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Benefits of Nuclear Energy for Remote Industrial Applications

Presentation by Peter Zajac, Director and Power System Engineer, ZW Solutions. Australian Nuclear Association ANA2025 Conference on Friday 10th October 2025 at the UTS Aerial Function Centre, Level 7, UTS Building 10, 235 Jones Street, Ultimo, NSW 2007 Abstract Difference between large grids and islanded industrial grids: • Industrial grids have much lower day/night and seasonal load fluctuations, compared to large, interconnected grids. • The ratio of a size of a single generating device to a single large load is significantly different (which makes industrial system much more prone to instabilities). For example, grinding mills, that are typically the largest loads in mining operations, may constitute 50% of the entire mining load. For that reason, the supply is, in a way, more complex than just having one large generator, and load is not enough to have multiple large size generators. In this case, nuclear would have to be coupled with energy storage facilities. For examples, in gold mining, where autoclaves and oxygen plants are used, oxygen production consumes lots of energy. For this reason, oxygen storage could be implemented, so when the mill trips, oxygen compression ramps up. Or other energy storage facilities, related to processing • Mining grids have lower inertia compared to large, interconnected grids with large penetration of synchronous generators (mainly large steam turbines) Technical and commercial limitations of use of renewables in remote mining areas: • Low percentage versus high percentage of renewable penetration • Oversizing renewables compared to load to achieve low penetration of renewables, with thermal backup (case study) • Economic limitations of high penetration of renewables (over 50% of annual energy generation) Cost of liquid and gaseous fuel storage, for example LNG, issues with long term storage • Logistic of fuel delivery, especially for places with little to no road infrastructure, reliant on sea/river transport • Cost of establishing of fuel delivery. For example, LNG would require building a dedicated port, or refuelling dock, plus getting gas transportation ship or vehicles, scaled to the fuel requirements. Those are not often established in remote areas, and the cost can include purchasing a dedicated ship of selected size, as RoI for the delivery company may be tens of years Cycles of nuclear refuelling can be aligned with major mining shutdowns to minimise production loses. Use of floating nuclear power stations like Russian Akademik Lomonosov, which is 2 x 35Mwe, or Russian nuclear ice breakers, that can be repurposed to work as generators. Barges with engine or turbine generators are commonly used in remote mining areas, across the world (PNG, South America, Asia, etc.) Installation time. Time between exploration and commencement of the mine operation can take 10-15years or more, so even for naysayers, this would be enough time to build a reactor / reactors Potential benefits of using nuclear with short term battery storage Similar approach to AI data centres in US approaching nuclear generators to provided dedicated supply. Lower risk of security breaches due to remoteness and already heightened level of security and use of armed guards, especially in gold mines