Nuclear Power

6 Key excerpts on "Nuclear Power"

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  Energy Security

  Visions from Asia and Europe

  • A. Marquina(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  15 Nuclear Energy: World Perspectives Eduardo González and José María Martínez-Val The role of nuclear energy in electricity supply Nuclear energy is the technical and economic label to identify a set of activi- ties that transform the energy contained in the atomic nucleus into a useful type of energy, particularly electricity. The potential energy of the inner com- ponents of the atomic nucleus is very large, and it conveys nuclear radiation and nuclear reactions. The main reaction exploited so far is fission, which is usually induced by a free neutron. In one fission, about 0.1 per cent of the reacting mass disappears, and it is converted into heat. This is a much higher value than the corresponding level of chemical reactions. In fact, it is about 1 million times higher. This is why nuclear energy is so powerful, but it is also a cause for concern. To minimize the risks, nuclear reactors are designed and operated so that temperature and pressure values do not exceed the allowed levels. Nuclear energy for electricity generation was started in the late 1950s, and evolved very fast in the first two decades. This fast early deployment was slowed down by a set of factors, particularly social and political attitudes. Accidents, such as TMI-2 (Harrisburg, USA, 1979) and Chernobyl-4 (former Soviet Union, 1986), were at the very root of social and political concern. Additionally, nuclear waste was also considered to be too complex a prob- lem from social and political viewpoints. Last, but not least, proliferation of nuclear weapons was another fundamental issue for nuclear foes. However, despite these social concerns, it must be stated that the actual facts are very different. First, nuclear accidents in the Western world (including TMI-2) have not had any relevant impact on people and the environment.

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  Energy In The 21st Century (2nd Edition)

  • John R Fanchi(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • World Scientific

    (Publisher)

  5.3 G LOBAL D EPENDENCE ON N UCLEAR P OWER The first commercial Nuclear Power plant was built on the Ohio River at Shippingport, Pennsylvania, a city about 25 miles from Pittsburgh. It be-gan operation in 1957 and generated 60 megawatt of electric power output [Murray, 2001, page 202]. Today, Nuclear Power plants generate a significant percentage of electricity in some countries. Table 5-5 lists the top ten producers of electric power from nuclear energy and their percentage of the world’s total electric power generation from nuclear energy for the year 2006. The total electric power generated from nuclear energy in the world was 2,660 billion kilowatt-hours in 2006. Total electric power generated in the world that same year was 18,014 billion kilowatt-hours. Consequently, electric power generated from nuc-lear energy provided approximately 14.8% of the electric power generated in the world in 2006. Some of the nations that use nuclear energy to produce electricity al-so have nuclear weapons, but some of the nations do not. For example, the United States, Russia, and France have nuclear weapons while Ja-pan and Germany do not. The decision to enrich uranium so that it can be used in a nuclear weapon depends on factors such as the history of the Nuclear Energy 115 nation and its politics. The United States, for example, developed nuclear weapons in an effort to quickly end World War II. Japan and Germany, on the other hand, were defeated in World War II and their militaries were subject to restrictions imposed by the victors, notably the United States, Russia, Great Britain, and France.

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  The Political Economy of Nuclear Energy

  Prospects and Retrospect

  • Dipak Basu, Victoria W. Miroshnik(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  Part I Political Economy of Nuclear Power Passage contains an image

  © The Author(s) 2019 D. Basu, V. W. Miroshnik The Political Economy of Nuclear Energy https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27029-2_2

  Begin Abstract

  2. Advantages of Nuclear Power

  Dipak Basu

  1   

  and

  Victoria W. Miroshnik 2

  (1) Reitaku University, Chiba, Japan

  (2) Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan

   

    Dipak Basu

  End Abstract

  Peaceful Atom

  The large-scale development of nuclear energy has been driven by the need for electricity as a result of rapid industrialization, exhaustion of energy reserves, and severe political instability in those countries exporting oil and gas. In addition, traditional energy supplies originating from fossil fuels harm the environment in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.

  Nuclear Power , the result of energy released during the fission of heavy nuclei and the fusion of light nuclei (at least in principle), has changed the landscape that existed in the first half of the twenty-first century. Expansion of the field of application of Nuclear Power is primarily determined by its economic implication. Oil was expected at the beginning of the century to be depleted in 20–30 years. This did not take place; by contrast, the scale of oil production has increased enormously. The same story will be repeated with uranium.

  Reducing the cost of nuclear electricity to make it sustainable will create new opportunities for electrical technology to be expanded. Since Nuclear Power

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  Our Energy Future

  Socioeconomic Implications and Policy Options for Rural America

  • Don Albrecht, Don E. Albrecht(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  1 as well as policy and technology decisions that have locked in the way that Nuclear Power is produced and managed. However, the greatest impediment to a nuclear renaissance may be the fundamental financial costs that slowed the industry to a virtual halt in the 1970s. This chapter examines the nuclear industry in the context of these technological, political, and financial factors and explores the potential risks and benefits of nuclear energy for rural communities. Currently, the impact on rural communities is relatively small. However unlikely, a nuclear renaissance would bring both potential benefits from the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and increased risks if the problems of Nuclear Power are not dealt with effectively. The next section presents the historical background of Nuclear Power. Then the risks and benefits of Nuclear Power for rural communities are presented and discussed.

  Background

  Nuclear Power was not developed in response to a market need or entrepreneurial ingenuity. The first sustained nuclear reaction took place in 1942 in a squash court at the University of Chicago.2 The power of nuclear reactions was evident, and the United States military instituted a massive program to harness nuclear energy, first for destructive purposes through the development of nuclear bombs, and later through the development of Nuclear Power reactors. Initially, reactors were developed and used to power submarines. The adoption of these light water reactors for commercial purposes was both pragmatic and problematic. While it did allow for faster development and deployment of nuclear energy for commercial power generation, it also locked the industry into a particular design that was not necessarily optimal for land-based electrical power plants. Utilities quickly adopted nuclear technology, often in response to incentives from reactor manufacturers and overly optimistic forecasts of construction costs and energy demand. Thus, Nuclear Power was produced by technological, political, and financial willpower. This history significantly influences the potential implications for its continued use and future.

  There are 103 Nuclear Power plants currently operating in the United States. Approximately one third of these power plants are sited in rural jurisdictions (see Figure 5.1). Though many of the power plants in the United States were originally located in rural areas, substantial population increases in the past fifty years means that most are now located in suburban or urban areas. Since 2000 there has been an average increase of 10.9 percent in the population living within a five-mile radius of Nuclear Power plants, and a 27.4 percent increase in those living within a fifty-mile radius (Dedman 2011). Thus, any expectation that isolation from urban centers would provide some measure of protection to the population from any nuclear accident is no longer valid.3

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  Electrical Energy Conversion and Transport

  An Interactive Computer-Based Approach

  • George G. Karady, Keith E. Holbert(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-IEEE Press

    (Publisher)

  For this reason, nuclear plants sought alternative heat-dissipation techniques such as the tall natural draft cooling towers, with which nuclear units are so commonly associated. The advantages of Nuclear Power are the abundant and relatively cheap fuel and the pollution-free operation in normal conditions. However, leaks or equipment failure could allow radioactive gas or liquid (water) discharge that might pose a health hazard to the surrounding communities. An additional unanswered political question in the United States is the final storage of the spent fuel, which is radioactive and hazardous. A similar concern is the decommissioning of old and obsolete plants. Decreased energy consumption in the United States after the energy crises of the 1970s, along with the listed environmental and health concerns, stopped or slowed the building of new nuclear plants and curtailed the operation of several existing plants. These actions resulted in severe financial losses for several utilities. Nevertheless, several hundred nuclear plants are in operation and generating large amounts of energy worldwide. 50 ELECTRIC GENERATING STATIONS 2.2.1. Nuclear Reactor Most power reactors use enriched uranium as a fuel. The uranium dioxide (UO 2 ) is pressed into pellets and the pellets are stacked in a Zircaloy-clad rod. These rods are the fuel elements used in a reactor. Many fuel rods are placed in a square lattice to construct a fuel assembly, as illustrated in Figure 2.20. A couple hundred fuel assem- blies are generally needed to fuel the entire reactor core. This reactor core is housed in a reactor pressure vessel that is composed of steel 8–10 inches (20–25 cm) thick. The reactor core is populated with fuel and control rods. The nuclear fission reaction is regulated by the position of the control rods. Figure 2.21 shows the nuclear reactor vessel where the core is located. The control and fuel rods are arranged in a pattern carefully calculated during the reactor design.

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  Nuclear Or Not?

  Does Nuclear Power Have a Place in a Sustainable Energy Future?

  • D. Elliott(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  Nuclear worldwide It is often believed that Nuclear Power has been in decline throughout the world for many years. There have been relatively few new reactor start-ups in the Western world for many years, while the numbers of gas- fired plants have spiralled. Yet the nuclear share of world electricity gen- eration has remained remarkably constant at around 16% since the late 198 Nuclear Power around the World 1980s, a period of almost 20 years. Nuclear Power generation has kept up with growing overall electricity supply. How has this happened? The answer lies partly in the shift of the centre of gravity in nuclear towards Asia. Although North America and Western Europe have almost stopped commissioning new reactors, the nuclear programmes in Japan, Korea and more recently China and India have been pushing ahead. Yet the number of reactors in operation (around 440 today) is little changed from the late 1980s, with a few going out of service each year and a simi- lar number of new ones starting up. The new reactors, however, are much larger than those shutting down, so world nuclear generating capacity has been increasing slowly but steadily. Another very important factor in this has been capacity up-rates at existing reactors. Plant operators have found this to be a highly economic way of gaining more power – indeed, up-rates in the United States have already added the generating capacity of several new reactors. The most important factor in increasing nuclear generation has, how- ever, been the improved operating performance of existing reactors, many of them 20 or 30 years old. Some of this can be attributed to electricity liberalisation in many markets, but whatever the cause, nuclear plants in many countries are now operating 90% of the time, whereas before 70% was regarded as an adequate performance. So despite only slow growth in world nuclear generating capacity, electricity production has risen much more quickly.

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