Tournament: Greenhill | Round: 1 | Opponent: Lexington | Judge:
NC – Shell
Text: Japan will substantially expand investment in small modular reactors and ban all other forms of nuclear power.
Competition: Mutual exclusivity – SMRs produce nuclear power so the aff requires banning them
Net Benefits:
First is Power Supply
SMR’s are cost-effective and safe, providing more stable access to grid-scale power than any technology currently in use.
Kessides and Kuzznetsov ’12 - Ioannis N. Kessides and Vladimir Kuznetsov 12, Ioannis is a researcher for the Development Research Group at the World Bank, Vladimir is a consultant for the World Bank, “Small Modular Reactors for Enhancing Energy Security in Developing Countries”, August 14, Sustainability 2012, 4(8), 1806-1832
SMRs offer a number of advantages that can potentially offset the overnight cost penalty that they suffer relative to large reactors. Indeed, several characteristics of their proposed designs can serve to overcome some of the key barriers that have inhibited the growth of nuclear power. These characteristics include 23,24: * • Reduced construction duration. The smaller size, lower power, and simpler design of SMRs allow for greater modularization, standardization, and factory fabrication of components and modules. Use of factory-fabricated modules simplifies the on-site construction activities and greatly reduces the amount of field work required to assemble the components into an operational plant. As a result, the construction duration of SMRs could be significantly shorter compared to large reactors leading to important economies in the cost of financing. * • Investment scalability and flexibility. In contrast to conventional large-scale nuclear plants, due to their smaller size and shorter construction lead-times SMRs could be added one at a time in a cluster of modules or in dispersed and remote locations. Thus capacity expansion can be more flexible and adaptive to changing market conditions. The sizing, temporal and spatial flexibility of SMR deployment have important implications for the perceived investment risks (and hence the cost of capital) and financial costs of new nuclear build. Today’s gigawatt-plus reactors require substantial up-front investment—in excess of US$ 4 billion. Given the size of the up-front capital requirements (compared to the total capitalization of most utilities) and length of their construction time, new large-scale nuclear plants could be viewed as “bet the farm” endeavors for most utilities making these investments. SMR total capital investment costs, on the other hand, are an order of magnitude lower—in the hundreds of millions of dollars range as opposed to the billions of dollars range for larger reactors. These smaller investments can be more easily financed, especially in small countries with limited financial resources. SMR deployment with just-in-time incremental capacity additions would normally lead to a more favorable expenditure/cash flow profile relative to a single large reactor with the same aggregate capacity—even if we assume that the total time required to emplace the two alternative infrastructures is the same. This is because when several SMRs are built and deployed sequentially, the early reactors will begin operating and generating revenue while the remaining ones are being constructed. In the case of a large reactor comprising one large block of capacity addition, no revenues are generated until all of the investment expenditures are made. Thus the staggered build of SMRs could minimize the negative cash flow of deployment when compared to emplacing a single large reactor of equivalent power 25. * • Better power plant capacity and grid matching. In countries with small and weak grids, the addition of a large power plant (1000 MW(e) or more) can lead to grid stability problems—the general “rule of thumb” is that the unit size of a power plant should not exceed 10 percent of the overall electricity system capacity 11. The incremental capacity expansion associated with SMR deployment, on the other hand, could help meet increasing power demand while avoiding grid instability problems. * • Factory fabrication and mass production economies. SMR designs are engineered to be pre-fabricated and mass-produced in factories, rather than built on-site. Factory fabrication of components and modules for shipment and installation in the field with almost Lego-style assembly is generally cheaper than on-site fabrication. Relative to today’s gigawatt-plus reactors, SMRs benefit more from factory fabrication economies because they can have a greater proportion of factory made components. In fact, some SMRs could be manufactured and fully assembled at the factory, and then transported to the deployment site. Moreover, SMRs can benefit from the “economies of multiples” that accrue to mass production of components in a factory with supply-chain management. * • Learning effects and co-siting economies. Building reactors in a series can lead to significant per-unit cost reductions. This is because the fabrication of many SMR modules on plant assembly lines facilitates the optimization of manufacturing and assembly processes. Lessons learned from the construction of each module can be passed along in the form of productivity gains or other cost savings (e.g., lower labor requirements, shorter and more efficiently organized assembly lines) in successive units (Figure 6). Moreover, additional learning effects can be realized from the construction of successive units on the same site. Thus multi-module clustering could lead to learning curve acceleration. Since more SMRs are deployed for the same amount of aggregate power as a large reactor, these learning effects can potentially play a much more important role for SMRs than for large reactors 26. Also, sites incorporating multiple modules may require smaller operator and security staffing. * • Design simplification. Many SMRs offer significant design simplifications relative to large-scale reactors utilizing the same technology. This is accomplished thorough the adoption of certain design features that are specific to smaller reactors. For example, fewer and simpler safety features are needed in SMRs with integral design of the primary circuit (i.e., with an in vessel location of steam generators and no large diameter piping) that effectively eliminates large break LOCA. Clearly one of the main factors negatively affecting the competitiveness of small reactors is economies of scale—SMRs can have substantially higher specific capital costs as compared to large-scale reactors. However, SMRs offer advantages that can potentially offset this size penalty. As it was noted above, SMRs may enjoy significant economic benefits due to shorter construction duration, accelerated learning effects and co-siting economies, temporal and sizing flexibility of deployment, and design simplification. When these factors are properly taken into account, then the fact that smaller reactors have higher specific capital costs due to economies of scale does not necessarily imply that the effective (per unit) capital costs (or the levelized unit electricity cost) for a combination of such reactors will be higher in comparison to a single large nuclear plant of equivalent capacity 22,25. In a recent study, Mycoff et al. 22 provide a comparative assessment of the capital costs per unit of installed capacity of an SMR-based power station comprising of four 300 MW(e) units that are built sequentially and a single large reactor of 1200 MW(e). They employ a generic mode to quantify the impacts of: (1) economies of scale; (2) multiple units; (3) learning effects; (4) construction schedule; (5) unit timing; and (6) plant design (Figure 7). To estimate the impact of economies of scale, Mycoff et al. 22 assume a scaling factor n = 0.6 and that the two plants are comparable in design and characteristics—i.e., that the single large reactor is scaled down in its entirety to ¼ of its size. According to the standard scaling function, the hypothetical overnight cost (per unit of installed capacity) of the SMR-based power station will be 74 percent higher compared to a single large-scale reactor. Based on various studies in the literature, the authors posit that the combined impact of multiple units and learning effects is a 22 percent reduction in specific capital costs for the SMR-based station. To quantify the impact of construction schedule, the authors assume that the construction times of the large reactor and the SMR units are five and three years respectively. The shorter construction duration results in a 5 percent savings for the SMRs. Temporal flexibility (four sequentially deployed SMRs with the first going into operation at the same time as the large reactor and the rest every 9 months thereafter) and design simplification led to 5 and 15 percent reductions in specific capital costs respectively for the SMRs. When all these factors are combined, the SMR-based station suffers a specific capital cost disadvantage of only 4 percent as compared to the single large reactor of the same capacity. Thus, the economics of SMRs challenges the widely held belief that nuclear reactors are characterized by significant economies of scale 19.
Second is Environment
The counterplan results in global SMR exports and helps get rid of coal–massively reduces emissions.
Rosner 11
Robert Rosner, Stephen Goldberg, Energy Policy Institute at Chicago, The Harris School of Public Policy Studies, November 2011, SMALL MODULAR REACTORS –KEY TO FUTURE NUCLEAR POWER GENERATION IN THE U.S., https://epic.sites.uchicago.edu/sites/epic.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/EPICSMRWhitePaperFinalcopy.pdf
As stated earlier, SMRs have the potential to achieve significant greenhouse gas emission reductions. They could provide alternative baseload power generation to facilitate the retirement of older, smaller, and less efficient coal generation plants that would, otherwise, not be good candidates for retrofitting carbon capture and storage technology. They could be deployed in regions of the U.S. and the world that have less potential for other forms of carbon-free electricity, such as solar or wind energy. There may be technical or market constraints, such as projected electricity demand growth and transmission capacity, which would support SMR deployment but not GW-scale LWRs. From the on-shore manufacturing perspective, a key point is that the manufacturing base needed for SMRs can be developed domestically. Thus, while the large commercial LWR industry is seeking to transplant portions of its supply chain from current foreign sources to the U.S., the SMR industry offers the potential to establish a large domestic manufacturing base building upon already existing U.S. manufacturing infrastructure and capability, including the Naval shipbuilding and underutilized domestic nuclear component and equipment plants. The study team learned that a number of sustainable domestic jobs could be created – that is, the full panoply of design, manufacturing, supplier, and construction activities – if the U.S. can establish itself as a credible and substantial designer and manufacturer of SMRs. While many SMR technologies are being studied around the world, a strong U.S. commercialization program can enable U.S. industry to be first to market SMRs, thereby serving as a fulcrum for export growth as well as a lever in influencing international decisions on deploying both nuclear reactor and nuclear fuel cycle technology. A viable U.S.-centric SMR industry would enable the U.S. to recapture technological leadership in commercial nuclear technology, which has been lost to suppliers in France, Japan, Korea, Russia, and, now rapidly emerging, China.
SMR-based nuclear power is the only way to solve warming
Michael Shellenberger 12, founder of the Breakthrough Institute, graduate of Earlham College and holds a masters degree in cultural anthropology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, "New Nukes: Why We Need Radical Innovation to Make New Nuclear Energy Cheap", September 11, http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/programs/energy-and-climate/new-nukes/
Arguably, the biggest impact of Fukushima on the nuclear debate, ironically, has been to force a growing number of pro-nuclear environmentalists out of the closet, including us. The reaction to the accident by anti-nuclear campaigners and many Western publics put a fine point on the gross misperception of risk that informs so much anti-nuclear fear. Nuclear remains the only proven technology capable of reliably generating zero-carbon energy at a scale that can have any impact on global warming. Climate change -- and, for that matter, the enormous present-day health risks associated with burning coal, oil, and gas -- simply dwarf any legitimate risk associated with the operation of nuclear power plants. About 100,000 people die every year due to exposure to air pollutants from the burning of coal. By contrast, about 4,000 people have died from nuclear energy -- ever -- almost entirely due to Chernobyl. But rather than simply lecturing our fellow environmentalists about their misplaced priorities, and how profoundly inadequate present-day renewables are as substitutes for fossil energy, we would do better to take seriously the real obstacles standing in the way of a serious nuclear renaissance. Many of these obstacles have nothing to do with the fear-mongering of the anti-nuclear movement or, for that matter, the regulatory hurdles imposed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and similar agencies around the world. As long as nuclear technology is characterized by enormous upfront capital costs, it is likely to remain just a hedge against overdependence on lower-cost coal and gas, not the wholesale replacement it needs to be to make a serious dent in climate change. Developing countries need large plants capable of bringing large amounts of new power to their fast-growing economies. But they also need power to be cheap. So long as coal remains the cheapest source of electricity in the developing world, it is likely to remain king. The most worrying threat to the future of nuclear isn't the political fallout from Fukushima -- it's economic reality. Even as new nuclear plants are built in the developing world, old plants are being retired in the developed world. For example, Germany's plan to phase-out nuclear simply relies on allowing existing plants to be shut down when they reach the ends of their lifetime. Given the size and cost of new conventional plants today, those plants are unlikely to be replaced with new ones. As such, the combined political and economic constraints associated with current nuclear energy technologies mean that nuclear energy's share of global energy generation is unlikely to grow in the coming decades, as global energy demand is likely to increase faster than new plants can be deployed. To move the needle on nuclear energy to the point that it might actually be capable of displacing fossil fuels, we'll need new nuclear technologies that are cheaper and smaller. Today, there are a range of nascent, smaller nuclear power plant designs, some of them modifications of the current light-water reactor technologies used on submarines, and others, like thorium fuel and fast breeder reactors, which are based on entirely different nuclear fission technologies. Smaller, modular reactors can be built much faster and cheaper than traditional large-scale nuclear power plants. Next-generation nuclear reactors are designed to be incapable of melting down, produce drastically less radioactive waste, make it very difficult or impossible to produce weapons grade material, use less water, and require less maintenance. Most of these designs still face substantial technical hurdles before they will be ready for commercial demonstration. That means a great deal of research and innovation will be necessary to make these next generation plants viable and capable of displacing coal and gas. The United States could be a leader on developing these technologies, but unfortunately U.S. nuclear policy remains mostly stuck in the past. Rather than creating new solutions, efforts to restart the U.S. nuclear industry have mostly focused on encouraging utilities to build the next generation of large, light-water reactors with loan guarantees and various other subsidies and regulatory fixes. With a few exceptions, this is largely true elsewhere around the world as well. Nuclear has enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress for more than 60 years, but the enthusiasm is running out. The Obama administration deserves credit for authorizing funding for two small modular reactors, which will be built at the Savannah River site in South Carolina. But a much more sweeping reform of U.S. nuclear energy policy is required. At present, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has little institutional knowledge of anything other than light-water reactors and virtually no capability to review or regulate alternative designs. This affects nuclear innovation in other countries as well, since the NRC remains, despite its many critics, the global gold standard for thorough regulation of nuclear energy. Most other countries follow the NRC's lead when it comes to establishing new technical and operational standards for the design, construction, and operation of nuclear plants. What's needed now is a new national commitment to the development, testing, demonstration, and early stage commercialization of a broad range of new nuclear technologies -- from much smaller light-water reactors to next generation ones -- in search of a few designs that can be mass produced and deployed at a significantly lower cost than current designs. This will require both greater public support for nuclear innovation and an entirely different regulatory framework to review and approve new commercial designs. In the meantime, developing countries will continue to build traditional, large nuclear power plants. But time is of the essence. With the lion's share of future carbon emissions coming from those emerging economic powerhouses, the need to develop smaller and cheaper designs that can scale faster is all the more important. A true nuclear renaissance can't happen overnight. And it won't happen so long as large and expensive light-water reactors remain our only option. But in the end, there is no credible path to mitigating climate change without a massive global expansion of nuclear energy. If you care about climate change, nothing is more important than developing the nuclear technologies we will need to get that job done.