Dow and X-energy to build small nuclear reactor.
If anyone can do this successfully, Dow is one who can make it work. They are strong in engineering, finance, and management, and have a long history of being proactive adopting new technology at the head of the pack.
Dow experience fits better than does that of Bill Gates.
How is it economical to secure this reactor from terrorists?
How is it economical to secure any chemical plant or for that matter oil refinery or pipeline from terrorists. You saw what the derailment of tank cars could do. What do you think a bazooka could do?
There so many attractive targets out there. The main defense is keep a low profile and hope they can’t see the forest for all the trees.
This is nuclear not chemical. Nuclear is damage is much longer…I mean longer lasting. It is also a much prettier target to terrorists. They get their point across.
There has to be a future with security regulations for any nuclear plant. The costs will weight heavily on the benefit.
I think a major safety factor is to avoid the use of water and high pressure steam. That and small size greatly reduces risk.
Not if it is on wheels 
Or can be lifted onto wheels.
I remember Service Merchandise in our area decades ago. The company had the jewelry truck, a cargo container filled with gold, silver and gems, out back. The company had several other outlets but the jewelry was in one cargo container. Someone drove off with the cargo container. The company folded.
There are pros and cons about this project. Dow wants to use these reactors to supply process heat, as well as electricity, for their chemical operations. I’m guessing they will supply high temperature steam to the chemical plant. These X-energy reactors operate at a somewhat higher temperature than normal nuclear power plants. For existing nuclear plants, the main steam out of the reactor or steam generators is usually at around 530 F (277 C). According to their website, the X-energy reactors can supply steam at 1049 F (565 C).
The X-energy gas cooled reactors are also somewhat safer than existing light water plants. The fuel can withstand extremely high temperatures and not melt. The plant can be built to passively cool the fuel to keep it safe.
Some of the cons about this particular project are that the reactor and fuel are not yet licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. They will apply for design certification of the reactor, as well as construction of a fuel fabrication facility, but those things will take time. Then they need to get the fuel made, which may need to be at a higher than normal U-235 concentration. This is called HALEU fuel. No existing US reactors use this kind of fuel. There is a plant in China using TRISO fuel, but I don’t know if the Chinese fuel would be compatible with the X-energy design. As I wrote, they plan on building a fuel fab facility in Oak Ridge.
There is a long way to go before these reactors are supplying steam and power to the Dow chemical facilities. I don’t see any huge hurdles, but the bureaucracy moves slowly for designing and building something new and different. Dow is apparently doing some long-range planning.
Chemical plants do indeed usually have a power plant to make steam and then distribute it throughout the plant site (as do many large office buildings and university campuses). This is ancient technology probably from the days of James Watt, 1776.
It does have the advantage of avoiding open flames. But if you have electricity, why do you need steam. Electric heaters do just as well if not better. And are probably more efficient. For high temperature processes heat transfer fluids are often used. One is known as Dowtherm. Electric heaters work fine.
They would use steam mostly to retrofit existing equipment. New equipment likely will be all electric. This reminds one of the transition from steam engines turning an overhead sh@ft with individual machines connected by leather belts. Electric motors were adopted about 1900 and were much more versatile.
I have seen this movie before. Michigan utility company Consumer’s Power, tried to build a two reactor plant in Midland to provide power to the grid as well as power and process steam, to the neighboring Dow Plant. After years of fowlups and cost overruns, Consumer’s Power gave up on the plant, nearly bankrupting itself in the process. Some of the existing facilities of the plant were used in a gas combined cycle plant that performs the function the nuke was intended to fill.
They do, but if I understand the process correctly, Dow needs heat for their industrial processes. In this case, instead of taking the heat from the reactor to make electricity, and then using the electricity to make heat, they are proposing just using the heat directly.
Depending on the pressure and temperature required, the steam could be the exhaust from the turbogenerators, ie, waste heat.
Steve
Thermodynamics is why they want to use the heat directly. The thermal output of the reactor is 200 megawatts. The electrical output from the turbine/generator, after the steam has passed through, is 80 MW. It would be more efficient to send the 200 MW directly to the chemical process than to waste the 120 MW that would otherwise be lost.
They plan to install 4 reactors at the Dow location. I’m guessing some of them will be used for electricity generation, and at least one of them will be used to supply heat/steam.
From the press release…
The four-reactor Xe-100 nuclear plant will provide a Dow facility with cost-competitive, low carbon process heat and power to make essential products used by consumers and businesses every day.
% % % % %
Unlikely, in my opinion. The Xe-100 is a high temperature reactor. As stated earlier, the steam can be upwards of 1000 degrees F. If they only wanted low-grade waste heat, they could have gone with the NuScale SMR, which has already been licensed, and uses standard uranium fuel. The reason to go with the Xe-100 is because of this high temperature performance. But, I don’t know the specifics of what processes they need the steam for.
But if you have electricity, why do you need steam. Electric heaters do just as well if not better. And are probably more efficient.
Not true. There is a reason that steam jacketed tanks/kettles are used in food industry. They transfer the heat much more efficiently. Any electric heater relies on convection to move heat around. Steam jacketed containers rely on conduction to move heat…it is literally touching the thing it wants to heat.
Now, if we talk about how to make power (with % efficiencies) and then changing the type of energy (with losses in % efficiency) and then changing that type of energy back to something else (with additional losses in % efficiency) then taking any one of those conversions out saves you power.