Mini-Atomkraftwerke: deutlich billiger
Bekanntlich wird Atomkraft beim Kampf gegen den Klimawandel eine wichtige Rolle spielen. Unternehmen sehen enorme Chancen, so Rolls-Royce:
- “The gas-rich Gulf state of Qatar is poised to invest up to £100m in Rolls-Royce’s plan to develop a new generation of mini nuclear reactors that are far cheaper and faster to build than traditional designs. Qatar will join billionaire French oil dynasty the Perrodo family, which made its fortune from the private oil company Perenco, and US nuclear giant Exelon Generation as Roll-Royce’s partners in the project. The FTSE 100 company is raising money from experts in the nuclear field and also investors with deep pockets and a high risk appetite.” – bto: Es ist riskant, aber alle neuen Geschäfte sind nun mal riskant.
- “Rolls will need many more hundreds of millions of pounds to complete research, testing and design of its proposed power plants.” – bto: Das ist jetzt nicht sonderlich besorgniserregend.
- “It will probably require more than $1bn of funding if its development programme is anywhere near as expensive as that of its most advanced rival. The company plans on making the reactors by the early 2030s, a timetable that could prove optimistic.” – bto: Das ruft dann die Kritiker auf den Plan, die sagen, dass uns bis dann die Erneuerbaren Energien retten. Mag sein, aber wenn private Investoren anders wetten, sollten wir uns über diese Absicherung freuen.
- “Rolls has set a target for each small reactor to cost £1.8bn, which compares with up to £23bn for the more traditional reactors. The units will generate up to 440 megawatts, enough to power a city the size of Sheffield. If delivered on budget they will deliver a seventh of the power of Hinkley Point C in Somerset for a twelfth of the price.” – bto: Wenn man dann davon ausgeht, dass die Zulassung schneller ist, sinken die Kapitalkosten zusätzlich.
- “The pricing means private companies and pension funds can buy them rather than relying on the giant balance sheets of governments to underwrite them. Rolls aims to set up a standardised production line for the plants to keep costs down as well as providing the flexible power generation of small modular units, which can be grouped together to generate more power when needed.” – bto: Industrie- statt Anlagenbau ist die Logik.
- “NuScale Power, based in Oregon, was the first company to receive Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval in the US for its small reactor design. It has burned through about $1.3bn in its decade of development to date (…) firm spent $500m getting to the point of preparing an application to the US nuclear regulatory commission. Having the regulator investigate the design cost another $270m. (…) company is completing manufacturing trials and hopes to have a working reactor by 2028, 17 years after researching the project in earnest. NuScale will design plants with capacity of up to four, six or twelve 77-megawatt reactors. The plants can start with just one, meaning power can be added over time.” – bto: Es ist aus meiner Sicht einfach logisch, diesen Weg zuzulassen. Es sind private Mittel und wir sollten uns freuen.
- “A 12-module, 924 megawatt plant could cost as little as $3bn for a green field site and excluding financing costs. (…) From a customer making an order, preparing the site, constructing the modules, gaining regulator approval for the plant and commissioning it could take up to seven years.” – bto: Hier wird halt eine Serienfertigung zu einer Beschleunigung führen.
Rolls-Royce hat noch weitere Ideen:
- “Its power systems business, led by Daimler veteran Andreas Schell, is targeting an ambitious programme of cleaning up its diesel-hungry engines that power everything from 100-metre yachts to emergency power supplies for data centres. The company will have a hydrogen-powered piston engine ready next year that it is marketing to tech firms wishing to decarbonise their server farms. The business will also convert its range of diesel units to use fuel made from CO2 and then move on to hydrogen-powered engines of various guises.” – bto: Treibstoff aus CO2. Cool.
- “A vast amount of hydrogen will be needed, and nuclear reactors will be able to produce it locally through electrolysis, (…). So long as the electricity is carbon-free, then so is the hydrogen.” – bto: richtig.
