Nuclear power plant

File:Nuclear Power Plant 2.jpg

A nuclear power station. The nuclear reactor is contained inside the cylindrical containment buildings to the right - left is a cooling tower venting water vapor from the non-radioactive side of the plant.

Main article: Nuclear power

A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is one or more nuclear reactors.

Nuclear power plants are base load stations, which work best when the power output is constant (although boiling water reactors can come down to half power at night). Units range in power from about 40 MWe to over 1200 MWe. New units under construction in 2005 are typically in the range 600-1200 MWe. The largest nuclear reactors currently in operation are the Tokyo Electric Power Company's 1356 MWe advanced boiling water reactors at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, Japan, built by Toshiba, Hitachi and General Electric.

As of 2007, the IAEA reported there are 435 nuclear power reactors in operation in the world , operating in 31 different countries . Together, they produce about 17% of the world's electric power. The U.S., France, and Japan together account for 49% of all nuclear power plants and 57% of all nuclear generated electricity.

History

The control room at a U.S. nuclear power plant.

Electricity was generated for the first time by a nuclear reactor on December 20, 1951 at the EBR-I experimental station near Arco, Idaho in the United States. On June 27, 1954, the world's first nuclear power plant to generate electricity for a power grid started operations at Obninsk, USSR . The world's first commercial scale power station, Calder Hall in England opened in October 17, 1956. .

For more history, see nuclear reactor and nuclear power.

For information on the Chernobyl accident which only had a partial containment structure, see that subject and RBMK and nuclear power.

Safety

Main article: Nuclear safety

Controversy

Main article: Nuclear power controversy

Economics

Main article: Economics of new nuclear power plants

Reprocessing

Main article: Nuclear reprocessing

Reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel can extend the usefulness of mined uranium. However, it is generally conceded that reprocessed fuel is more expensive than fuel from mined uranium (providing that adequate disposal space is available). Such processing of civilian fuel has long been employed in Europe (at the COGEMA La Hague site) and briefly at the West Valley Reprocessing Plant in the U.S.

Reprocessing of spent fuel to obtain plutonium for nuclear weapons has been done in a number of countries: however these programs are typically separate from civilian activities, and usually classified.

Use of breeder reactors combined with reprocessing could extend the usefulness of mined uranium by more than 60 times. However, breeder reactors, not yet well developed, are currently significantly more difficult to operate.

Accident indemnification

The Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage puts in place an international framework for nuclear liability . However states with a majority of the world's nuclear power plants, including the U.S., Russia, China and Japan, are not party to international nuclear liability conventions.

In the U.S., insurance for nuclear or radiological incidents is covered (for facilities licensed through 2025) by the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act.

Under the Energy policy of the United Kingdom through its Nuclear Installations Act of 1965, liability is governed for nuclear damage for which a UK nuclear licensee is responsible. The Act requires compensation to be paid for damage up to a limit of £150 million by the liable operator for ten years after the incident. Between ten and thirty years afterwards, the Government meets this obligation. The Government is also liable for additional limited cross-border liability (about £300 million) under international conventions (Paris Convention on Third Party Liability in the Field of Nuclear Energy and Brussels Convention supplementary to the Paris Convention).

Future reactors

The 1600 MWe European Pressurized Reactor reactor is being built in Olkiluoto, Finland. A joint effort of French AREVA and German Siemens AG, it will be the largest reactor in the world. In December 2006 construction was about 18 months behind schedule so completion was expected 2010-2011.

As of March, 2007, there are seven nuclear power plants under construction in India, and five in China.

Russia has begun building the world’s first floating nuclear power plant. The £100 million vessel, the Lomonosov, is the first of seven plants that Moscow says will bring vital energy resources to remote Russian regions.

In popular culture

• On the fourth season of the television show 24, Habib Marwan (and his associates) attempt to hijack and melt down every nuclear reactor in the United States, but all remain stable except one.
• The 1979 film The China Syndrome features an accident and implied core meltdown at a nuclear power plant.
• In the 2006 film, 10.5: Apocalypse, a moving trench heads toward the 2 largest nuclear reactors in the United States, located in Texas.
• Homer Simpson from the Simpsons works mainly at a nuclear power plant.

See also

• List of nuclear reactors
• Nuclear power by country
• Nuclear Information and Resource Service
• Gerald W. Brown, American whistleblower on passive fire protection/circuit integrity deficiencies in US and Canadian plants
• Nuclear fuel cycle
• Containment building
• Safety engineering
• SCRAM
• FEMA
• Nuclear Regulatory Commission of the USA
• Auxiliary feedwater
• Uranium market

External links

• IPPNW - International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (Nobel Peace Prize 1985)
• MAPW - Information on Australia's research reactor
• Freeview Video 'Nuclear Power Plants - What's the Problem' A Royal Institution Lecture by John Collier by the Vega Science Trust.
• Non Destructive Testing for Nuclear Power Plants
• Web-based simple nuclear power plant game
• Uranium.Info publishing uranium price since 1968.
• Information about all NPP in the world
• U.S. plants and operators
• SCK.CEN Belgian Nuclear Research Centre in Mol.
• Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage - World Nuclear Association

• Glossary of Nuclear Terms

• Protection against Sabotage of Nuclear Facilities: Using Morphological Analysis in Revising the Design Basis Threat From the Swedish Morphological Society
• Critical Hour: Three Mile Island, The Nuclear Legacy, And National Security Online book by Albert J. Fritsch, Arthur H. Purcell, and Mary Byrd Davis (2005). Updated edition June 2006
• An Interactive VR Panorama of the cooling towers at Temelin Nuclear Power Plant, Czech Republic
• Interactive map with all nuclear power plants US and worldwide (Note: missing many plants)