Providing services to the nuclear power industry in areas from new builds to decommissioning.

Past – Present – Future – Drivers

Nuclear power implementations have been quite successful in the past. USA, France, and Sweden are some of the countries that had quite successful build programs in the 1970-ies. Then, in March 1979 came the accident at Three Mile Island (TMI) in Pennsylvania. This delayed programs in the USA in addition to delays caused by unsuccessful program leaderships. Programs in Europe were also delayed by the TMI accident. For about 20 years from 1990 forward, there were several unsuccessful nuclear power “revival” attempts in the USA and Europe. In the end however, most of new power was provided by an increase in the use of fossil gas. At the same time new plants were built at a steady rate in the Soviet Union (Russia) and Japan. In the Republic of Korea and in China new plants were built at an increasing rate. Then came the tsunami in Japan in March 2011, destroyed the Fukushima plant and the conditions for nuclear really changed – particularly in Europe and of course Japan. Shutdown of nuclear plants in Germany was one result. The last units were shut early 2023.

Now – 2023 – since a few years, a new revival is at hand in the “western world”. Small modular reactors – SMRs – is the key word. Key idea is to replace “economy by size” by “economy by many identical” – building large units (GW scale built one by one) is to be replaced by building small (300 MW or so) units in large series. This approach still must materialise and prove its success. It is not only a matter of design, construction, and delivery of plants – parts of the infrastructure must also be adapted. For example, the permitting process should acknowledge that identical plants need not be reviewed and approved separately. Thus, significant changes need be implemented in main structures of the industry and its regulatory bases for it to become successful. Additional challenges are provided by new applications, e.g. using nuclear to support fossil free production of hydrogen.

At the same time, large plants are still built very successfully given that design of the plant is appropriate, and the supply chains are well trained.

This is what makes work in the nuclear industry so challenging and interesting for the future.

Here, you can read about history, current work, and future applications of nuclear power. Please enjoy – although it may not be effortless!

Read this if first time here.