Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) and Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) have issued a Request for Expression of Interest (RFEOI) to better understand market interest in licensing AECL’s Slowpoke and Nuclear Battery reactor technologies for commercialisation. The RFEOI invites technology developers and other interested stakeholders to submit their insights and feedback about these reactor designs and technologies, which collectively have broad applications that include electricity generation, district heating, isotope production and physics research.
AECL’s Slowpoke technology is a family of low pressure, pool-type reactors that includes the Slowpoke-2, a small, simple, inexpensive and inherently safe reactor design that has years of operational experience, and which has been successfully licensed and operated in Canada for decades. The Nuclear Battery technology, which has. never advanced to construction, is a solid-state micro-reactor concept that would be able to produce a combination of electricity (up to 600 kWe) and heat (up to 2400 kWt at around 400°C) for up to 15 years without refuelling, and which would be expected to survive all postulated accident scenarios without human intervention.
“Through our programme of work, including the small modular reactor (SMR) siting programme and Canadian Nuclear Research Initiative (CNRI), CNL has leveraged its resources to help develop and deploy the next generation of nuclear reactors here in Canada,” said Lou Riccoboni, CNL’s Vice-President of Corporate Affairs and Business Development. “With that goal in mind, we see real opportunity and value in AECL’s Slowpoke and Nuclear Battery designs, which have tremendous potential to help combat climate change, and to advance research in physics and health sciences.”
He added: “This RFEOI process allows us to engage technologies developers to determine whether there is commercial interest in exploiting these innovative designs, which would help advance these important causes, while making the most of AECL’s Intellectual Property on behalf of Canadian taxpayers.”
The Slowpoke family of reactors offer ‘safe by physics’ characteristics of the design, which simplify operations and licensing, and allow unattended operation for up to 24 hours. Slowpoke reactors have been operated safely for approximately five decades in Canada and Jamaica, on university campuses and government installations, for applications that include neutron activation analysis, neutron radiography, and education.
The success of small Slowpoke research reactors has also motivated exploration of the potential for larger versions of the concept, which could be used for district heating. This initiative began with the Slowpoke Demonstration Reactor (SDR), a 2 MWt test reactor built at AECL’s Whiteshell Laboratories near Pinawa, Manitoba. The SDR first went critical in 1987 and underwent various experiments to confirm reactor physics behaviour, operating characteristics, and shutdown system performance.
AECL’s Nuclear Battery is a ‘solid-state’, graphite moderated heat-pipe-cooled micro-reactor (600 kWe / 2400 kWth) concept that was developed and advanced by AECL in the 1980s and 90s. It is envisioned for electricity or industrial heat processes. A combination of design features that include accident-tolerant fuel, a passive cooling system, a large thermal reservoir, and negative temperature feedback makes the technology inherently safe. The Nuclear Battery is also appropriate for off-grid applications, with the potential to provide a combination of electricity and heat for approximately 15 years, without refuelling.
With initial research suggesting that both reactors may have broad appeal within the international technology development community, AECL and CNL are now interested in learning more about market interest in these technologies, including reactor design, engineering and sales, as well as end-use applications, such as district heating, electrical generation, isotope production and neutron activation analysis. The RFEOI can be found exclusively on the Government of Canada’s MERX™ system, which contains high-level background information on the SLOWPOKE and the Nuclear Battery reactor families.
The first commercial Slowpoke started construction in 1970 and began operation in 1971 at AECL’s Commercial Products Division in Ottawa. It had a power output of 20 kWt. This Slowpoke-1 reactor was a prototype and was shut down in 1984. Two Slowpoke-1 reactors were built, both of which have been decommissioned.
In 1976 a next generation commercial design, Slowpoke-2, was installed at the University of Toronto, replacing the original Slowpoke-1. Between 1976 and 1985, seven further Slowpoke-2 reactors with highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuel were commissioned in six Canadian cities and in Kingston, Jamaica. In 1985 the first Low-Enriched Uranium (LEU) fuelled Slowpoke-2 was commissioned at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) in Kingston, Ontario. Since then five SLOWPOKE-2 reactors have been decommissioned (Saskatchewan Research Council, University of Toronto, University of Alberta, Dalhousie University, and AECL/MDS Nordion reactor in Kanata), and three converted to LEU (Polytechnique Montreal, University of the West Indies and Royal Military College of Canada).
AECL also designed and built (start of construction 1985, start of operation 1987) a scaled-up version (2-10 MWt) – the Slowpoke Demonstration Reactor (SDR or Slowpoke-3) for district heating at its Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment in Manitoba. However, the market for this technology did not materialise, and the proposed SES-10 (Slowpoke-4 based on SDR experience) was never built, and the SDR was shut down for decommissioning in 1989.
