Vers une société résiliente au changement climatique / Building a Climate Resilient Society : colloque organisé dans le cadre de l’initiative « Avenir Commun Durable »
Conférence du 24 janvier 2024 : Nuclear in a Low Carbon Energy Future
Session 1: Science, Technology, and Solutions
Intervenants :
Yves Bréchet, membre de l’Académie des sciences, ancien haut-commissaire à l’énergie atomique, professeur associé à l’université de McMaster (Canada) et à l’université de Monash (Australie), professeur invité, Collège de France
Dr Paul Nevitt, National Nuclear Laboratory
En savoir plus sur l’initiative « Avenir Commun Durable » :
https://www.college-de-france.fr/avenir-commun-durable
Retrouvez les enregistrements audios et vidéos du colloque et son texte de présentation :
https://www.college-de-france.fr/fr/agenda/grand-evenement/vers-une-societe-resiliente-au-changement-climatique-building-climate-resilient-society
L’initiative Avenir Commun Durable, dans laquelle s’inscrit ce grand événement, bénéficie du soutien de la Fondation du Collège de France, de ses grands mécènes la Fondation Covéa et TotalEnergies et de ses mécènes Faurecia et Saint-Gobain.
Consultez la charte du mécénat de la Fondation du Collège de France :
https://www.fondation-cdf.fr/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Charte-ethique-Fondation-du-College-de-France.pdf
Le Collège de France est une institution de recherche fondamentale dans tous les domaines de la connaissance et un lieu de diffusion du « savoir en train de se faire » ouvert à tous.
Les cours, séminaires, colloques sont enregistrés puis mis à disposition du public sur le site internet du Collège de France.
Découvrez toutes les ressources du Collège de France :
https://www.college-de-france.fr
Suivez-nous sur :
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/College.de.France
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/collegedefrance
X (ex-Twitter) : https://twitter.com/cdf1530
LinkedIn : https://fr.linkedin.com/company/collègedefrance
But I still we like to make a comment on this graph that I think is may be very risky and I will share an experience that I had when I was at B labs in the 1980 or 1990s was a tough time where all our manager Were stilling Us guys we
Have made too many discoveries stop let’s try to move to development we have enough technology don’t keep going so I think I think the CEO of companies has to be careful when you see a graph like that and should not badly interpret it and uh so anyway so uh there has been
A question about the nuclear energy and I think we are going to have an exciting session about nuclear energy with two well Renown speakers and nuclear energy against people have been contesting quite a lot but at the last cup 28 we need to recognize that some 20 countries
Have agreed to Triple the nuclear energy for until 2050 so the two speaker we have Dr Paul nit who spend more or less all his life in this topic of nuclear even start his PhD doing already some kind of research on actan Surface chemistry and then he has is presently
And the science technology director in the ukel National nuclear Laboratories prior this he has been director of the UK Advanced fuel cycle programs and even before he has been in this case technical advisor within the nuclear Innovation and research office and of UK in this case dealing with a government
And giving advices so we are excited more or less to listen what he have to tell us and how what is the vision of UK regarding nuclear energy so it’s a pleasure thank you well thank you and thank you for the invite to come and
Talk and it was it was good to hear the questions around around nuclear I would have have liked to have seen a uh a chart on the the third energy revolution of been the harness in the power of the atom because I think you know we need to
Recognize that as a as a step forward so I’m going to give you a bit of an overview and I have the pleasure of a bit of a double act with with Eve BR so it’s a pleasure and privilege to to talk uh here in in Paris and the heritage of
Of of nuclear in in both the UK and France uh is something we we should be proud of and and probably more proud than than we we are um for but before we go into some of the detail I’ll give a bit of an overview and and we’ll ask
Some questions as we go forward uh some Basics you’ll hear me talk about reactors uh and power station um uh just so we’re all on the same page when we’re talking about reactor it’s the energy from the fuel the little red bit on the left side generally is a we
Then use a coolant to take that energy um to to generate steam the blue bit and largely currently to to generate electricity in a in a power station one of the questions going forward and I’ll pose today is is are we getting the most
Out of uh out of the atom of and out of the fuel and should we be using the heat more than we are and not just electricity but the key thing with nuclear is not to forget the fuel cycle and it’s a really important part and uh
I know evil will pick up on a number of that but when people talk about potentially the long-term sustainability of of nuclear they talk about um uranium resources uh the fuel cycle can we recycle fuel can we use it more effectively so you sort to think of of
The two parts as we go forward uh Shan Marie uh mentioned um cop 28 and it’s a really significant moment uh being part of the nuclear sector anyone that has attended a cop or been part of the process will not that nuclear has has been conspicuous by its absence and for
The first time nuclear was written in um at the end of this cop 28 specifically in the wording of the Technologies we need to accelerate to help us in order to to mitigate the effects of of of climate change and I think it’s an important part there’s still question
And I know questions within the EU around the taxonomy and is nuclear green is it low carbon there’s still many people across the world uh that won’t recognize neither as a lowcar carbon energy uh so this is a significant moment um you know as we go forward
Across the world as we’ve got incredible challenges to decarbonize the energy system if we roll out a technology it will be even harder to do that um in the UK um brexit was not great on the upside uh we’re writing our own taxonomy uh rather than the EU taxonomy taking a lot
Of the EU taxonomy but one of the key things was uh and this is out for consultation but but nuclear will be a sustainable uh technology this is really really important because accessing Finance uh is really important uh and finance and and how we Finance particularly large projects is important
But i’ I’d also Point as one of the things that if you’re not aware of but the the beauty of nuclear is the energy density it’s it’s a beautiful beautiful thing and and land use um means that we can generate large amounts of energy uh for from very small amounts of land if
You think a a large reactor is about the size of this room and will power millions and millions of homes uh it’s incredibly efficient uh a uranium fuel P millions of them in a reactor but the size of your thumbnail is the same
Energy as a as a ton of coal so you know harnessing that in the right way surely has to be good for Humanity as we go forward so sh Marie mentioned the commitment from 20 countries to Triple the amount of nuclear energy uh that will only take us to the level that we
Currently are which is about 10% of global electricity is generated from nuclear energy at the moment um so that will maintain around about um 10% of global electricity and the UK and France were both part of that commitment um which is really good uh it needs detail behind it it’s high level
Statements at the moment so it needs real detail to underpin that um and remember this is largely looking at electricity and we will Electrify to decarbonize uh but there are parts of society that we won’t Electrify uh and I’ll mention that um so the opportunities for nuclear are Beyond
Electrification so where are we today just so everyone’s again up to speed in terms of the global situation but 10% of electricity production 400 gaw uh uh across the world uh the second bullet is interesting uh particularly from the UK and France currently embarking on new build programs but but generally in the
West and Central Europe um there been a decline in nuclear with an increase in in China and wider Asia um we talk about technology a lot uh and the majority of of the nuclear reactors worldwide are light water water called taking the energy away but we have got other
Technologies uh in the UK we the GCR uh the gas cold reactors uh so there are other Technologies around and uh uh whoever will listen I will say that deploying nuclear is not a technology challenge it’s really not a technology challenge there are technology opportunities and Innovation but
Deploying nuclear is not a technology challenge at the moment um really interesting point about innovation doesn’t necessarily mean new technology huge amounts of innovation and getting the most out of our current operating reactor systems we now have about 80% capacity Factor worldwide say 80% of the time it’s operating which is really
Important that that’s gone up and huge amounts of research have gone into materials fuels operation chemistry in order to allow us to do that uh and we one of the reasons we need to keep deploying light water reactors is because of all of this to to go forward
And take forward um the other thing is is construction and people will say nuclear is slow uh yes you know and and the quote is you know um you when was the best time to build nuclear yeah a decade or so ago but the second best is
Is now because we’re going to need that energy to decarbonize by 2050 but we’re going to need energy Beyond 2050 but the other thing to take from this chart is that nuclear is being being built on time to cost around the world currently so you will hear negative stories but
You will hear also around the world particularly in China in in dub um in the UAE uh deploying uh nuclear uh to time and cost so it goes back to to some of what kle was saying around the wider challenges around deploying technology in the UK where are we well
Not great if I’m honest in terms of nuclear um so we’ve committed to to build uh up to 24 new nuclear in the UK um um and we’ve published a road map and you you can read all the text I’ll go through that in a minute but on the
Right hand side there’s a just a snapshot this is taken on on Sunday afternoon the the orange block on the bar chart the top left is is the current nuclear in the UK so around 6 gwatt current capacity in the UK with around uh actual generation was around 2 and a
Half G which um was due to there’s a currently reactor refueling and and current the a couple of reactors off with steam uh valve issues um you can see dominated by the green wind and it was really windy on Sunday it was storm iser in uh in the UK so really windy but
The red bar is really important and if you if you look at the Red Bar on the charts on the far right hand side we’ll show you that the the the Orange is the steady nuclear Basel load or firm power at the bottom uh and the red filling in
The gaps of when the renewable uh generation is available is is gas so we are heavily dependent upon gas within the UK so what are we doing with with government it’s been the most Pro nuclear government we’ve had for for a long time recognition uh we committed to
Build Beyond uh more large reactors uh aiming to build between three and 7even gwatt every 5 years from 2030 um we’re going to have to look at sighting the current sites available for nuclear won’t allow to that level um Fuel and fuel cycle so Halo High assay
Low enrich uranium which uh for those outside of the sector won’t mean much but um for some of the more advanced reactors we need slightly higher enriched uranium because of the nature of those Technologies and the supply of that currently outside of Russia is is
Zero so uh the UK is committed to build new and the other bit was was you’ll see a 9 million pound investment in in my laboratory uh in what the uranic Innovation Center uh and it’s linked to the bottom point with skills we are desperate to rebuild skills we’ve not
Built nuclear for a long time investing in new skills is really important so that’s one of the key investments from government so that’s kind of the landscape of where we are uh in the UK and um worldwide I now want to kind of pose some questions to you we talked
About the future of the Energy System how it’s going to change it’s going to look very different and nuclear being built into the Future Energy Systems the nuclear can provide electrons can provide that electric into that Future Energy System low carbon generation with carbon capture High penetration of Renewables um synthetic fuels hydrogen
Production um but what about if um we use it to the full potential and we add in the Heat and I think that’s the key for me going forward forward is beyond electricity how are we going to optimize the use of what currently uh is largely
Waste from a nuclear reactor in terms of that that energy can it improve the efficiency of uh hydrogen production high temperature steam electrus for example can it be providing District heating as it has around the world can it be used directly into industrial processes to optimize those going
Forward um it’s really important to do that um and to look at that but to do that nuclear has to be part of of the full system assessments as as we go forward and I raise some challenges uh and we had in the UK context that the
Role of of nuclear was only for electricity and it was only for large reactors not new reactors uh and policy was being generated that way uh mainly because it was the full system energy models that weren’t putting nuclear in as an option so clearly it wasn’t coming out in the solution
So one of the things to be cautious of is to understand what’s the assumptions going in to the full system models and and because if the system isn’t the model isn’t offered that input you’re not going to get that output so we undertook With the Energy Systems
Catapult in the UK a full Energy System model so the energy system capit will take the information from all Technologies for from Renewables from carbon capture from others um and they pull the latest information together on a full system not just elect electricity full System model uh and we modeled to
Net Zero in 2050 but what we did this time for the first time in the UK uh and to some extent globally in the full System model was was provided the option to have uh uh Generation 4 or Advanced systems providing hydrogen direct heat to uh industry and District Heat and the
Production of synthetic fuels and what you see um you know not going into the detail of the of the results but the complexity of decarbonizing the energy system is is just huge getting to uh a decarbonized Energy System in the UK needs every single tool so having nuclear having more options gives you
That flexibility makes it easier if I orientate you on the results on the left hand side the the yellow bar is the overall grid size and the green is the amount of nuclear within that system you can achieve Net Zero without nuclear in the UK but is incredibly complex it is
Is Reliant upon speculative technologies that are yet to be uh matured and it is more expensive because of the complexity of the system but I can’t stand here and say you can’t provide a solution without nuclear you you can however increasing amounts of nuclear with the flexibility
To provide heat as well reduces the cost of the overall system and it produces that overall system cost a lower system cost and what we see is of in the middle if if you don’t restrict uh to it to the available sites um it will deploy Beyond
24 gaw in the UK and I believe if we get the policy environment right and plan our Energy System right and nuclear will play a role beyond the the 20 gwatt but there’s a lot that has to fall into place and the chart on the right just says majority electricity but it does
Contribute along with other Technologies to production of hydrogen and District heat so just very quickly on the role Beyond electricity and what the UK is doing so um talked about Advanced systems so generally in the UK we describe Advanced systems as non-light water called systems uh and the UK has
Run a program called its Advanced modular reactor demonstration program uh and this is to demonstrate by the early 2030s the ability to provide heat from a a an advanced reactor system to Industry um and one of the good things that the government did do in this was was narrow
Down the Technologies so it’s asked for one specific technology and I’ll talk about why they did that but the complexity of what’s coming forward in the UK uh and internationally from a reactor perspective does get complicated for policy makers and they wanted to focus down on on a technology they chose
High temperature gas reactor and they did it by a kind of multicriteria analysis uh with the important things being the bits highlighted in red when what can deploy soonest and what has the temperatures that that the industries that they were targeting might need in terms of output temperatures so high
Temperature gas reactors can go above 700° C whereas current light Water Reactor is about 300° c um very quickly you can see in terms of the assessment uh of why uh that from a from a kind of ticking all the boxes of of need um what that doesn’t solve is is the wider
Challenge and anyone that’s read the news will have uh heard today in the UK that the Hinkle Point C the latest large reactor is is delayed by another two or three years so that the challenge of deploying projects doesn’t solve this but in terms of a Dan selection of a
Technology we will look to deploy a high temperature gas reactor to provide heat to Industry by the early 2030s and and build importantly we need to build and demonstrate these Technologies the other bit I wanted to highlight is the role of Horizon and urum funding and we are
Working in the UK this is a uh a program under urum prr program called Gemini 4 uh we’re working with this is led by colleagues with framon we’re working with them to look to deploy a high temperature gas react to luck into produce industrial steam to uh um be
Actually located in in a Polish Research Institute and that again is looking to deploy by by the end of this decade but yeah a relief to be back in Horizon unfortunately the complication have not been urum is somewhat frustrating but uh we are still engaging uh with colleagues
In France to drive forward the the collaboration um where will these high temperature reactors be located and why and what’s the opportunity this gives you a an idea of potential of where we are looking at sighting so this is in the northeast of the UK uh heartley po already has an
Existing Advanced gas reactor in the top right hand side but you can see the cluster of Industry already around that region so if we can put back in an energy source that is low carbon can provide electricity and heat um can we support the decarbonizing can we maintain the economic impact and benefit
In those regions of the Northeast and uh and regionally in terms of social acceptance we find locations that existing reactors to really want new nuclear in their uh in their regions so uh a couple of last slides I think the role for nuclear in in the energy part
Concept needs to be considered um but these roles can come to part you know let’s let’s look at it from the basic nuclear will provide you with heat that’s what it will do how do you harness that low carbon heat um if we get it right it should help us in all of
These areas but the important bit to to leave I have three questions and I um I will quote um Professor sdavid maai former Chief Scientific Advisor to UK government who uh WR a wonderful written a wonderful book uh sustainable energy without the hot air and he said you need
A whatever happens you need a plan that adds up and I couldn’t agree more so we need to understand what the system looks like the first bit what’s the role within that system the second bit and even talk a bit about this is do we have the resources do we understand the fuel
Cyle how are we going to fuel it and then what’s your plan to deliver those Technologies uh we did this as part of um what we call the advanced fuel cycle program in the UK uh to start to look and provide that information into government but it is those three steps
That are really important I’ll finish that uh with where we started because I think it’s really important now if there is consensus that we need to accelerate the deployment of low carbon and low emission Technologies including nuclear then we need to get together to to work
Out how we do that um so I’ll stop there and I’ll I’ll hand over to to Eve to talk a bit more about the concepts going forward but thank you again for the opportunity to [Applause] talk thanks Paul for very nice presentations I think we don’t have a question now we
Are going to wait the presentation of if so e for my French colleagues I don’t need to present him because everyone know him is our reference on nuclear energy but for the French for the English colleague I think if has done a large amount of work in fren nuclear
Energy he has been part or act as a commiss of energy Atomic CA and he’s actually head of the research Direction at Sango bank and he has been acting I think and a lot of groups companies in France and advisor and I think e is also outstanding scientist especially a
Material scientist where he has been study the physical properties especially the mechanical properties of different Metals the Metallurgy and he certainly one of the first at least to develop very strongly all the modeling parts and he’s also very interesting in architecture material and bio inspiration so he a Bible in the field
Of materials so Eve you can do it thank you very much for the introduction it’s a pleasure to join this meeting and it’s a pleasure to have this meeting jointly between U UK and France because I think we we didn’t have many difficulties to to coordinate ourselves with Paul because
Obviously you’ll see a hope that the approaches are very complimentary so the outline of the presentation will be the following I will start as usual when I’m giving a a lecture in college def by the big picture then I will try to speak to you about the standard
Nuclear reactors and most of the re nuclear reactors which are operating and most of the one which are being built of pwr reactors means reactor of pressurized water uh then I’ll come to the point that was alluded to uh what do we mean by sustainable nuclear energy
And that will bring me to the question of the fast breeders and I will end with some concluding remarks now the big picture I mean you’ll see it’s really a big picture but I think that’s worth having all these kinds in mind if you look at the energy sources you have a
Number of them solar wind mechanical I mean being a a horse which is dragging things uh hydraulic uh Hydro power coal gas and nuclear the one which are in red are uh the ones which have very low CO2 emission the one which are in red in red
And uh um uh I don’t know how do you say but in bold red hydro and nuclear are the ones on which you have the control of that means that can decide to R run them or not run them which is not the case with the sun it’s difficult to
Decide that the Sun is going to be there it’s not the case with the with the wind now second part of the big picture it’s even bigger you have to keep in mind that in order to produce trans oh sorry I forgot uh there was the energy sources
But there is also the energy vectors uh so I have listed three of them there is electricity heat and hydrogen electricity and heat are almost opposite electricity is difficult to store and easy to transport heat it’s difficult to transport and easy to store and hydrogen depending if
You are in favor of or if you are allergic to hydrogen you would say it’s equally good or equally bad in both uh in terms of the energy usage I just making very big picture again you have usage for industry usage for housing usage for transport we have come
Over the years to such a selfishness and a forget forgetful of the need of producing in things in our societies that most of the mix which are proposed to you are proposed so that you can feel good as an individual uh you need energy not only
As an individual you need energy in a large quantity well centralized in order to operate on Industries now I go to the last to the next big picture in order to produce transport and use energy we have to make stuff stuff being energy production cable pipes storage device manufactured goods
In order to make stuff you need space energy and raw materials and in order to make stuff in a sustainable manner you need sustainability of resources measure the impact on environment and look at the contribution to global warming and what if there is one message Beyond nuclear energy that I
Would put on the table I think as long as we are not taking into account the whole picture we are we are finding fake Solutions now I’m going to talk about the standard nuclear energy the pwr so I’m going to start by this picture here
Uh if you look at the CO2 emission of the various sources of energy there is the one whose name shall not be pronounced I’m a big fan of Harry Potter that’s Voldemort for years it was almost impossible to talk about nuclear energy including in the in the Jack now one
Point which is important that we start to realize that it’s a low CO2 emission for uh our electricity now we have a number of classical concerns with during the the time I have to speak to you I’m not going to go to all these concerns uh
I’m ready to discuss with you about what is behind but basically it’s it was born in the in the ghost of of the atomic bomb uh it was inflated death from an invisible enemy radiation if you just look at the number of people death per kilow produced that’s probably one of
The lowest quantity uh that you have for nuclear energy one standard nonsense is that we don’t know how to practice the commissioning I mean just look what has been going on on earth look at the number of of plants are which are being decommission which are already been
Decommissioned I even wrote a book on that but it seems that just think the fact is not enough to kill a lie uh we don’t know how to deal with the waste that’s again untrue we know how to deal with the waste the amount of waste we
Have to deal with is small and the way you can store the waste in for instance the solution that we have in France but there are different solution in Sweden which is to put them into glass put the glass into a casting put the casting under a layer of clay and that the
Geology which she’s doing doing the job so just saying we don’t know how to deal with the waste is a lie uh if we say that there is not enough uranium and the limited resources create a dependence that’s true and I will come back to that uh it is more and
More expensive that’s true we have to look why it is getting more and more expensive and I completely agree with Paul has said it’s not a m a question of technical deployment it’s a question of industrial structure uh we no longer know how to construct a plant that’s partially true
For the very simple reason that we have not been doing it during 20 years so if you don’t build and you just operate that means that you are losing the competence but you can rebuild the competence now the speed the need for political stability is essential and not
Guaranteed and I think that’s exactly true and that’s something for political scientists and historians if you have an unstable political regime that’s a problem for nuclear energy now if I look at the waste if you look at the high activity long life nuclear waste so here these
Various cubes give you the original fuel in the original fuel after 3 years you have fishion products minor actinides and plutonium the fishion products are relatively short term minor actinides are long term uh plutonium is is long term uh but you see the number of kilograms which are there are pretty
Small and if you look at the way you store them after 100,000 year 100,000 years you know it’s long that means it’s a time scale which is not the time scale of an engineer that’s a time scale of geology after 100,000 years the amount of radioactivity which goes up out of
The ground is something which is exactly at the level of the radioactivity of the ground now uh another aspect that Paul alluded to which I think is important if this is a diagram which is due to VAV smill I strongly recommen recommend reading two people in this field one is VAV spill
And the other one is is a David U uh mck David McKay that was quoted before here you have the area and you have the power density in blue you have the power density of the nuclear core but that’s not fair I mean you don’t have a nuclear
Core which is sitting on your table it has a whole bunch of concrete around but what it tells you that one thing which is very important is that the density of energy in nuclear energy is just enormous and the reason is quite simple that you are playing with The Binding
Inside the nucleus The Binding between the nucleons is much much stronger than The Binding of electrons to atoms so that means that the density of energy you are going to get get in nuclear power is by nature going to be much higher than any other source of energy
Now the density of matter which is used is also something very important I mean you need a few low quantity of matter to operate a nuclear power plant biomatter I don’t mean the fuel I mean everything which goes around the concrete the steel and so on and again that’s because of
The density of energy produced that you don’t need big things to make big quantity of energy big Power you have big things in nuclear reactor but they give you an enormous power compared to the to a similar structure and if you look simply the tons of steel in terms of normalized by
The by the megawatt produced I think you have a factor 20 uh you have about you go from 20 to something like 800 if you are looking if you are going from nuclear to a to a solar plant so that’s again something important it’s not using
A lot of matter and the matter it’s using for fuel is basically useless cannot do anything with uranium except producing energy now what is nuclear energy again I’m not going to give you a course of nuclear physics but basically it’s a whole question of neutron economy so the neutron economy
Which is the thing which is going to tell you how many atoms are going to be efficient during a chain reaction is going to depend on the fuel it’s going to depend on the geometry of the assemblies and the moderator to slow down the neutrons I’ll come back to that
On the absorption of excess excess neutrons the evolution of the element will mean how many ficient product do I have how many actinides how many plutonium do I have created and you have the question of extracting the heat either to use it as heat or to run a a
Turbine in order to to produce electricity so my summary of what is nuclear energy is basically a neutron grocery store shop uh which is coupled with a steam engine that’s and that’s the reason for which it developed so rapidly because we were relying on 150 years of steam
Engines now if you look at that the grocery shop is related to the fuel is related and it’s connected to the waste now from this very simple picture you’re going to question to question how can I secure the resource or can I limit the waste so that will be the thing which
Will make nuclear energy sustainable in terms of electricity and heat generation you are back to the 19th century but the technology which is available now as Paul said there are many nuclear reactors I like this this diagram which is a sort of pH phenic tree of all the
Possible reactors uh but in fact there is one which is largely dominant on Earth on the current situation which is the pressure water reactors and I’m just going to talk in the rest of the presentation of the pwr because the question we have is to build them but
Also to manage the way they are aging uh and I’m going to talk about the fast Neutron reactors because that the one which is imposed if you want to have a sustainable uh nuclear sustainable nuclear energy now if I go to this picture basically in the design you need
To do thermohydraulics and neutronics you need to Dimension and do material selection the construction needs to make forging welding civil engineering and that’s the place where we are losing time that’s the place where there is an incredible Inc Incredible cost the problem is not in the nuclear part the
Problem in the way you you you make the things and the problem by the way is also a problem which is not only for nuclear it’s visible for nuclear but it’s basically the signature that Europe has been steadily destroying its industry during the last 30
Years if we go at the operation we need to argue about the oper the fuel fabrication the cladding the component replacement the corrosion the aging and the IR radiation now I’m just going to give you a picture just to frighten you that the kind of questions that people
Who are looking at the Aging of nuclear reactor have to deal with I mean it’s going to be inside an aggressive or relatively aggressive liquid which is water boiling water or hot water uh your materials are basically most of their material are Steels uh and you have to cope with mechanical loading irradiation
Temperature environment and the ultimate goal the Ultimate Nightmare is then when you have stress corrosion cracking assisted by IR radiation that’s going to keep Metalist busy for quite a while but all these things are under control because the nuclear reactor are permanently permanently controlled you have a regular visit of the nuclear
Reactor and then we notice there is something wrong stop it and change now one idea which I think is very important it’s the idea of the technical technological Readiness level and the strateg of decision which goes with that if we look at the Technologies there are the Technologies which are available
There are the Prototype Technologies they are the Breakthrough Technologies the Technologies available are to be implemented now the Technologies prototype they have to be industrialized tomorrow and the Breakthrough Technologies they have to be explored and researched to be impulsed now now the point is that uh in the first
Category you have the pwr and you have a number of these small reactors in the second technology the Prototype technology you have the fast breeders reactors which are relying on the uranium plutonium cycle and the last one are the fusion reactors or the molten salt reactors and it’s very important to
Face the time scale we have now to do something we have been procrastinating doing things during 20 years now the question of global warming drives the decision of making things now which means that we have to do that with available Technologies now I come back to my last point which is towards sustainable
Nuclear energy and I you’ll see why I mean sustainable so the classical fuel cycle which is the one which is operating in France is basically you take uranium that means that you have to mine it you make your fuel you put your fuel inside the reactor it lasts three
Years and you go back and then it could become a waste or when we stupidly decided in 1998 to stop super phinix they was a sort of surrogate which appeared which was the box which is basically you make a second term but it’s becoming a real nightmare so you
Just stop there and then go to the then go to the storage now if we look at the classical cycle that’s where the SMR AMR are appearing and I just want to put some words here uh beyond the small is beautiful I mean it’s interesting not
Simply because it is small it is small that means that you have a lower initial cap effect that you have a therefore a higher cost for a similar power that’s something you have to live with then you have to ask am I ready to afford that uh there is passive passive safety and
Design Simplicity which is a very good point when you have to rebuild things uh the enrichment should balance the increased Neutron loss in your grocery shop if you have a small reactor the boundary of the reactor are closer so that means that your your you have to
Balance the loss of neutrons that you have here to have it work efficiently it’s in principle constru constructible of site to be done uh and I think the key issue which we are very seldom asking and which the UK has been asking is when is it relevant we are in a
Situation in France where we keep on talking about small reactors without asking what for so the reason for which they are relevant it can be on Industrial sites which need heat or electricity far from the grid it can be relevant on Islands it can be relevant for heating of of cities provided you
Have the the the network for heat Transportation can be relevant for desolation I think we are in a situation where before jumping into something which is small therefore beautiful we should argue why we want to go there now I just want to quote you this wonderful uh state M by recover about
The difference between the academic reactor and the real reactor so the academic reactor is always working very nicely on paper uh never has any problem it’s supposed to be cheap rapidly constructed and so on and the real reactor uh it’s being built no it is behind schedule it is requiring an
Immense amount of development and apparently trial item it’s corrosion for instance it is very expensive it takes long time to build because the engineering development problem it is large and it is heavy and it is complicated this guy is not nobody this guy has been ruling the nuclear
Propulsion in the United States during 60 years so he knew he knew what it was to build something and I think this should be on the table or anybody who wants to to launch a program now need for a better use of your uranium resources what why well look where they
Come from currently the main provid ERS of uranium or Kazakhstan ner Canada and Australia I like to guess which are the ones on which I feel more happy with and which are the ones I would like to avoid uh now the second point is that we have
Been hearing that we have to multiply by three the amount of nuclear energy interestingly the guy who said that is also the one who stopped nuclear fast breeders in France okay uh if nuclear energy increases with the within the World by 2% per year the uranium uranium resources from standard mining will be
Almost consumed by 2050 that doesn’t mean that you couldn’t find more but that means they will be much more expensive nobody can claim for sure that nuclear energy is a transient solution under many solutions under many political decisions there is this unsa belief that we have to live with nuclear
Energy but it’s only a transient there is no proof of that and I wouldn’t like my country or any country to take the risk of jumping out of a plane hoping that the parachute will be ready when I reach the ground uh for reason of sovereignty there is a need for sustainable nuclear
Energy for the very reason I told you now sustainable nuclear energy it’s another cycle it’s M multi- recycling in F breeder scheme that means that the uranium that you go into your cycle is going to produce plutonium you have some of the uranium which is not usable and
The plutonium you just put it back with the impoverished uranium and you do it again and again and again and that means that basically with all the 300,000 tons of OV uranium we have in France you have something like 2,000 years of resources without needing mining not surprisingly the people who
Are doing mining are not so happy with this idea not surprisingly the people who are don’t like nuclear energy are not happy with that and that’s exactly why this thing which is the Cornerstone of a nuclear renable of a sustainable nuclear energy was the target of anybody
Wanted to get rid of nuclear energy now where does it come from it’s not new it comes back to the wisdom of FY the wisdom of FY and that’s the two slides I’m going to give you that’s the only Nuclear Physics I will tell you that if
You look at file elements they can go Nuclear fishion by Neutron bment of any energy and the one which is able to do that is mainly uranium 235 which is 7% of the natural uranium that what it why it tells you that the use of uranium we
Are making in stardard pwr is poor only5 seven only 7% of natural Alum is used then you have the fertile Elements which can become file by capturing a neutron that the case of the plutonium cre by u238 U 233 created by thorum the neutron created by fishion are fast and they
Can’t break efficiently the U 235 in order to be efficient they have to be slowed down and the slowing down in the pwr is water the water is both slowing down the neutrons and extracting the heat if you look at these fast at these thermal neutrons which have been slowed down
They have also another aspect Which is less Pleasant is that the absorption increases which means that you are creating long life waste the actinides and you are creating plutonium okay now the file plutonium can be separated reincorporated into a fuel and that’s the MOX strategy now the problem is that the MOX
Is going if it’s going through neutrons which are slow which are theral neutrons the MOX is going to be more and more polluted by actinide so that’s why it’s something which is is difficult to deal with after one circle now the key idea is that either neutrons are not slowed
Down they are fast Neutron the Pu 239 is not degraded and the uranium 238 generate generated plutonium the fuel made of plutonium and uranium uh which uranium 238 which is useless in if it’s with the the standard neutrons can be used in a fast breedo mode it can either create more plutonium
Or isog generator mode have the same amount of plutonium produced the main goal of the fast Neutron reactor is to burn the uranium 238 which is the impoverished uranium which is the one which is useless and the one which is the most frequent one now uh but it
Doesn’t create actinides in order to keep the neutron fast they have to bounce back on heavy atoms and the water is excluded that’s why you are using molten salt or Molten sodium in order to do that now the idea of fast Neutron reactors dates from firmy as well as a
First construction of the atomic reactor now just to make a simple picture if you take a match the plutonium is a phosphorus at the end of the match and the uranium 238 is the wood of the match so you just light the match you add the you eat the uranium to
38 interesting thing that it’s a permanent match because you recreate plutonium so it’s just a match that you could light up again and again and again in order to burn the wood that you have in huge quantity compared to the urum 238 that you have in small quantities
Now if I look at the various options if you compare just the last line uh between the pwr the standard pwr and the force breeders basically instead of creating trans onions uh by something like 30 kg and 27 kilg of plutonium you take only 4 kilg of transuranium 0 kilg of
Plutonium and used so the plutonium is used as a resource if you look at the line of the percentage of uranium which has been used the file uh file material only 62% are 62% are unused in the pwr why .1% are unused in the fast breeders that comes to my concluding
Remarks the assets of nuclear energy for decarbonizing economy I think it’s fair to say it’s a mature Industrial Field with potential for Innovation it may it makes an efficient use of resource and space and matter it’s amendable to an easy introduction integration to existing networks it goes
To a Danse electricity production or a Danse for a Danse electricity usage it’s responsible it this industry has has developed a responsible management of the whole life cycle in spite of what he said if you look at the SMR AMR there is a need to analyze the technical issues
And the the economical relevance but provided you do that there are POS possible developments the strategy for a better use of fuel F breeders for a sustainable nuclear energy that needs in any case a long-term commitment in a politically stable environment all the words have been waited and it needs for collaboration
Between countries then one of the reason for which I’m so happy to see UK and France talking together again on these topics thank you very much for your [Applause] Attention