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    Nuclear Power
    Nuclear Power
    Nuclear Power
    Ebook186 pages3 hours

    Nuclear Power

    By Paul Breeze

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    About this ebook

    Nuclear Power provides a concise, up-to-date, accessible guide to the most controversial form of power generation. The author includes a comprehensive description of the various methods for generating nuclear power and evaluates the political, strategic, environmental, economic, and emotional factors involved in each method.

    The analysis of real-life, tragic examples, such as the accidents in Chernobyl and Fukushima help the reader understand the associated risks and dangers of this method of power generation and the radioactive waste it creates. This is a valuable and insightful read for those involved in nuclear power, including power plant designers and engineers, as well as those involved in the protection of society and the environment.

    • Discusses various nuclear reactor designs and methods for generating this type of power
    • Evaluates the political, strategic, environmental, economic, and emotional factors involved in each technology
    • Explores the environmental and economic effects of nuclear power generation through various real-life tragedies, such as the accidents in Chernobyl and Fukushima
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAcademic Press
    Release dateOct 15, 2016
    ISBN9780128095126
    Nuclear Power
    Author

    Paul Breeze

    Paul Breeze is a journalist and freelance science and technology writer and consultant in the United Kingdom. He has specialised in power generation technology for the past 30 years. In addition to writing Power Generation Technologies, Second Edition, he has contributed to journals and newspapers such as The Financial Times and The Economist and has written a range of technical management reports covering all the aspects of power generation, transmission and distribution.

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      Book preview

      Nuclear Power - Paul Breeze

      India

      Chapter 1

      An Introduction to Nuclear Power

      Abstract

      Nuclear power is a controversial form of power generation based on the exploitation of nuclear reactions. Nuclear power plants do not emit carbon dioxide while generating electricity but they do produce radioactive waste that must be disposed of safely. Safety is also a crucial factor because an accident at a nuclear power station can release radioactive material into the environment and this will potentially have devastating consequences. Nuclear power grew out of the nuclear weapons programs of the early and mid-20th century and the technology saw its greatest growth between the beginning of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1980s. In 2013 nuclear power contributed around 11% of global electricity.

      Keywords

      Nuclear power; radioactive waste; nuclear fusion; nuclear fission; water-cooled reactor; gas-cooled reactor; breeder reactor; global warming

      Nuclear power is the most controversial of all forms of electricity generation. Evaluating its importance involves weighing political, strategic and, often, emotional considerations alongside the more usual technical, economic, and environmental factors that form the core elements of any power technology debate. To complicate the issue further, partisan views are frequently advanced so that balanced, objective decision-making can be difficult, if not impossible.

      From a technological point of view, nuclear power offers a tested method of generating electrical power based on exploitation of the energy released during controlled nuclear reactions. However the byproducts of these nuclear processes are a range of extremely toxic radioactive materials, and the nuclear industry has still to develop widely accepted ways of disposing of this waste in a secure manner. An additional, complicating issue is the ability of nuclear technology to be exploited for weapons production as well as power; the overlap between the two makes it very difficult to separate one from the other.

      The other great cause of anxiety is the possibility of a nuclear accident. The consequences of an accident at a nuclear power plant that leads to the release of radioactivity into the environment are potentially much more far-reaching that would be the case with an accident at any other type of power plant. This was dramatically demonstrated by the incident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan following a massive undersea earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Both this and the earlier Chernobyl nuclear plant failure have seriously damaged popular confidence in nuclear power and both have had an influence on government policy in several countries, notably Germany, where nuclear power is being phased out as a result of the 2011 accident.

      If these issues weigh negatively in the balance, on the positive side nuclear power does offer a carbon-free means of generating electricity and in a world where the control of carbon emissions has become a major requirement if global warming is to be controlled, nuclear technology potentially offers a part of the solution. The International Energy Agency has identified nuclear power as one of the key technologies that will be needed if the globally agreed target of trying to limit global warming to 2°C is to be achieved.¹ Whether the organization’s optimistic forecasts for nuclear growth are realistic, given both the negative effect of the 2011 accident and the fall in the cost of power from solar and onshore wind power, which has undercut wholesale power prices in Europe, remains to be seen.

      The modern nuclear power industry was born out of the nuclear weapons programs that led to the development of the atom bomb during the 1940s. While weaponry was the aim of the research during World War II, power generation quickly became a secondary, peaceful product of the work and programs were started in both the United States and Russia. Electricity production from nuclear power began on a very small scale at an experimental reactor in the United States in 1951 while in Russia a 5-MW plant designed to generate electricity began operating in 1954. This was followed, in 1956, by a 50-MW dual purpose reactor² at Calder Hall, in the United Kingdom, while the French began a nuclear program the same year at Marcoule. The first fully commercial nuclear power plant was built at Shippingport, Pennsylvania, in the United States, and started operating in 1957.

      From the late 1950s nuclear generating capacity began to grow rapidly with commercial power plant construction programs in the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and Canada. Other countries such as Germany, Sweden, and Japan also began to invest in the technology. By the beginning of the 1970s, nuclear power was seen as the great hope for the future of electricity generation. In the United States alone, power companies had ordered over 200 nuclear reactors.

      Even as the nuclear power industry was booming, there were concerns about nuclear safety and the consequences of an accident. These were brought into sharp relief by an accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in the United States in 1979, followed by the catastrophic failure at the Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine in 1986. The reaction to these accidents was a tightening of regulatory control of nuclear power, the introduction of new safety measures, and a loss of public confidence in the technology. The tougher safety regulations meant that the cost of nuclear power soared and in the west the construction of new nuclear power plants was virtually abandoned. It slowed elsewhere too so that during the 1990s and early years of the current century new nuclear plant construction was rare.

      Meanwhile the industry was hoping for a renaissance. Interest in nuclear power in China provided one ray of hope and at the same time all the major nuclear power plant manufacturers began to develop a new generation of safer reactors. By 2010 it appeared that a renaissance had begun and orders started to roll once more. However the Fukushima accident in 2011 halted this new blossoming and once again the nuclear power industry is having to face a bleak future.

      With the absence of new orders, the main support for the industry is coming from the life extension of existing power stations and reactors. In many countries life extension to 60 years is either being contemplated or taking place, although some of the older nuclear technologies such as the United Kingdom’s advanced gas reactors and the Russian RBMK reactors are being phased out

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