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Nuclear Power Volume I - The Nuclear Power Industry

Lee Layton, P.E.


Course Outline

This course, Volume I – The Nuclear Power Industry, gives a broad overview of the nuclear power industry.  This course is an overview of the industry and goes into the details of nuclear reactions and the physics of nuclear power.  The prime fuel source, uranium, is covered too.

This course includes a multiple-choice quiz at the end, which is designed to enhance the understanding of the course materials.

Learning Objective

Upon completing this course, you should be able to do the following:

Intended Audience

This course is intended for engineers who want to an overview of the basics of nuclear power including the physical processes and how the fuel is prepared for use.

Benefit to Attendees

This course provides background for understanding how nuclear power plants work.  After taking this course you will be better prepared to understand how the current nuclear power plants operate and as well how future designs may work.

Course Introduction

A modern technological society requires substantial use of energy to function.  While there is currently a lot of talk about energy conservation and renewable energy, the fact is energy consumption is growing and – for electrical base load power – the only practical alternatives are coal, gas, and nuclear energy.  Each of these has issues; Coal has environmental issues with carbon dioxide, natural gas is subject to price volatility, and nuclear is expensive.  As energy consumption continues to grow – and it will – all three of the traditional base load power sources must be considered to meet our energy needs.  This course looks at nuclear power and how it is generated and discusses some of the issues facing the nuclear power industry today.

Meeting the future energy demand requires building many large power-plants over the next few years. If we do not do this, and our energy demand grows as expected, we will be faced with large scale blackouts.   This is not just an issue for the United States.  The rest of World's use of energy is rising too, especially in former third-world nations.  The inevitable consequence of the development in places like China and India is a tremendous demand for electricity.  Almost all Third World countries (and certainly China and India) intend to raise their standard of living to Western levels.  Both these Countries have populations of around 1 billion people and such developments will more than double the world demand for energy. Note that this will happen. The developing world will use energy at a rate comparable to what we did before the end of the 21st Century.  China has identified nuclear power as an important component of its future energy mix. India has long-term plans to develop a nuclear power program to meet its own vast energy needs.

The current electrical energy consumption for the entire planet is approximately 1517 gigawatts (GW) of continuous power.  The installed nuclear capacity is 371 GW which provides 16% of the electrical power production of the world.  The United States produces the most nuclear energy, with nuclear power providing 19% of the electricity it consumes, while France produces the highest percentage of its electrical energy from nuclear reactors—77% as of 2006. 

Unlike the coal and oil plants that supply most of the electrical power in the United States, a nuclear power plant releases virtually no pollution or greenhouse gases into the Earth's atmosphere, and therefore doesn't contribute to global warming. Although nuclear power plants generate long-lived nuclear waste, this waste arguably poses much less of a threat to the biosphere than greenhouse gases would.

Nuclear power is power produced from controlled nuclear reactions.  Commercial plants use nuclear fission reactions.  Electric utility reactors heat water to produce steam, which is then used to generate electricity.  When an atom undergoes fission it splits into smaller atoms, other particles, and releases energy.   It turns out that it is possible to harness the energy of this process on a large enough scale for it to be a viable way of producing energy.

A general movement against nuclear power arose during the last quarter of the 20th century, based on the fear of a possible nuclear accident as well as the history of accidents, fears of radiation as well as the history of radiation of the public, nuclear proliferation, and on the opposition to nuclear waste production, transport and lack of any final storage plans. Perceived risks on the citizens' health and safety, the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster played a part in stopping new plant construction in many countries.

The economics of nuclear power plants are primarily influenced by the high initial investment necessary to construct a plant. In 2009, estimates for the cost of a new plant in the United States ranged from $6 to $10 billion. Therefore it is most economical to run them as long as possible, or construct additional reactor blocks in existing facilities. New nuclear power plant construction costs are rising faster than the costs of other types of power plants.

Course Content

This course content is in the following PDF document:

Nuclear Power Volume I - The Nuclear Power Industry

Please click on the above underlined hypertext to view, download or print the document for your study. Because of the large file size, we recommend that you first save the file to your computer by right clicking the mouse and choosing "Save Target As ...", and then open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you still experience any difficulty in downloading or opening this file, you may need to close some applications or reboot your computer to free up some memory.

Course Summary

Proponents of nuclear energy contend that nuclear power is a sustainable energy source that does not create air pollution, reduces carbon emissions and increases energy security by decreasing dependence on foreign oil. The operational safety record of nuclear plants in the Western world is far better when compared to the other major types of power plants. With the exception of Chernobyl, no radiation-related fatalities have ever occurred because of a commercial nuclear power plant. Optimists point out that the volume of radioactive waste is very small, and claim it can be stored safely deep underground. Future designs of reactors are promised to eliminate almost all waste.

Critics believe that nuclear power is a potentially dangerous energy source, with decreasing proportion of nuclear energy in production. They claim that radioactive waste cannot be stored safely for long periods of time, that there is a continuing possibility of radioactive contamination by accident or sabotage, and that exporting nuclear technology to other countries might lead to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The recent slow rate of growth of installed nuclear capacity is said to indicate that nuclear reactors cannot be built fast enough to slow down climate change.
 
What is certain is that the United States – and the World – will need a significant amount of base load generation in the first half of the 21st Century and nuclear power is one of only a few viable technologies to meet this demand. 

Quiz

Once you finish studying the above course content, you need to take a quiz to obtain the PDH credits.

DISCLAIMER: The materials contained in the online course are not intended as a representation or warranty on the part of PDH Center or any other person/organization named herein. The materials are for general information only. They are not a substitute for competent professional advice. Application of this information to a specific project should be reviewed by a registered architect and/or professional engineer/surveyor. Anyone making use of the information set forth herein does so at their own risk and assumes any and all resulting liability arising therefrom.