company itself buys diesel for electricity production at between 50 cents and as much as $1 a kwh. Part of the cost is simply transportation. Nunavut has only 33,000 consumers in the cold and sparsely populated province, which is partly made up of an arctic archipelago, spread out over an area the size of Europe.

The Qulliq Energy board wants to find an alternative to buying diesel to make electricity, and according to CBC, it is considering micro-nuclear power: North mulls micro-reactors as solution to rising power costs

“Between the fluctuation in global petroleum prices and the global recession of 2008, the Board believes more so now than ever that Nunavut needs to reduce our dependence on diesel fuel, and agrees with the Government of Nunavut’s desire to advance capital projects which provide alternatives to fossil fuel consumption,” QEC board of directors chair Simon Merkosak wrote in the company’s 2010-2011 corporate plan.

Various options for cleaner, cheaper energy are being mulled, along with micro-nuclear plants. Although Canada is a world leader in hydro electricity, the province claims that the bids it has received for a new hydro project far exceed the costs of the mini nuclear plant. Mackey said a recent proposal for a hydro-electric power plant in Iqaluit was estimated to cost $200 to $500 million over the next 40 years, while some competing micro-nuclear designs pitched to QEC have promised to meet the same energy needs for $15 million over the same period.

Of course, this is a theoretical figure, since there are as yet no takers for micro-nuclear plants, and nuclear plants are notorious for cost overruns. But the region might make a good guinea pig. With such tiny populations, a power plant that is just 10 MW can supply the small far flung off-grid towns, and micro-nuclear plants are just the right size. Unlike their typically 1,000 MW cousins, they are easier to control.

“The smaller the reactors are, the easier it is to make them inherently safe because your power densities are much lower and the cooling temperatures involved are much lower,” said Dr. Jeremy Whitlock, a reactor physicist at Chalk River Laboratories and former president of the Canadian Nuclear Society. “These are power plants you don’t need a nuclear PhD to run.”

Modern small-scale nuclear designs also focus on permanently closed, modular units that would never have to be opened to risk exposing the core. They could essentially be plunked down, run for years and then the whole module would get replaced much like a battery.

With 27 tiny diesel power plants to replace, at $15 million a pop, 25 10 MW reactors could supply the province at a built cost of about $400 million, somewhat within the range of the median hydro estimate.

It would be a chance to test the cost-effectiveness of micro-nuclear plants in the one environment in which nuclear power could prove appropriate: in very, very, very sparsely populated regions.

Image: Lindsay Nicole Terry

Susan Kraemer@Twitter

Japan nuclear crisis fuels Nunavut uranium fears (cbc.ca)
Nunavut power rates going up 19% (cbc.ca)
Japan’s reactor disaster raises Nunavut nuclear fears (ctv.ca)

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Tags: diesel fuel, hydroelectricity, micro-nuclear, Nunavut

About the Author

Susan Kraemer writes at CleanTechnica, CSP-Today, PV-Insider , SmartGridUpdate, and GreenProphet. She has also been published at Ecoseed, NRDC OnEarth, MatterNetwork, Celsius, EnergyNow, and Scientific American. As a former serial entrepreneur in product design, Susan brings an innovator's perspective on inventing a carbon-constrained civilization: If necessity is the mother of invention, solving climate change is the mother of all necessities! As a lover of history and sci-fi, she enjoys chronicling the strange future we are creating in these interesting times. Follow Susan on Twitter @dotcommodity.

http://work-bench.org/ Christopher Miles

Seems like the town/island wanted something to negotiate with- perhaps the Hydro people were pricing construction as if they were the only game in town.

Also it’s some interesting publicity for the island- I mean, had any of us heard of Nunavut before?

It’s more than likely that they diversify their mix a bit by adding some easy renewables in the short term, then wait for the Hydro people to come in with a lower bid.
Anonymous

Who makes a 10MW reactor?

You’re going to spread 25 of these things around an area and get the technical support staff from where? Whitlock is blowing smoke up people’s nether regions. You do not grab someone off a fishing boat and set them to work running a nuclear reactor.

These folks need to be exploring geothermal. They could provide a great lab for dry rock geothermal if they can’t find underground steam.

For a large part of the year they could cycle the post-turbine water through their building heating systems and greatly cut down on the need to import heating oil.

The nuclear industry is just plain desperate. They’re grabbing for any tiny straw they can find. Watch their ideas get more and more absurd as they continue their death throes.
- Anonymous
  
  BTW, if the answer to ‘who makes’ is Hyperon they recently announced that the price of the reactor they dream of making will be something like $50 million per reactor. They doubled their price earlier this year.
  
  25 x $50 million = a hell of a lot more than $200 to $500 million for a hydro plant.