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Political and Regulatory Aspects of Energy and Environment
Published in Anco S. Blazev, Power Generation and the Environment, 2021
Last, but not least, on the list of problems of the U.S. nuclear power industry is another difficult, but not urgent, problem. It is the decommissioning of old nuclear power plants. Nuclear power plants grow old, like anything else, and must eventually be shut down and dismantled. Nuclear power plants are designed to last about 30 years, after which time it must be decommissioned.
Electric Power Generation
Published in A.J. Pansini, K.D. Smalling, Guide to Electric Power Generation, 2020
A nuclear power plant is a steam-electric plant in which a nuclear reactor takes the place of a furnace and the heat comes from the reaction within the nuclear fuel (called fission) rather than from the burning of fossil fuel. The equipment used to convert heat to power is essentially the same an ordinary steam-electric plant. The product, electrical energy is identical; see Figure 2-2.
Traditional Electrical Supply Systems
Published in Stephen A. Roosa, Fundamentals of Microgrids, 2020
Nuclear power plants create thermal energy by nuclear fission, boiling water to produce steam. The fission reaction takes place inside the nuclear power plant’s reactor core which contains uranium fuel formed into energy-rich ceramic pellets [18]. These pellets are stacked to form metal fuel rods 12 feet (3.7 m) long [18]. A bundle of the fuel rods, some with hundreds of rods, is called a fuel assembly [18]. Using a Rankin Cycle process the heated water is converted to high-pressure steam which expands and is used to rotate large turbine generators to generate electricity. Nuclear plants cool the steam back into water in a cooling tower located at the power plant or use cooler water pumped from nearby ponds, rivers, or the ocean. Baseload nuclear plants typically have capacity factors that exceed 80% [19].
Comparison of flows and heat transfers in reactor cores with spherical-particle fuels and cylindrical-rod fuels
Published in Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 2021
Xu Liu, Nan Gui, Xingtuan Yang, Jiyuan Tu, Shengyao Jiang, Houjun Gong
In nuclear power plants, nuclear fuel releases a lot of heat, which is converted into electricity. At the same time, the coolant (such as water and helium) takes away this part of heat in time to ensure that the core temperature is within a reasonable range [1,2]. Different reactors have different fuel types: spherical, cylindrical etc [3–6]. From the point of view of flow and heat transfer, a lot of heat needs to be taken away when the fluid flows around nuclear fuel. It involves flow and heat transfer, fluid–structure interactions and so on [7]. Good flow and heat transfer effect are conducive to the safe and efficient operation of the reactor [8]. These show the importance of studying the flow and heat transfer characteristics about nuclear fuel (spherical particles and cylindrical rods).
Enhancement of Thermal Conductivity of Bentonite Buffer Materials with Copper Wires/Meshes for High-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal
Published in Nuclear Technology, 2020
For the perceivable future, nuclear energy will continue to be an indispensable part of low-carbon energy for human society.1 Safe disposal of high-level radioactive waste generated from nuclear power plants is critical to the sustainability of the nuclear energy industry. In many disposal concepts, nuclear waste is first placed into a metal canister, which is then encased with a layer of bentonite buffer material acting as an engineered barrier to limit water percolation and radionuclide release.2 Given its low thermal conductivity (~0.5 W/m∙K) (Ref. 3), this layer of buffer material together with a high heat generation waste package [such as a high-burnup dual-purpose canister (DPC)] may result in a high temperature on the package surface during the early stage of geologic disposal, which may directly impact the performance of the waste package as well as the surrounding buffer material as engineered barriers for waste isolation.4 The potential impacts may include enhanced waste package corrosion and thermally induced mineral phase transformations of buffer materials. Effective heat dissipation of waste packages thus becomes an important consideration for an engineered barrier system design.
Editorial: an Australian perspective on multidisciplinary engineering
Published in Australian Journal of Multi-Disciplinary Engineering, 2018
Another source of antipathy to nuclear power is the long life of some of the waste products from the process. All nuclear power plants have a terminal life span, and even after removal of the spent fuel, there remains a quantity of waste products with intermediate and low levels of radiation requiring specialised storage for an extended period – typically 300 years or less. The creation of such waste repositories is an active subject of study in an Australian Government search for a low-level waste repository and an intermediate-level waste store in South Australia. This followed an earlier South Australian Royal Commission considering the full nuclear fuel cycle.