https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149197022000750
There is a growing sociopolitical desire to develop cleaner energy sources in the United States and maintain energy security. Regardless of politics, many coal-fired electric plants have already been shut down and many utilities are vowing to retire their current coal-fired assets within the next two decades. Replacement power assets require consideration of appropriate siting. A geographic information system (GIS)-based multicriteria decision analysis approach is useful to assist utility and energy companies, as well as policymakers, to evaluate potential areas for siting new plants in the contiguous United States. A GIS-based framework is simply a database of location information that allows for mapping, querying, modeling, and analyzing data based on location. The spatial output can be structured to be visual, allowing for easier analysis of location data. The need to site additional power assets, including renewable resources and clean power sources, such as nuclear, led to the development of the Oak Ridge Siting Analysis for power Generation Expansion (OR-SAGE) tool discussed in this paper. The tool takes inputs such as population growth, water availability, environmental indicators, and tectonic and geological hazards to provide an in-depth visual analysis for siting options. Energy companies and other stakeholders can use OR-SAGE to procure feedback quickly and effectively on land suitability based on technology specific inputs. Policymakers can use OR-SAGE to analyze the impacts of future energy technology decisions, while balancing competing resource use. This paper discusses the recent use of OR-SAGE for these purposes and plans for future development.
OSTI: https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1886660
This report addresses backfitting coal-fired utility plants with a nuclear unit on a national scale. A coal-to-nuclear (C2N) transition means siting a nuclear reactor at the site of a recently retired coal power plant. Three overarching questions from the C2N transition guide this research: where in the United States are retired coal facilities located and what factors make a site feasible for transition; what factors of technology, cost, and project timeline drive investor economics over such a decision; and how will C2N impact local communities? Location evaluations were addressed using OR-SAGE.
This report attracted considerable interest and requests for information were handled by DOE GAIN. Several webinars on the report results were presented and an ANS panel was presented in November 2022.
This report summarizes the application of the OR-SAGE tool to the potential backfit of a small modular reactor (SMR) or an advanced non–light-water reactor (non-LWR) at a current or former TVA coal plant site to serve as an example in support of the DOE-NE SA&I Campaign. The OR-SAGE development funded by this campaign has led to additional development and application of the tool.
OSTI: https://publications.anl.gov/anlpubs/2021/04/167516.pdf
This paper documents the efforts of the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) – the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP), supported by the National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC), in the demonstration of two advanced reactor designs, coupled with risk reduction research funding for two to five additional designs. Additionally, NRIC supports reactor demonstration projects outside of the ARDP. As part of the ARDP, industry teams must meet a DOE goal of demonstrating their technologies in a five- to seven-year time frame. This will require that reactor vendors not only determine the technical viability of their reactor designs to meet this challenging timeline but will also need access to viable demonstration plant sites.
This report provides a summary of the development and application of the OR-SAGE tool in FY20 due to the support from the DOE SA&I Campaign. It should be noted that some of the work presented here was funded from outside of this Campaign, but it is due to the development and the visibility over the last two FYs from this Campaign that the additional development and application has happened. The FY19 and FY20 funding from SA&I has enabled new capabilities that are now being used to support sponsors and technology developers, as well as been a vehicle to highlight to a range of stakeholders that value and application of the tool.
OSTI: https://info.ornl.gov/sites/publications/Files/Pub126974.pdf
This report describes considerations for and challenges to revising the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) guidance regarding population for siting an advanced reactor. Current regulations in 10 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 100, Reactor Site Criteria, and guidance support in Regulatory Guide (RG) 4.7, Revision 3, General Site Suitability Criteria for Nuclear Power Stations, are focused on large light water reactors (LWRs), addressing the distance that a nuclear reactor should be sited from a densely populated center. This report analyzes the alternatives to using a formula distance as the primary figure of merit for siting small modular reactors (SMRs) or non-light water reactors (non-LWRs). Some reactor vendors use a business plan that sites reactors close to an industrial partner to supply heat or to back-fit a reactor at a fossil plant site to take advantage of existing infrastructure. Factors such as smaller source terms (fission product release to the environment), passive safety systems, advances in barrier technology, advances in simulation and modeling, and improved understanding of societal risk may allow for siting these types of reactors closer to densely populated centers than has historically been accepted for large LWRs.
This letter documents the expansion of the OR-SAGE siting tool to cover Hawaii. The OR-SAGE tool now covers all 50 states.
This letter documents an analysis of 25 coal plant sites selected by NuScale for potential to host an SMR.
This letter documents the expansion of the OR-SAGE siting tool to cover Alaska. Scitor had interest in a site in Alaska.
This letter documents an analysis of 11 Air Force Space Command sites for potential to host an SMR. This analysis supported a larger site analysis project by Scitor Corporation funded by DOE.
This report documents completion of DOE milestone M4FT-15OR0817042 “Develop Surface Siting Considerations for Deep Borehole Report.” GIS technology is applied to analyze surface parameters across the contiguous US that is informative relative to conducting a deep borehole field test.
OSTI: https://info.ornl.gov/sites/publications/files/Pub51810.pdf
This report documents an analysis of three additional diverse federal energy clusters. The analysis shows that there are potential sites in various federal energy clusters that could be evaluated further for placement of an SMR to support meeting federal clean energy goals.
OSTI: https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1160265
Several Hampton Roads area facilities were previously evaluated for potential to host an SMR. This report documents the evaluation of two of those individual sites for sensitivity to population density. Sensitivity to population density is a significant factor when determining the potential for siting new SMRs and possibly repowering older coal plant sites near population centers with SMRs.
This letter report documents evaluations of eleven potential sites in the Hampton Roads, Virginia area. The sites were identified for evaluation by the Virginia-Hampton Roads SMR Energy Development Council.
OSTI: https://info.ornl.gov/sites/publications/Files/Pub47530.pdf
This report documents support for DOE-NE to evaluate future electrical generation deployment options for SMRs in areas with significant energy demand from the federal sector. Deployment of SMRs in zones with high federal energy use will provide a means of meeting federal clean energy goals. This report identifies several locations with a high concentration of federal government agency electricity usage. One such location, the Hampton Roads area in Virginia, was selected to be studied in further detail with the assistance of the Hampton Roads Energy Corridor Partnership.
OSTI: https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1160265
This report documents support for DOE-NE to use the expanded SMR-focused capability of the OR-SAGE tool for screening a sample set of DOD military bases and DOE sites for possible powering with an SMR.
OSTI: https://info.ornl.gov/sites/publications/files/Pub41833.pdf
This report documents support for DOE-NE to use the expanded SMR-focused capability of the OR-SAGE tool for screening a sample set of coal stations for possible repowering with an SMR. Using 2012 DOE EIA data, over 2000 coal plants were screened to select a broad spectrum of 34 plants for analysis.
OSTI: https://info.ornl.gov/sites/publications/Files/Pub39008.pdf
This report documents support for DOE-NE to enhance and extend the capability of the OR-SAGE siting tool to focus on issues related specifically to the siting of SMRs. This report indicated a 50% increase in the area available for SMR siting over that available for large LWR siting and that SMR candidate area existed in every state of the contiguous US.
This published article discusses the growing need to site new power generating plants that use cleaner energy sources due to increased regulations on air and water pollution and a sociopolitical desire to develop more clean energy sources. To assist utility and energy companies as well as policy-makers in evaluating potential areas for siting new plants in the contiguous United States, an adaptation of a geographic information system (GIS)-based multicriteria decision analysis approach is presented in this paper. The presented approach has led to the development of the Oak Ridge Siting Analysis for power Generation Expansion (OR-SAGE) tool. The tool takes inputs such as population growth, water availability, environmental indicators, and tectonic and geological hazards to provide an in-depth analysis for siting options. To the utility and energy companies, the tool can quickly and effectively provide feedback on land suitability based on technology specific inputs. However, the tool does not replace the required detailed evaluation of candidate sites. To the policy-makers, the tool provides the ability to analyze the impacts of future energy technology while balancing competing resource use.
OSTI: https://info.ornl.gov/sites/publications/Files/Pub37008.pdf
This report documents support for DOE to evaluate advanced nuclear plant and ISFSI deployment options in the future. This study looks at several nuclear power plant growth scenarios that consider the locations of existing and planned commercial nuclear power plants integrated with the establishment of consolidated ISFSIs. Using an appropriate optimization tool, a series of analyses were performed using the output from OR-SAGE for the sites of new nuclear power plants plus existing plants and the sites for interim waste storage facilities to provide an example of a methodology to optimize the locations of the supporting ISFSI facilities.
OSTI: https://info.ornl.gov/sites/publications/files/Pub30613.pdf
This report documents support for EPRI in evaluating electrical generation deployment options now and in the future by focusing on identifying potential areas for siting a mixture of new electrical energy resources. The electrical generation deployment options investigated for the EPRI siting study work include large nuclear plants, small nuclear plants, advanced coal plants, commercial solar plants, compressed air energy storage (CAES), and pumped hydropower. This report provides a comprehensive overview of the OR-SAGE GIS tool that ORNL developed for screening the various power supply sites of interest to EPRI; the methodology employed, including spatial modeling; and initial results for the contiguous United States.