Page 56 - July-August 2012
Basic HTML Version
A Closer
Look at
mPower
By Chris Mowry, Babcock & Wilcox
mPower, Inc.
Chris Mowry
Christofer M. Mowry is the President
of Babcock & Wilcox mPower, Inc., an
operating group
of The Babcock &
Wilcox Company
(B&W). Mr. Mowry
also serves as
President and Chief
Executive Officer
of Generation
mPower LLC, a
joint company
formed by B&W and
Bechtel to design,
license and build
the next generation
of nuclear power
plants based on
B&W mPower
TM
reactor technology.
Mr. Mowry serves
on the Board of
Directors of the
Nuclear Energy
Institute. He holds
a Master of Science in Mechanical
Engineering from Drexel University
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He
also earned a Bachelor of Science in
Engineering and a Bachelor of Arts in
Astronomy from Swarthmore College in
Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.
An Interview by Newal Agnihotri, Editor
of Nuclear Plant Journal at the Nuclear
Energy Assembly in Charlotte, North
Carolina, on May 23, 2012.
1. Give me a global perspective on the
B&W mPower™ reactor; especially in
developing countries.
I think one of the basic ideas driving
global interest is the scale of SMRs. They
are very attractive to developing countries
with smaller or weaker transmission grids
because you can’t have a 1,000-megawatt
plant on a 3,000-megawatt transmission
grid. Of course, there is also the cost
of building a large reactor -- getting
financing for a $10-billion project is
quite challenging. So, a natural target
market for SMRs is developing countries
due to the reactors’ smaller size and
affordability.
2.
Internationally,
with which countries
have
you
had
dialogue?
The
interna-
tional interest in
the B&W mPower
reactor has been tre-
mendous. We have
had
discussions
with Canada, many
of the Southeast
Asian
countries,
various countries in
Europe as well as in
the Middle East and
elsewhere.
There’s a lot of
interest in develop-
ing countries. The
challenge in these
countries is to de-
velop the regulatory infrastructure. From
that standpoint, I think it’s just going to
take a little bit longer for these countries
to be in a good position to adopt nuclear.
3.
What is the motivation for countries
in the Middle East to order nuclear power
plants?
There are many different drivers in
different countries. In the Middle East,
we believe they want to use the oil for
export and not use it for power. Elsewhere,
I understand that Mexico is making a
very strong commitment toward climate
change regulation, which is another
factor that drives interest in SMRs.
You have the demand for nuclear for a
number of different reasons, and then the
question is how do you take the risk out of
manufacturing and constructing nuclear
plants and then reduce the financing
burden. SMRs have major advantages in
all those areas.
4.
What’s the status of mPower with
TVA?
We’re still moving forward with
that project at the Clinch River site.
We continue to work on the design and
the development of the project. Site
characterization studies are ongoing, and
we’re getting ready to do boring at the site
later this summer, so things are definitely
moving forward.
5.
Do you have design certification
from the US NRC?
No SMRs have yet been certified,
although we are in active pre-application
discussions with the NRC. We expect that
our application for design certification
will be submitted for the NRC’s review
in 2013.
6.
How long will it take for US NRC
to issue the design certification for
mPower?
We have assumed a timeline of
about three-and-a-half years, although
we’re optimistic based on feedback
from the NRC that this timeframe can
be reduced. We have a very active pre-
application activity going on with NRC
right now. Numerous design documents
and submittals and topical reports have
already been submitted to the NRC. A
final design certification application is
scheduled to be submitted next year,
but already we’ve made quite a few
submittals of topical reports and have
received positive feedback and approvals
from the NRC. We’re very active with
the NRC right now and meet with them at
least once a month.
The NRC has decided to take a
slightly different approach and use
design-specific review standards instead
of just the generic standard review plan,
NUREG-0800 (Standard Review Plan for
the Review of Safety Analysis Reports
for Nuclear Power Plants: LWR Edition),
which was developed for evaluating
large light water reactors. We’ve been
collaborating with the NRC on that now
for almost a year, so hopefully by the
end of 2012 or early 2013 that will be in
place. That’s an important prerequisite
for having the design reviewed.
56
Nuclear Plant Journal, July-August 2012
