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The Other Energy Sources
Published in Anco S. Blazev, Power Generation and the Environment, 2021
The Chinese made AP1000 reactor units have substantially lower costs, which is mostly due to significantly lower labor rates. For example, the cost for the first two AP1000 units under construction in China was $5.3 billion. An additional four AP1000 reactors constructed in China were estimated to cost a total of $8 billion, or about $2,000 per kW installed capacity.
Nuclear and Hydropower
Published in Roy L. Nersesian, Energy Economics, 2016
Westinghouse (once a leading US corporation, now owned by Toshiba, Shaw Group, and Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries) has a third-generation AP1000 PWR with an output of 1,100 mW. AP1000 has a simple design incorporating standardization and modularity to reduce costs. The plant has both passive and active safety means to shut down the reactor. Passive safety depends on natural driving forces such as gravity flow, natural circulation, and pressurized gas to react to a hazardous condition without operator intervention and no electrical power for the first 72 hours. After that, operator interaction is necessary, but the reactor can remain in a safe mode indefinitely. This reactor would presumably have survived the Fukushima tsunami without violating its integrity.33 Four units are being built in the US and four in China. General Electric with its partner Hitachi of Japan has introduced a third-generation advanced BWR (ABWR) of 1,350–1,460 mW of electricity generation with improved efficiency, safety, and reliability, as well as lower cost. The reactor has more protection against core damage, its design has been standardized and modularized to optimize construction, and has a demonstrated capital and operating cost structure from existing units. Four ABWRs have been built in Japan, with two plants under construction in Japan and another two in Taiwan.34
Sustainable Energy: The Key to Everything
Published in Stanley Manahan, Environmental Chemistry, 2017
In October 2015, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission ended a 20-year period during which no new operating licenses for nuclear Power plants had been issued. This action was taken for the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar Unit 2 reactor located in Spring City, Tennessee. Remarkably, construction began on this reactor in 1972 but was halted in 1985 with the facility 60% complete. Construction was not resumed until 2008! As of 2016, four other nuclear power plants were under construction in the United States, Vogtle units 3 and 4 in Georgia and V. C. Summer units 2 and 3 in South Carolina. The latter four plants were of AP1000 design, which has fewer moving parts and more advanced safety features than plants currently in operation. The AP1000 reactors are designed to withstand plane crashes and earthquakes. They have passive safety features that can function even in the event of the kind of power failure that doomed the Fukushima Daiichi reactors. A major safety feature with the AP1000 reactor is a 3.2-million-L water tank above the reactor, the drain valves of which are held shut electrically. When electrical power fails, the valves open spontaneously, cooling the reactor core with water. This passive cooling system can operate for up to 3 days before power is required to pump additional cooling water. The reactor system also has an air space between the heavy concrete shield and the steel liner to allow cooling by passive convection circulation of air. Compared to earlier reactors, the AP1000 reactors are constructed with significant simplification of hardware, with only approximately half as many pumps, pipes, and heat exchangers as are contained in older power reactors.
NEA Framing Nuclear Megaproject “Pathologies”: Vices of the Modern Western Society?
Published in Nuclear Technology, 2021
The EDF project of constructing two EPRs at Hinkley Point, United Kingdom, is likewise significantly over budget (initially £16 billion, in September 2019 estimated at £21.5 to 22.5 billion), with the expected delivery now 8 years behind the originally planned 2017 (Ref. 56). Similar ills have plagued the construction of the American Generation III reactor, AP1000, although its design principles greatly differ from those of the EPR. While the EPR applies active safety features and redundancy, which add costs and complexity, the AP1000 relies on passive safety and reduction of the number of costly components, including piping and cabling.57 By contrast—and despite some uncertainty concerning budget comparisons especially—the EPR and AP1000 projects in China have advanced without extreme delays and cost overruns, being delivered about 5 years late of the initially announced schedule,14,58 and in the case of the EPRs in Taishan, “only” about 60% over budget.51