Editorial | The nuclear question … again

Prime Minister Andrew Holness has again signalled his government’s wish for Jamaica to be part of the movement to install small, modular reactors (SMRs) to generate electricity from nuclear power.

But ministerial declarations apart, the administration is yet to open a fulsome debate of the feasibility of the plan, including where nuclear fits in the government’s medium to long-term energy strategy, the cost of the project and the safety of SMRs. That should start now.

Indeed, such a debate has been ignited in Britain where Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s announcement last week Labour’s plan to build a rash of small, modular nuclear power plants across England and Wales and was greeted with howls of protests from environmentalists, and at least one green energy investor, who is a known backer of the Labour Party. Mr Starmer said the government would adjust regulations to allow for “build, baby build” on SMRs.

But declaring that even larger nuclear power stations generate the most expensive power, Dale Vince told The Guardian newspaper: “And the widely understood and experienced concept of economies of scale is all about things getting cheaper as they get bigger. The opposite is true in the other direction – miniaturisation always costs more.”

The Holness administration placed nuclear electricity on Jamaica’s two years ago , when the prime minister told manufacturers that the government was pursuing SMRs (small-scale nuclear power plants) to generate power “which will be cheaper, more stable and more affordable”. His energy minister, Dryl Vaz, has spoken along the same lines in Parliament about nuclear electricity.

Four months ago the government signed an agreement with two Canadian outfits – Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) and Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) – for nuclear research and knowledge transfer, although the specifics of the deal were not publicised.

Mr Holness most recently returned to the nuclear issue last week at an investment conference hosted by the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE), saying: “Some people hear me talk about nuclear and ask, ‘why are we thinking about this?’ But we must think differently.

“SMRs are receiving greater interest and investment globally, and we need to prepare ourselves to adopt this technology when the time comes.”

VAGUE GENERALITIES

It may indeed turn out that small, modular reactors are the solutions to Jamaica’s energy problem. But thus far, the government has spoken only in vague generalities. It hasn’t offered a significant technical or economic case for SMRs. Neither has it addressed the queasiness many people feel over the safety of nuclear power on a small island.

Perhaps that information exists, but resides in the bowels of the bureaucracy, unshared with the public. Insofar that there has been, or is, any real public discourse on the efficacy of SMRs on a small island like Jamaica, it has primarily been independent scientists and environmental activists writing in this newspaper.

Mostly, they have arrived at the same conclusions as the people in the UK who have pushed back against Mr Starmer:

• That SMRs, though seemingly promising, remain unproven, experimental technology;

• That, up to now, they deliver energy significantly more expensively than renewables, such as solar power;

• That small island in an earthquake zone and in the season path of hurricanes, Jamaica would be especially vulnerable to a nuclear accident;

• The there would be issues about the handling of nuclear waste; and

• That few of these plants have been built anywhere.

Indeed, this newspaper, as we noted previously, has found only two operating SMRs in its research:

• Russia’s Akademik Lomonosov plant, a dual reactor floating facility at the Port of Pevek in the country’s far north. It was commissioned in 2019 and has a combined capacity of 70 MWe and 300 MW of thermal heat; and

• A plant at Shidao Bay in China’s Shandong province. This facility has a capacity of 210 megawatts of electricity and 210 MW of heat.

However, the Canadian outfits with which Jamaica signed the MOU are engaged in research in SMR technologies at AECL’s Chalk River research laboratories in Ottawa. It is however managed, under contract, by CNL.

AECL/CNL have also collaborated with another Canadian company, Global First Power (GFP), which is building an experimental SMR plant in Canada and hopes to sell its reactors around the world.

POSSIBLY BENEFIT

So, Jamaica will possibly benefit from the transfer of skills from that relationship. It would be useful, though, if the government tabled the MOU in Parliament as well as publish it on his ministry’s website.

Mr Vaz, the energy minister, also has more to do, including updating the integrated resource plan (IRP) for the energy sector. This is the document that, using expected future demand, establishes a basis for investment in the power generation and distribution systems, and the technologies to be employed.

This is critical for Jamaica where the cost of energy, generated mostly from climate-heating fossil fuels, is considered among the drags on the country’s economic development.

The latest update of the IRP, it appears, was in 2022, when it embraced the government’s policy for an accelerated transition to renewables, to reach at least half of the island’s electricity generation by 2030. Peak demand at that time is projected at 678 MW, against 644 MW in 2022. Demand is to rise to 728 MW by 2040.

Two significant facts are notable with respect to the IRP in its current form. One is that with less than 20 per cent of Jamaica’s power now delivered from renewables, the island – despite recent bidding rounds for generating capacity – lags far behind its policy goal of mere five years from now.

Second, the word nuclear appears five times in the 2022/23 IRP, but only to mention SMRs as technology to be considered in Jamaica’s energy future. It is not an issue of robust discussion.

Mr Vaz should consider parliamentary hearings on the SMR technology and encourage a serious conversation on energy. That’s urgent.