Chris Mowry

In June, Babcock & Wilcox, a division of Houston-based McDermott International, announced plans to seek federal licensing for a 125-megawatt nuclear reactor that the company calls mPower. The company’s move provides yet more intrigue to the modular reactor business. Two other US companies, Hyperion Power Generation and NuScale Power Inc., also intend to produce modular reactors. (Another firm, Galvin Energy, is seeking funding). The key difference among the companies is that Hyperion and NuScale are venture capital-backed startups. Babcock & Wilcox is backed by McDermott, whose 2008 revenues totaled $6.5 billion. Furthermore, Babcock & Wilcox has a long history of manufacturing components for the power sector. In 1882, when Thomas Edison established the first central power plant in the US, on Pearl Street in Manhattan, he relied on boilers made by Babcock & Wilcox.

To get more information on the company’s plans, I conducted the following email interview with Christofer M. Mowry, the president and CEO of Babcock & Wilcox Modular Nuclear Energy, LLC. Mowry earned an M.S. in mechanical engineering from Drexel University. He also holds a B.S. in engineering and a B.A. in Astronomy from Swarthmore College. Mowry holds four US patents related to digital control systems. He lives in Lynchburg, Virginia.

RB: So why is Babcock & Wilcox getting into this market now?

CM: Quite simply, nuclear energy is the only source of carbon-free baseload power generation currently available to the electrical utility industry. The Babcock & Wilcox Company (B&W) has over 50 years of continuous experience designing and manufacturing nuclear reactors. With the expected emergence of a carbon-constrained regulatory environment in the United States, together with that already extant in Europe and other regions around the world, we believe our company is well positioned to address the growing demand for this power generation technology. We actually have been looking a flexible, modular approach to nuclear power generation for many years, so the timing of our market entrance is really driven by industry demand for our solution.

RB: Other companies, including Hyperion, NuScale, and Galvin, are all proposing modular reactor designs. Why has there been such intense interest in smaller reactors?

CM: There has been a significant shift in the global energy marketplace over the past several years. A confluence of factors, including climate change policy, tightening of capital markets, and strained nuclear supply chains, have fundamentally altered the commercial and technical requirements for new nuclear projects. Project cost, cash flow, and cost certainty are driving the industry to explore alternatives to the traditional large 1,000MWe-class nuclear power plants. B&W, with its existing infrastructure of nuclear manufacturing facilities and deep pool of nuclear engineering resources, is well positioned to lead the industry in translating the concept of scalable, modular nuclear reactors into an operational power plant before 2020. We believe the demand for this type of plant is here and now, so our capabilities enable us to uniquely address this emerging energy market.

RB: What advantages does Babcock & Wilcox have over potential competitors trying to enter the modular reactor market?

CM: A major advantage is that the B&W mPower™ reactor is fundamentally modular in a way that is different from other attempts to modularize the construction of more traditional large nuclear reactors. The entire B&W mPower reactor nuclear steam supply system (NSSS) is manufactured as an integral module within one pressure vessel in our existing facilities across North America. We have a very short, vertically integrated supply chain for this NSSS module, one that gives us significant cost, schedule, and quality advantages over the traditional approach to constructing the nuclear island at the plant site. In addition to the B&W mPower reactor NSSS module, we also plan to have the turbine-generator manufactured as a complete module and shipped to the plant site ready for installation. This modular approach, with its significant use of factory assembled systems, allows us to provide customers with the improved project cost and schedule certainty that they need to proceed with new build projects.

RB: How big is the potential market for modular reactors? (In either power units, or dollars).

CM: The estimates for nuclear new build between now and 2030 vary widely, from 100GWe on up. Whatever the exact number may be, the constraints on plant size, in terms of transmission grid capacity, water rights, and local demand growth, will dictate that a significant fraction of these new plants should be smaller than 1,000MWe. Our modular B&W mPower reactor provides for a flexible, scalable nuclear plant size that is optimized for local conditions. One of these “local conditions” that is attracting a lot of attention is the need to replace very old fossil power plants with less carbon-intensive power generation technology. These plants typically range from 100-300MWe, and we believe that our B&W mPower reactor is ideally suited for this application. The ability to build out plant capacity in 125MWe increments also reduces project finance challenges. All these considerations lead us to conclude that there is a very large market for modular reactors in the global energy market. Our exact projections are, of course, proprietary, but let’s say that they are sufficiently robust to make a very compelling business case.

RB: Let’s discuss costs. Critics of nuclear power contend that it has gotten too expensive. What is your company’s cost target for the 125-megawatt reactor, either in total price tag or in cost per kilowatt-hour delivered?

CM: What is really required here is to look at the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE), a standard method of evaluating and comparing alternative energy sources for power generation. This type of analysis, which is very comprehensive and looks at much more than simply the initial capital cost of a project, continues to demonstrate that nuclear power is competitive against the alternatives, including natural gas under many conditions. This is why utilities continue to pursue nuclear new build here in the United States and elsewhere. The B&W mPower reactor design incorporates several innovations, including a fully factory-manufactured integral NSSS module, that reduce complexity and cost. Our own analysis indicates that mid-sized nuclear plants built around the B&W mPower reactor will be very cost competitive with the larger sized nuclear plants used for most of the LCOE assessments.

RB: What are the biggest hurdles facing the modular reactor business?

CM: Quite frankly, the biggest hurdle for us is to maintain the discipline to adhere to our overall design and licensing philosophy. We clearly have a nuclear solution that is very attractive to the global utility industry, and it will be important to not deviate from the value proposition that we have established. An important part of this value proposition is clearly the credibility B&W has as an existing integrated nuclear engineering and manufacturing company that can realistically deliver our solution in the near-term, with a target date of 2018 or 2019 for lead plant operation. We need to be diligent in not introducing changes to our program that will stretch out this schedule due to controllable matters.

RB: Some analysts contend that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is ill-equipped to handle applications for modular reactors because the agency has only received applications for large reactors. How does your company see the licensing issues with NRC?

CM: We believe B&W has two critical external advantages that will help us through the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensing process. First, we have had exceptional and early interest from utilities, which has provided significant credibility to our program. This interest stems from B&W’s demonstrated ability to design, license, manufacture, and construct nuclear reactors. Also, we have seen significant support from the U.S. Congress, which provides funding and policy mandates to the NRC. We have strong indications that Congress will ensure the NRC has the resources it needs to support the B&W mPower reactor design certification and plant licensing reviews.

The other consideration is more purely technical. The B&W mPower reactor uses the best features and elements of existing Generation III+ technology. This is technology with which the NRC is familiar, and for which NRC regulatory and licensing protocol already exists. By avoiding the use of new Generation IV technology concepts, we will ensure that the NRC is reviewing designs and reactor technology that it already has the ability to license.

RB: B&W has said it will submit an application for the mPower reactor to the NRC in 2011. How long do you expect the licensing process to take?

CM: B&W notified the NRC in April 2009 of our intent to submit an application for design certification of our new B&W mPower modular nuclear reactor. We have now begun licensing activities with the NRC, with the first public pre-application meeting having been held on July 7. B&W intends to submit our Design Certification Application (DCA) in early 2012. In parallel with the NRC review of our design, we anticipate engaging a lead plant customer by 2011, when we are in the final phase of the reactor design program. A combined operating license application (COLA) would be submitted to the NRC as early as 2012. That would support construction of a plant starting in 2015. This schedule could then potentially bring the first B&W mPower reactor online in 2018 or 2019. Timelines certainly have to be realistic, but we believe that given the market interest and regulatory environment, these are viable, albeit aggressive, dates.

RB: What are the expected dimensions of the reactor core?

CM: The reactor core itself is relatively small, with 69 fuel assemblies comprising a cylinder approximately 2 meters in diameter and 2 meters tall. This core is located in the bottom of our integral B&W mPower reactor NSSS module, which is a steel vessel 3.6 meters in diameter and 22 meters in height. By designing the B&W mPower reactor system to these dimensions, we are able to fully manufacture the integrated module in our factories and rail-ship the completed vessel to the plant site for final installation. This approach greatly simplifies the construction process and lowers overall project costs and schedule.

RB: About how many full-time workers do you anticipate will be needed to manage the new reactor?

CM: We estimate there would be between 500 and 1,000 jobs at the site throughout the three-year field construction period. The permanent jobs after construction would be approximately 200 to 400, depending on the number of reactor modules composing the power plant.

RB: Your reactor core will be placed underground. About how far underground will the system be? And what are the advantages of placing it underground?

CM: The reactor core and its associated integral NSSS module are enclosed within a reinforced concrete containment structure. This containment forms the major portion of what is termed the power plant “nuclear island,” which also includes all the important safety systems. In the B&W mPower reactor design, the entire nuclear island is located below ground level. One obvious advantage to our underground nuclear island design is improved security, both against potential terrorist threats as well as in addressing the new U.S. NRC airplane impact rule.

RB: B&W has said the design of the new reactor includes a “passively safe” system. Will this design be safer than existing nuclear reactors? If so, why?

CM: Existing Light Water Reactor (LWR) plants have an excellent safety and reliability record. Our B&W mPower reactor passive technology extends this outstanding performance by delivering the same or better safety using simpler, less complex features that make use of gravity and the inherently robust characteristics of our nuclear island design. A significant ancillary benefit of our passively safe design is that it yields a lower-cost nuclear island that can be constructed on a shorter schedule and maintained with fewer resources.

RB: Your press release says the reactor will need refueling once every five years. Please explain how the reactor will be refueled. Will the core have to be shipped back to the factory?

CM: Conceptually, the B&W mPower reactor is refueled much like existing LWR plants. Once the plant is shutdown for refueling, the reactor module is disassembled to gain access to the reactor core. However, unlike existing plants that perform the refueling operation one fuel assembly at a time, we plan on replacing the entire reactor core as a single cartridge. This approach eliminates hundreds of individual fuel assembly movements and will significantly reduce outage complexity and time. The used core cartridge will be stored underground in the reactor containment’s spent fuel pool. This pool will have enough capacity to store all the used fuel for the entire 60-year plant life, eliminating the need for above ground interim storage solutions.