Jose Luis Antúnez is again the president of the board of directors of Nucleoeléctrica Argentina.
He is an Electromechanical Engineer graduated from the University of Buenos Aires with more than 50 years of experience in the management of energy projects.
He was CEO of transener S.A and CEO of NUCLAR S.A. and was director of the nuclear power plant project, Atucha II.
First of all, thank you very much Eng. Antunez for giving this interview to our magazine, Energia en Movimiento.
Going from the general to the particular.
What is the current situation like as regards nuclear situation in the country?
The situation is the following, on 26th June of this year, the National Executive Power approved the core energy plan for the next ten years. This plan involves firstly operating and keeping the usual quality that has always characterized the three plants that are in operation.
There is, in addition, the extension of the useful life of Atucha I for a period of over 35 years starting in 2024. It followed the example and experience acquired in the extension of the working life of Embalse, which was recently completed and had started in 2010. At the moment we have a new reservoir with 20 years of operation ahead of us. This is about the existing fleet.
NASA is a member of the international association of nuclear power plant operators and we share experiences with all the operators in the world in this difficult task that is to operate power plants with very long periods of life. Experiences have already shown that nuclear power plants have an extremely long life span. In the United States there are plants licensed for 80 years of operation. So that the strategic priority for NASA is to operate well and maintain the park that it already has, and to add two new high-power units that are mandated by the nuclear law of 2009, the 26566 This is not a new provision made by our government , but it was arranged in our previous management and ordered the construction of 2 new plants, choosing for one of them the technology that we know and have used for many years , and that is our property. This is the technology of natural uranium and heavy water. The three power plants, both Atucha I and II and Embalse that we have in operation, are based on this.
This new plant is going to be an updated replica of Embalse, with Canadian CANDU technology, which we own for its use in the Argentine Republic.
The other much talked-about station is already entering the enriched uranium and light water cycle with a power plant, when the 1100 megawatt Chinese reactor named Hualong was selected around 2012/2014. So NASA has been commissioned the recovery of the national project that had been cancelled in 2018 and its re-implementation. We are already working on that to finish what the previous administration could not accomplish, which is the contract with China, and start the 1000 megawatt enriched uranium reactor. I must also add a programme that although it is not part of the NASA programme, it is closely linked. It is a programme designed by the National Atomic Energy Commission which has also been approved by the National Executive Power, whose aim is to finish the small-size modular reactor on which it has been working for years. Actually, we had started construction together collaborating with the CNEA in 2014 but then it came to a halt. That is the CAREM reactor and besides it is installed in an area adjacent to the two Atucha plants. So, it is part of us too. And we are the most excited about the success of the Atomic Energy Commission, which is the owner and designer of the project. It is the first fully Argentine design power reactor.
NASA’s mission is to collaborate with our enthusiasm by doing what we know how to do, which is the building of the power plant. We have been collaborating with the CNEA since June, which has restarted work on the CAREM project.
Argentina has a very important reputation in natural uranium atomic energy. Why is it then that the enriched uranium is selected having such an important technology and experience with which we are even advising Brazil?.
One of the reasons is very simple and sometimes it goes unnoticed. The point is that the reactor designed by the National Atomic Energy is of a modular type, it is recognized by its English acronym CMR, small modular reactors. It is made of enriched uranium, not natural uranium like the ones of power that we have. It is then a powerful reason for Argentina to keep on deepening into the knowledge of how to generate electric energy with enriched uranium. On the other hand, there are many nations that have started with the natural uranium technology and complemented it with enriched uranium power reactors. When the time comes for the CAREM project to become marketable, export is one of the main vectors of interest in that project and it will be interesting to export it on behalf of a nation that also commercially generates electricity by enriched uranium.
What is the difference between natural uranium energy and enriched uranium energy?
The reactor is where a controlled fusion process is produced; it generates thermal energy which produces vapour and with this steam we make electric energy . We have been doing this since 1955, when the first commercial nuclear power plant started with a whopping 20 megawatts of power.
So, as a conceptual difference, it is the same. The difference lies in the unit power of the fuel. Let’s say that the enriched uranium reactor produces more per unit volume in terms of energy than the natural uranium reactor. There is another difference that is technological. That is, in the natural uranium reactor, fuel is refueled while running, while the enriched uranium reactor is periodically refueled by stopping the machine and opening the container.
Advantages then. The equipment to be used with the enriched uranium is simpler than the one necessary to use natural uranium.
But on the other hand, natural uranium is used as it is extracted from nature with the degree of enrichment it has, if it is purified and the degree of enrichment is increased, to go from 0.85 to 3.5 to 4 %, one per unit of volume, it achieves a much greater amount of energy with economic support. Besides, while the enriched uranium is produced by only few nations, the natural uranium can be used as it comes from nature.
Argentina has chosen this path to follow seeking technological independence in the supply of strategic inputs, such as fuel consumption.
What have been the priorities and objectives that NASA has set itself?
They have been set by the National Government, taking into account that our Government is the same as the one in 2015. So that the programme was very well thought out. You talked about continuity in the programmes in the previous talk, this was laid down by law in 2009.
It’s hard for me to imagine something stronger than a law, which is supposed to be something that every citizen should comply with as a matter of state policy, and a law that was passed by an overwhelming majority, I would almost say unanimously by both chambers. Just as the government did when formulating the plan in 2014, it has done it again in compliance with the law 26566.
The atomic energy in the country, in addition to the electricity generation, has many other benefits.
Everything is atomic energy. One thing is the Atomic Energy of power, whose main expression is the generation of electrical energy, but there are other direct applications. For example, naval propulsion is done through a reactor that produces steam that is used in a turbine which is the one that drives the ship’s propellers.
On the other hand, in the use of nuclear energy, the field of Medicine is the one that stands out above all others. Argentina has been a pioneer, a model in this area. These days they are going to look for a linear accelerator for medical treatment that is a manifestation of atomic energy. Its quantities are minuscule compared to electricity but immensely useful to medicine.
Korea is building a linear accelerator with Argentinean technology designed at the Constituent Atomic Centre of the National Atomic Energy Commission. We also have 27 centres of nuclear medicine in the country that are absolute pioneers in this field. There are many other applications, like in industry. Those who have been building power plants for decades have used nuclear energy for welding radiography. It is also used to sterilize seeds and increase the shelf life of foodstuffs. In short, the number of uses is innumerable.
Going back to the Central Hualong topic. Is it going to be an EPC contract ?
Just as a comment, I don’t know mandarin, Hualong means Chinese Dragon.
It’s going to be a modified and financed EPC by China.
According to this, what would be the participation of NASA through the nuclear project management unit, would it be similar to what was done with Atucha II?
In Atucha II we were everything, the designer, the engineer, the architect, because we had managed the work, we had built it, we had managed and started it.
The national project of Candu technology will be like the one of Atucha II, it is going to be done with exactly the same method. In the case of Hualong, NASA plays the role of the owner and inspector. That is to say that the management unit will be dedicated to monitoring, supervising and ensuring that everything goes smoothly; all those tasks that the owner has to do when building a plant, because there are many others that the contract doesn’t cover.
For example, work access, the exit, roads, security. The contract project also includes the supply of components by the Argentine industry and of course the construction and assembly will be carried out by Argentinians. Not by the unit management, but by Argentine companies contracted under the EPC contract by the Chinese contractor, which is nothing else than the national nuclear corporation of China.
The assembly part and the construction accounts for 40 % of the work and China would finance the project including the local part, that is the 85 % of the entire project.
All the technology and related components would come from China. In this way we started with Atucha I and then we evolved with more local content with Embalse. At the beginning of Atucha II in the 80’s a joint venture was formed between the German technologist and supplier and the National Atomic Energy Commision.
Carem project is going to follow another path and NASA’s participation consists of its collaboration in the construction separately from the activity of the other plants.
We are therefore putting all the experience we have acquired over more than 40 years with the power plants to make the commission’s project a reality. But it is a totally independent project from both the national project and the Hualong project. The National Atomic Energy Commission will commercialize it,they are the owners of the project. In the plants the owner is NASA.
Will all specialized and general labour be mainly Argentinean?
As regards building, assembling and the other tasks that are done here are going to be Argentinean. But it’s a great pity that we have to rebuild national capacities that were destroyed with the dissolution of the management unit in 2018. So now we have to recover something that costs a lot, get people enthusiastic, especially those that are very well placed because they are very good.
What will the Hualong power plant stand for in the electricity system?
I like to talk about the sum of the two . The Hualong plus the new Candum double what we have today, that is about 3435 MW. This is essential in view of the energy transition.
Is atomic energy within the clean energies?
Since we started 40 years ago, we have been arguing that they are absolutely clean.
What we have never imagined was that being clean would mean not emitting carbon dioxide.
Why do I say that? When I studied thermal power plants I learnt that they had a combustion process and for us a clean chimney was one that didn’t emit soot, heavy metal particles, sulfur anhydrides or nitrogen compounds and only emitted carbon dioxide and water vapour. There was a famous method of analysis, the Dorsat. It showed that if there was only carbon dioxide and water vapour, things were very good and the manager of the plant received the annual bonus from him, with an additional bonus. It’s been more than half a century since I graduated and who was going to say that carbon dioxide was harmful. First of all, plants live on carbon dioxide; the more they have, the lusher they are .Secondly, we eat carbon dioxide every time we drink a glass of soda or a soft drink and nobody ends up intoxicated.
Who was going to think that this harmless gas would become a threat to the planet?
In these past years, it was discovered that this gas was terribly harmful, not because it is toxic but because it produces a physical effect in the atmosphere that causes the planet’s temperature to rise. It is not the only gas but it is certainly the one that does so in the greatest proportion. The electricity generation and transport industries are the major emitters of this gas.
Then, nuclear energy is one of the cleanest energies, it doesn’t emit any carbon dioxide. It is clear that with the ambitious reduction targets that were proposed and ratified in Paris in 2015, though not committed to, there will be no more carbon dioxide emissions in 2050.
Let’s see what the order for electricians is. By 2050, you emit zero, in 2035 you emit half of what is being emitted today. But they have to go on meeting the electric demand and serving the new clients to come, of which the two largest ones are related to transport. One is the transport itself , the one that stops the car, gets off with the extendable cable and the plug in hand to connect it, it is a client who didn’t have it last year. The other giant is the hydrogen cycle closely related to transport and a very high electricity consumer. So that we can neither neglect the demand nor the new demand that is to come.
Thermal power generation that started with coal in the 1980’s goes on burning things to supply the demand. On average 60% of the electrical energy on the planet has been generated by burning something. Oil, gas and other things like biomass or biogas. Curiously, coal is the most polluting in terms of carbon dioxide and it is still the main supplier. The first carbon burner is China and the second one is the United States. When Japan was forced to shut down the power plants after Fukushima to check them, they opened the coal-fired ones.
Coal is more polluting for an elementary physical reason. It has 1/3 of the calorific value per unit mass. And so as to be able to generate the steam that oil or gas has, for example, it simply generates 3 times more carbon dioxide to get the same kilowatt.
So, the first source is the thermal one and it is followed by the so-called clean, renewable energies, being the solar and the wind the most popular ones and then the nuclear energy.
The nuclear energy provides between 10.5 and 11% of the energy consumed on the planet.
Can you imagine that if 60 % of it has to be replaced, who will replace it? Hydropower, which is very good and shares with us a great virtue, a long life. Dams last a long time, there are already 100- year dams. Then come solar and wind renewables and then the nuclear.
What will happen to the Arroyito Plant that has been stopped?
Although it has undergone maintenance, a kind of surveillance and preservation, it is not ready to start up next week. It has to be recovered because it would be contradictory that the nation with the largest heavy water plant on earth would have to import heavy water for its operation, and I regret to inform you that this is what is happening.
It will be recovered with an infinitely smaller investment than the one needed to build a new one. Argentina must continue with its own technology. Nobody knows what will happen in the world in 40 years and we fully dominate the natural uranium cycle.
When do you think is the contract with China expected to be concluded and put into effect?
Our best estimate is that it will come into effect in 2022.
Have any steps already been taken towards it?
Yes, they have been done throughout the negotiation process but now we have taken some decisive steps. The reactor will be located where the Atucha II construction site used to be, coming downstream Parana river, the Carem project will be on top of everything and then those that are our Atucha I and II. Atucha III will be the fourth power plant because Embalse is already there. Currently, whatever the form, shape and the reactor we make will be, we are already clearing and leveling the site so that tasks can be brought forward and the Hualong contract can start up as quickly as possible. We estimate its completion in 8 years.
Due to the unprecedented low water levels of the Parana River and the importance it has for the cooling system of the reactors; have prevention measures been carried out in relation to this?
This affects those already in operation more than the future plants. Two plants with a total of more than 1000 megawatts are being cooled down. Fortunately, the river’s low water level has not jeopardised this. There is a margin over the minimum suction of the cooling pump in the power plants that when it reaches the minimum suction, it must stop. Although this was an exceptional low water level of the river, it didn’t affect. Besides we also took precautionary measures, like dredging the access channels so that the little water that was available could enter properly.
From the point of view of investment and profitability how are the Atomic Energy works in relation to the others?
There is a certain balance between fuel cost and investment. In the power plants where the fuel is expensive, the investment is low. And there are plants that have a very long useful life and zero fuel cost, which are the hydraulic ones. Nature provides the fuel for hydroelectric plants but the investment for a dam per megawatt is very high. In the nuclear power plant, fuel represents 5 % of the operating cost, compared to 60 % in a power station that burns oil.
So what has to be taken into account when evaluating projects ? In our case is the investment cost which is high but the lifespan is very long. So we are confronted by these issues with finance colleagues, but fortunately they are being solved with the methods of plant evaluation which are based almost exclusively on projected cash flows. The method is called LCOE for its acronym in English ( Levelized Cost of Energy ). Now with the very long life time plants, there is drama in that equation. It is that with inflation rates of the order of 5 % or 6 % after 25 years, the cash flows are 0. But the flows between the years 25 and 80 exist and one is going to collect them. For example Atucha was paid off in 23 years and has been running for 47 years. So there has been a big movement in which we allied mainly with the hydraulics. Here, we say that the cost must be adjusted for the long life because otherwise a project of ours would never be feasible and the cheapest ones would be the coal-fired power plants. This issue has been taken up by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which today, to the great pride of all of us, is headed by an Argentinean, Ambassador Rafael Grossi. He has taken up the issue, among many others which have boosted this revival of nuclear energy with a view to the energy transition. Adjustment mechanisms are already being created to be able to calculate the impact on future flow costs and to equalize the interest rates through different schools of thought. The Americans charge it directly to the consumer, the British are thinking of interest rate subsidy mechanisms, so that projects have an interest rate that ends up being inflation-neutral in the long run. Look at the case of the Embalse dam. It had been designed for a 30-year life and for less than a third of the cost of building a new power plant, it was extended for 30 years more of life.
Another issue in the energy transition era is that we believe that those who emit should not be penalized; it would be better to reward those who don’t emit, like giving a prize for the ton not emitted to the hydraulics, solar, wind and nuclear. We believe that society as a whole is excited and not obliged , and we also think that there could be a very unpleasant phenomenon with the issue of the fine, that someone says, I pay the fine and I emit.
Finally, Is NASA developing any plan related to the environment and social action?
We have had this since the previous management. In 2014, we issued the first corporate social responsibility report by an Argentinean State-owned company, We have been the pioneers in the area of corporate social responsibility and now we have continued working on this. We are very committed to the environment and try to ensure that all our processes have the least possible environmental impact. We are also very committed to society, particularly to the people in the areas close to our plant, not only as a source of employment but also because they are our greatest support. We will have to install new plants and we need to make people realize that nuclear plants that will be there for so long are a benefit to the surrounding community.
Thank you very much engineer for the interesting interview you have given to us.
I leave you with a phrase from Ambassador Rafael Grossi that symbolizes the role played by the nuclear in the energy transition. This phrase is now used by the International Organization in all its documents.
“Nuclear is not part of the problem, it is part of the solution”.