RICHLAND, Wash. — Fewer than 10 miles from where large-scale nuclear reactions began, a new kind of reactor is planned, aiming to power the Artificial Intelligence revolution.
During World War II, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation was the site of testing grounds where early scientists were trying to figure out how to split an atom to create an explosion powering the Atomic Bomb. Today, much of the radiation at the site remains, close to where Washington’s only Nuclear Reactor sits: the Columbia Generation Station (CGS).
“Sometimes I wish they would have picked a different spot,” said Greg Cullen, the Vice President of Energy Services and Development for Energy Northwest ”Our biggest problem is getting conflated with Hanford and the weapons-production waste.”
Energy Northwest is the company that operates the reactor, as well as several wind, solar, and hydroelectric projects.
It’s in the shadow of CGS where a new kind of nuclear reactor will be built, thanks to a $500 million investment from Amazon for the company X-Energy.
Amazon’s investment parallels one from Microsoft, which announced an investment to restart one of the reactors at Three Mile Island, another setting with a notable nuclear past, after a partial meltdown at a reactor on the island in 1979. Microsoft is spending money to restart a reactor that was closed for economic reasons in 2019.
Cullen says X-Energy’s reactor will not be able to suffer a similar fate as the reactor there, the partial meltdown of a reactor in Fukushima after a Tsunami in 2011, or the complete meltdown of a reactor in Chernobyl, likely the most famous nuclear incident in the history of the energy source.
Those reactors used uranium fuel rods with an exterior that can melt and expose the radioactive element underneath. The ‘pebble bed’ reactor, as it’s known in the industry, fills uranium pellets in a graphite ball the size of a cue ball. As the element reacts, it’s cooled by helium. The helium heats water, turning a turbine to create electricity.
“The energy technology is not water-cooled, so that does not require to rely on any external safety systems,” Cullen said, “There are really no conditions under which you are going to melt the fuel and have any sort of possible release.”
Environmentalists like Dan Serres, the advocacy director of Columbia Riverkeeper, raise concerns about the location of a nuclear reactor that has yet to be licensed by the Department of Energy. Serres says the radioactive waste that remains on Hanford is present in the soil and the groundwater, saying radioactive material still reaches and can be found on the shores of the Columbia River, just a few miles to the east of both CGS and Hanford.
“At Hanford, it should be off the table, I mean it’s just an absolutely reckless idea at this moment to suggest putting more nuclear waste in the midst of an area where they don’t even have a plan for how to address it.” Serres said.
Serres highlights an issue that’s been present at all reactors in the United States, current and past: There is no repository in the nation for nuclear waste that is accepting shipments meaning the spent fuel rods remain in casks as the sites of the reactor.
“It’s not fair to come to a community that is grappling with the most radioactive and toxic site in the western hemisphere and suggest that they should have to absorb more radioactive waste.” Serres said.
The waste from all 40 years of the Columbia Generating Station remains on a concrete pad near the reactor. All of the waste that has ever been created, covers the area of about a tennis court. The waste sits in concrete casks Cullen says are designed to withstand an earthquake or a direct plane crash.
“I would have my children stand there and hug those casks. There‘s no radiation coming out of those casks,” Cullen said.
Just to the south of CGS sits a concrete skeleton of one of CGS’s siblings that was never realized. As the 1970′s turned to the 80′s, the Washington Public Power Supply company was undergoing a massive undertaking to build five nuclear reactors. The Colombia Generating Station was the only one to be completed.
Jim Lazar is an energy economist who spoke out about the reactors. He says one reactor is still being paid for by Pacific Northwest Ratepayers, another was part of the largest municipal bond default in United States history at the time leading WPPS to change its name to Energy Northwest.
Lazar says he is supportive of new technology and acknowledges how the proposed X-energy reactor is safer than smaller reactors of the past, but he has seen big promises from the industry before.
“My biggest fear is that the nuclear plants won’t be reliable and available when they need them and at that point those data centers will turn to the rest of us to the power system that we’ve paid for,” Lazar said, “In the best case that would cause our rates to go up. In the worst case, it would cause the reliability of our service to go down.”
As the power company itself, Cullen dispels that notion, pointing to Amazon’s initial investment in the technology. The current permit has a license for up to 12 reactors, with Amazon paying for the large investment of creating the first reactor and the subsequent three after that.
“Let’s not fool anyone. We know these first projects are going to be expensive to build and demonstrate this technology,” Cullen said, “Number one, Amazon is building its own resources. Number two, they’re allowing utilities access in the future as these costs and timelines come down.”
Cullen says several utilities and the State of Washington have vocal and financial support behind this project, in a hope that if it’s successful, utilities will access the electricity that’s generated.
The smaller X-Energy Reactors would create about 80 mW of electricity, compared to the more than 1,000 mW the Columbia Generating Station creates, powering more than one million homes. The reactors are called ‘small modular reactors’ in part because of the size and in part because the goal is to eventually build them in a factory-like setting, an assembly-line style that has the potential to draw down the costs of building, and creating a scalability to nuclear power that typically isn’t associated with the technology. The draw for Amazon, Cullen says, is a continuous, carbon-emission-free power source that isn’t dependent on the weather.
“[Nuclear] is likely to be the most cost-effective way to meet the needs we have going forward,” he said.
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