A Nuclear-Powered Shower? Russia Tests a Climate Innovation.
By Andrew Kramer, 11/5/21, New York Times
PEVEK, Russia — The water was hot, steamy & plentiful, &
Pavel Rozhkov let it flow over his body, enjoying a shower
that isn't for the squeamish: On his bare skin, he was
feeling the heat produced by an atomic reaction, pumped
directly from a nuclear reactor into his home.
“Personally, I’m not worried,” Rozhkov said.
His shower came courtesy of nuclear residential heating,
which remains exceedingly rare & was introduced in the
remote Siberian town of Pevek only a year ago. The source
isn't a typical reactor with huge cooling towers but is
the first of a new generation of smaller & potentially
more versatile nuclear plants — in this case aboard a
barge floating nearby in the Arctic Ocean.
As countries from across the globe meet in Scotland this
week to try to find new ways to mitigate climate change,
Russia has embraced nuclear residential heating as one
potential solution, while also hoping it can bring a
competitive advantage. Companies in the US, China & France
are considering building the type of small reactors
connected now to Pevek’s waterworks.
“It’s very exciting,” Jacopo Buongiorno, a prof of nuclear
science & engineering at M.I.T., said in a phone interview.
These small reactors, he said, could also warm greenhouses
or provide heat for industrial purposes. In bringing to
life the new approach, he said, “the Russians are ahead.”
Nuke-powered residential heating is distinct from running
space or water heaters with electricity generated from
nuke sources. Direct nuke heating, tried in small pockets
of Russia & Sweden, circulates water between a power plant
& homes, transferring heat directly from fissioning
uranium atoms to residences.
Warming homes with nuke power also has environmental
benefits, advocates of the idea say. Primarily, it avoids
wasting the heat that is typically vented as steam thru
the conical cooling towers of nuke plants, & instead
captures it for use in residential heating, if customers
are fine with it.
Still, some experts are concerned about the potential
risks, pointing to the many spills & accidents on Soviet
& Russian subs & icebreakers that used similar small
reactors. Nuke subs sank in 1989 & 2000, for example.
“It's nuclear tech, & the starting point needs to be that
it's dangerous,” said Andrei Zolotkov, a researcher with
Bellona, a Norwegian environmental group. “That is the
only way to think about it.”
Rozhkov’s wife, Natalia, was initially skeptical. They
can see the new nuclear facility, which is about a mile
away, from their kitchen window. She said she “worried for
the first two days” after their apartment was connected
to one of the cooling loops of the reactors. But the
feeling passed.
“Whatever is new is scary,” Rozhkova said. Still, somebody
has to be first, she suggested, adding, “We were the
closest, so they hooked us up first.”
The experiment in Siberia, Prof. Buongiorno said, could
play a vital role in convincing countries that using
nuclear power to limit climate change will require using
it for more than just generating electricity, the source
of about 1/4 of greenhouse gas emissions.
“Decarbonizing the electrical grid will only get you 1/4
of the way,” he said. “The rest comes from all these
other things.”
Yes, but a nuclear shower? Professor Buongiorno said he'd
take one — but conceded that “obviously this isn't gonna
work if people don’t feel comfortable with the technology.”
The experiment with nuclear heating hardly makes Russia
a crusader on climate change. One of the world’s heaviest
polluters, it has adopted contradictory stances on global
warming, of which Pevek itself is an example: At the same
time it's switching its heating to nuclear power, rather
than coal, it's benefiting from climate change in the
Arctic, reviving as a port as shipping lanes become more
navigable.
Russians also have a long & checkered history of employing
nuclear technologies for civilian apps not generally
accepted elsewhere. The Soviet Union considered detonating
atomic bombs to produce open-pit mines & dig irrigation
canals. With its icebreakers, Russia operates the only
civilian nuclear-powered surface fleet.
At several sites during the Soviet era, engineers connected
a type of reactor used to create plutonium for bombs to
nearby homes for heating. The reactors continued operating
that way for years, even when not needed to make weapons.
The nuclear facility in Pevek is aboard the Akademik
Lomonosov, a barge about the size of a city block. The
idea of small reactors is not new. In the 60s, before the
antinuclear movement gained traction, they were seen as a
promising technology. The US operated a barge-based reactor
to electrify the Panama Canal Zone from 1968-76, & Sweden
used nuclear heating in a suburb of Stockholm from 1963-74.
Now, two other sites in Russia besides Pevek use nuclear
residential heating; however, in those cases, it is a
byproduct of large electrical plants.
Soon, in Pevek, the town’s community steam bath, or banya,
will also be nuclear-powered. The Russian state nuclear
company, Rosatom, connected the reactors to the heating
pipes in one neighborhood in June 2020. It's now expanding
the hot water service to the whole town, which has a
population of about 4,500.
The plant’s two cores are cooled by a series of water
loops. In each reactor, the first loop is contaminated with
radioactive particles. But this water never leaves the
plant. Thru heat exchangers, it transfers heat — but not
contaminated water — to other loops.
In Pevek, one of these loops is the system of pipes that
leave the plant, branch out & supply hot water to homes.
The company promotes a number of safety features. The plant
can withstand a crash by a small airplane. The vessel that
holds it doubles as a containment structure. And the water
circulating thru buildings is at a higher pressure than
the cooling loop from which it derives heat within the
plant, in theory preventing a radiation leak from spreading
into town.
Residents can't opt out of getting nuclear-powered heat,
but they've mostly welcomed the new plant. Maxim Zhurbin,
the deputy mayor, said nobody complained at public hearings
before the barge arrived.
“We explained to the population what would happen, & there
were no objections,” he said. “We're using the peaceful atom.”
Irina Buriyeva, a librarian, said she appreciated the
plentiful heat & electricity. Of the risks of a radiation
leak or explosion, she said, “We try not to think
about it, honestly.”
Russia is first, but hardly an outlier, in developing
small civilian reactors. This month, President Macron of
France proposed an expansion of his country’s extensive
nuclear sector with small reactors, as part of the solution
to climate change. China's building small floating reactors
modeled on the Russian design.
Companies in the US, including G.E. & Westinghouse, have
about a dozen designs ready for testing starting in 2023.
In an extreme example of miniaturization, the U.S. military
has ordered a reactor small enough to fit in a shipping
container; two companies, BWXT & X-energy, are competing
to deliver the air-cooled device.
Germany, however, has taken a different path: The country
decided to close all of its nuclear plants after the
Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011.
Kirill Toropov, the deputy director of the floating nuke
plant in Pevek, said its benefits were already visible
locally, citing snow that's less sullied with coal soot.
“We need to note this positive ecological moment,” he said.
Rozhkov, 41, an accountant, who has been showering &
bathing 3 kids in nuclear-warmed water for a year now,
said Russia’s use of small reactors in icebreakers gave
him confidence in the technology.
“We aren’t worried,” he said, “that the details are
still being worked out.”
His wife said they were “believers,” and added: “There
are things we can't control. I can only pray for our
safety, for the safety of our town. I say, ‘God, it's
in your hands.’”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/05/world/europe/russia-nuclear-power-climate-change.html
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