Jacopo Buongiorno, Italian, is one of the leading international experts in nuclear energy. His CV is 253 words long: just remember that he is professor of Nuclear Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, scientific and technological director of the MIT Nuclear Reactor Laboratory, as well as a member of the National Academy of Engineering of the United States. He has published over 110 articles in scientific journals in the fields of reactor safety and design and has received numerous awards for his research activity. We asked Buongiorno some questions regarding the Italian Parliament’s decision to reopen the chapter on nuclear energy.
What type of power plants could be built, with what technology?
They could be either large-sized, with mature technology available now, or medium or small-sized, from 100 to 400 megawatts of power, with technologies that are in the demonstration phase (no longer research and development) in North America, China and Russia.
What are Small nuclear reactors and why are we talking about them now?
Essentially these are plants of smaller physical dimensions than classic power plants, which should be simpler to build and cost less. They are modular systems that are built in the factory and then assembled on site. But be careful: cost less in absolute terms, not necessarily per unit of energy produced.
Italy is interested in SMRs, but for now the applications are few and some argue that the effort is not worth the candle, that is, they still cost too much compared to the production they can offer. What do you think?
The value of SMRs is to reduce the size of the initial investment and therefore reduce the financial risk of the project. However, once built, a medium and low-sized plant produces electricity (or heat) at higher costs than a large one, due to the economy of scale. So choosing one approach or the other requires a compromise. Then there are also users for whom a large system makes no sense, in which case the choice of SMRs is mandatory.
In your opinion, does Italy have the skills to build nuclear power plants?
The supply chains for nuclear plants are essentially international, no country, perhaps with the exception of China and partly Russia, can build a large nuclear plant completely autonomously. Italy, considering that it has not had a national power plant for over 30 years, has maintained a nuclear infrastructure of exceptional value, both in terms of its educational system, with hundreds of nuclear engineers graduating every year, and in industrial terms, with a myriad of companies that are part of the supply chain for the construction and maintenance of nuclear plants in Europe and North America. So the short answer is: no, Italy alone would not be able to build a nuclear power plant, but we are not starting from scratch.
To dispel the enthusiasm towards nuclear energy as a tool for reducing Co2 emissions, it is argued that the time required for the construction of new power plants would be too long: is that really the case?
The average construction time for a new plant in Asia (China, South Korea, Middle East, India, Russia) is around 5 years, sometimes less. In the USA and Europe the times are longer due to inefficiencies in the supply chain and in the management of the construction site. For a country like Italy we are talking about at least ten years before having new power plants in operation. But this time scale does not make nuclear power useless! We need deep decarbonization of all sectors of the economy by 2050, and nuclear power plants, once operational, produce energy with reliability and stable costs for 60-80 years.
Aside from SMRs, what generation of power plants can be built now? And what is the difference compared to that of the past?
There are large reactors (from 1000 MW up) which are evolutions of classic power plants. it is a well-known and reliable technology, with excellent security profiles. The vast majority of power plants under construction in the world at the moment are of this type.
Another topic is that of costs. Are nuclear power plants really too expensive?
They are very expensive. But the value of the nuclear kilowatt hour (clean and stable over time) is higher than the value of the renewable kilowatt hour (clean but intermittent). Costs must be seen in an integrated system, not in isolation. Then there are markets, for example heat supplied directly to industrial plants, where nuclear is absolutely competitive. Let’s remember that a nuclear reactor is also a heat source.
