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Nuclear Regulation as well. (The Generic
DesignAssessment is the process through
which UK nuclear regulators assess the
potential suitability of a nuclear reactor
design for development in the country).
4.
Are there any updates in the fuel
business?
We continue to invest in the fuel
technology. Last year we had, with our
BWR fuel technology, the lowest fuel
leaker rate in the industry by far. So,
we’re very proud of being able to support
our customers from that perspective, but
you can’t stop. So, we are now coming
out with GNF 3, a new design.
We’ve got the debris filter at the
bottom of the fuel bundle; we’ve got
the debris filter itself. We also have just
installed at Forsmark Nuclear Power
Plant in Forsmark, Sweden the feedwater
debris strainer as well in the feedwater
system, so you don’t allow any debris to
come into the reactor at all.
We’ve been working on laser
technology for the past few years. We
received an NRC license for a potential
Wilmington commercial facility. This is
the same technology that could be applied
to the depleted uranium tails in Paducah
that I was talking about earlier to take
those depleted uranium tails and enrich
them back to natural uranium levels.
5.
How do you think the United States
should handle their fuel? Including
recycling?
It’s a political issue. And you know,
there’s a lot of dynamics behind that,
but it will take political will. It will take
the public understanding that geologic
disposal is a safe way to go. But that’s
the path we’ve been on. I personally
would take another path. I view the
used nuclear fuel that we would put in
a geological repository as an asset, not
as waste. So, I think we’re just thinking
about it incorrectly. That still has 95% of
the energy potential in those fuel bundles?
And that’s what PRISM’s all about, is the
ability to take that out, extract it, recycle
it, and take almost all of that energy
out of there. And instead of taking it,
a fuel bundle, and putting it in Yucca
Mountain or somewhere else, where the
long-lived isotopes are around for about
300,000 years, or if you’re doing the
MOX solution and you’ve got that waste
stream, that’s probably 10,000 years, a
little easier to understand than 300,000,
but 10,000’s still a long time, versus when
you go into a PRISM solution, a sodium
cooled fast reactor, and you completely
recycle the plutonium, uranium and all
those actinides that have the energy in
there, the waste stream is only 300 years
to get down to natural uranium.
After you recycle thoroughly
through PRISM technology, you extract
all that energy. So to me, I’m a big
advocate of really thinking through the
value of that fuel that we’re putting into a
repository. You know, but there are many
ways to do this as well. You could have
a hybrid solution, where we’re talking
about consolidated interim storage. I
think Texas, Mississippi and New Mexico
are having a public dialogue around that.
Why couldn’t you have a solution where
you would consolidate from all the plants
to one of these two or three sites with
a PRISM technology installed there?
And then whatever waste stream that I
mentioned that there is, very, very much
reduced, only have to worry about it, if
you will, from a 300-year perspective.
We certainly have the technology.
It’s really a matter of, again, of policy and
moving forward with the politics.
6.
What countries are working with GE
right now?
I just spent time in Poland just last
month. Poland has been having their
discussion around their energy strategy.
They were talking about nuclear being
the first project for them. They were
talking about the viability of shale gas
as well. And I think they’ve decided
and announced just recently that they are
going to proceed with the nuclear part of
their energy mix. So, I’m very excited
about that. I think our technology would
fit fantastically for that country, both our
ABWR as well as our ESBWR, and we’re
really happy to support them in moving
that project forward.
We’ve had great visits from the
Vietnamese delegation, and they’re very
excited about our passive safety system
in the ESBWR. They’ve announced in
Mexico a Laguna Verde extension. We’ve
had our two BWRs that are operating
just fantastically with CFE (Comisión
Federal de Electricidad, operator of the
Laguna Verde Nuclear Power Plant in
Veracruz, Mexico), a great customer and
a great partner of ours. And so, we are
continuing to speak with them.
Last year during our interview, we
talked about Saudi Arabia, and that’s
almost 18 gigawatts of power. That
continues to go slow. I think they have a
social discussion going on there as well.
I visited late last year, just before WNA
Conference, to talk to KA-CARE and get
a good feeling for their vision. Again,
that continues to move slower than you
might hope, but certainly that gets a lot
of people’s attention with 18 gigawatts
announced.
7.
What is the major technology of
interest for research and development at
GE or at GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy?
If I think about the next steps of
nuclear technology, I would say it all has
to start with safety. So, for the ESBWR,
for example, the newest technology
out there, having those passive safety
systems that rely on gravity, evaporation,
condensation, physical things that happen
without a pump, a pipe, a valve and an
actuator is a very good thing. And being
able to get that, that technology in place
is really important. That’s the first part.
The
next
is
simplification.
Sometimes the best technology is making
things simpler, not more complex. So,
that helps our customers with lower
capital costs. It helps with a better O&M,
operation and maintenance cost.
Going a little deeper, the new control
systems and the control rooms, are now
all digital. Everything else used to be
you had to string a wire. You had analog
signals for control. So now, the ability
to have digital data, clearly that brings
you into the world of thinking about
cyber security, of course. As we’ve
seen, it’s a very, very hot topic out there.
But nonetheless, there are ways to be
able to have that built into the system
to keep it very secure. But it gives you
great opportunities to give the operators
the information they need to run that
plant very efficiently. In the area of
information, this is a huge area for us.
It’s kind of like the old versions of the
car that had a red light after it was too late.
The newer versions actually have gauges
that tell you your oil pressure’s going
down? And so, a little bit of a heads up.
