Nuclear batteries offer energy savings for mines

Dunedin Energy System’s SMART (Small Modular Adaptable Reactor Technology) nuclear energy technology includes a replaceable nuclear battery. The battery, a cylindrical module the size of a large bus, shown in green at the centre of this diagram, is housed in a power-generating structure. (IMAGE COURTESY OF DUNEDIN)

An Ontario-based nuclear energy company claims that only nuclear power can completely replace diesel and other fossil fuels to power northern mining projects.

Speaking to an audience April 11 at the Nunavut Mining Symposium in Iqaluit, Peter Lang of Dunedin Energy Systems pointed to price trends in oil and gas, which show steady increases past $100 a barrel of oil.

“That’s with Europe still in recession and flat on its back, and with the U.S., the world’s largest economy just getting up off its knees,” the company president said. “So ask yourself where diesel fuel is going to be in 10 or 15 years.”

The increases are inflating energy and transport costs for mining projects at a time when the mining industry seems poised for a boom.

This does not bode well for mining companies in Nunavut and neighbouring territories, which are almost completely reliant on diesel to fuel their operations.

The final day of the mining symposium included short presentations energy and infrastructure for mines, and Lang was the only delegate who claimed to have an alternative energy source that could completely supply the energy needs of a large-scale mining operation in northern Canada.

Presenters of other alternatives — such as wind and hydroelectric power — would only claim to cover a fraction of energy needs for northern mines.

Dunedin Energy System’s “nuclear battery” technology, “small modular adaptable reactor technology,” known by the acronym SMART, is now in a “vendor design review” stage, Lang said.

The company will produce its first operational demonstration unit in about five years. Dunedin’s system uses a replaceable nuclear-reactor module, known as a nuclear battery, which is replaced every 20 years. It eliminates the need for constant re-supply of diesel fuel, Lang said, thus offering major savings on rising transportation costs, and does not pollute.

The replaceable “nuclear battery” is about the size of a large bus, capable of producing up to 25 megawatts of energy — enough to power a mine like the Meadowbank gold mine near Baker Lake. Once depleted, the battery would be removed and sent back south for recycling, to be replaced by a new module.

Energy expenses in kilowatt-hours would include all costs associated with building the plant to house the battery, which would be completely run by Dunedin, and expenses paid for shipping nuclear batteries and all building materials in from the South.

Pointing to the example of the Northwest Territories’ three diamond mines, which rely on the world’s longest ice road for supplies, Lang remarked that nuclear battery power systems would eliminate the need for roughly half of shipments performed — which happen to be diesel fuel.

“And unfortunately the long-term climate trend is not in favour of ice road service,” he added, referring to global warming trends.

Powered by enriched uranium, the nuclear batteries also allow a chance for the North to use some of its own resources to fuel its energy needs, Lang said.

“There’s no reason why it couldn’t be fuelled from uranium made right here in Nunavut,” he said. “And if that would come to pass it would give Nunavut a measure of energy independence.”

Lang said Dunedin’s system must follow standards set by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, for starters, and its “convective cooling system” in the battery cannot melt down.

He’s not the first to suggest nuclear power for Nunavut: nuclear power plants were among the infrastructure projects that the NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Mines proposed in 2009 for the two territories over the next quarter-century.