The perspective of a Frenchman born in Sweden and working for an American start-up that manufactures nuclear microreactors is necessarily rich in lessons. While Europe seems to be turning more towards nuclear power, its energy policy still lacks clarity and vision, believes Jonas Helwig, co-founder and vice-president of the company Nuclearis. For the entrepreneur, the Old Continent underestimates the link between nuclear energy and prosperity. Without the contribution of the atom, Western industry cannot develop, which benefits China, which continues to increase its electricity production capacity. Hampered by a lack of political appetite and regulations, Europe tends to focus on large nuclear reactors, forgetting that small models are very safe and much easier to build. An illustration of the difficulty in innovating on this side of the Atlantic.
L’Express: To demonstrate the importance of nuclear energy, you often show a graph comparing the number of reactors deployed and economic growth. What lessons can we learn?
Jonas Helwig: We can clearly see the link between the deployment of civil nuclear power and economic prosperity. Take the case of Europe. In 2007, this region was the world’s largest economy. With a nominal GDP of around $16.6 trillion, the EU was almost 20% larger than the United States ($14.5 trillion) and nearly 80% larger than China (around $3.5 trillion). It benefited from a large population, developed industry and competitive electricity prices, supported by a nuclear-based electricity system.
Twenty years later, the situation is bitter for the Old Continent. Since 2007, its economy has contracted by around 20% in real terms. In contrast, during the same period, the U.S. economy doubled in value, from $14.5 trillion to nearly $30 trillion. That of China has also soared, going from 3,500 to 17,000 billion dollars!
This divergence in trajectory is closely linked to energy policy. The United States has retained its nuclear fleet, extended the life of its reactors and added significant additional production capacity. China has carried out the most ambitious nuclear construction campaign in its history. These two countries have considered energy as a strategic industrial infrastructure. Europe, with the exception of France, has chosen the opposite path: that of contracting the nuclear sector. This choice led to an increase in the costs of the electrical system and a reduction in its reliability. But above all, without nuclear energy, the Old Continent has delegated the production of goods and energy to other regions of the world, creating wealth and industrial activities outside its borders. China has benefited greatly from this.
Several European countries have committed to investing more in nuclear energy. Isn’t this proof of awareness?
It would be premature to say so. As co-founder of Nuclearis, I am looking to expand my activities in Europe. But I’m getting mixed signals. Certainly, several EU countries say they want to become more involved in nuclear power. But these are only a few cases. Across the Union, we do not see a major shift taking place in favor of this energy source. Many political leaders remain very cautious on the issue. Finally, as a private actor, we note that discussions with EU representatives remain sluggish on energy and its regulation. I fear that it will take many years before we see a real revival of nuclear power on the Old Continent.
In the United States, everything is much faster. The administration sometimes responds during the day to requests from the private sector. There, there is a real political consensus on nuclear power. Democrats and Republicans are in favor because they see the correlation between this energy and economic growth. They understand that by not building new nuclear power, we are not consolidating our energy independence and we are leaving industrial production to China, whose GDP continues to grow. In Europe, politicians do not see this correlation. They assume that an economy can survive by relying on the service sector. This is a bad calculation.
Nuclearis is still prospecting in Europe to sell its microreactors?
Absolutely, we want to set up a gigafactory in Europe in order to build nuclear microreactors in series. France is also a good candidate, due to its unique situation. It has very good engineers, access to uranium for the manufacture of fuels as well as a remarkable industrial base dedicated to the nuclear sector. Beyond that, France has other assets that can enable it to resist crises: a developed agricultural sector, access to water, a strong army, etc.
However, it must be recognized that France still has a problem with its way of thinking about nuclear power. French projects are often caught in a vicious circle of optimization and improvement. Designs are improved, revised, and then improved again. As a result, the end date of the projects continues to be pushed back. French nuclear projects often take two to three times longer than expected. In summary, the country has brilliant engineering, but its way of managing projects is not good.
Will small modular reactors really be the winners in the nuclear revival? Several studies highlight the excessively high cost of SMRs, those of medium size.
Due to this size and their complexity, SMRs share certain constraints with large reactors. For example, they can only be built by a handful of companies worldwide, creating significant delays in delivery. What’s the point of reducing the size of reactors if you end up with this kind of difficulty? At Nuclearis, we are betting on microreactors. Machines that are only 1.5 to 3 meters in diameter. This compactness allows factory manufacturing on an assembly line. And it can be installed in around thirty different countries. Finally, there is no need to wait ten or fifteen years for commercial deployment.
Our reactors operate with the well-known pressurized water technology. With some notable improvements: they do not need an external water source for cooling and they will operate for twenty years with a capacity factor of 99%. The icing on the cake is that their energy efficiency is slightly higher than that of large installations, while they can be manufactured in eleven months and deployed in a year! That’s a lot of benefits. Europe, unfortunately, mainly looks at the major nuclear players. New technologies are not sufficiently encouraged. And innovation suffers.
.
