ROLE OF FUEL IN POWER

PLANT ECONOMICS

Prepared by
J G Kuchhadiya
Roll No.- 131 M E (Th. Sci.)
FUEL BASED COMPARISON OF COAL
AND NUCLEAR POWER PLANT.
FACRORS TO BE CONSIDERED FOR POWER
PLANT ECONOMICS.
 Capital cost.

 Operation and maintenance cost.

 Fuel cost.

 Effects on environment.

 Waste disposal problems.

 Water requirements.

 Availability of fuel in future.

 Life of plant.
CAPITAL COST.

 Capital cost of nuclear plants is higher than other fossil

fuel power plants due to safety-related equipments and
higher standards of structures.
 Coal plants are required to include scrubbers to remove
airborne pollutants as sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxides, and
particulates but cost of these equipments are less costly.
OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE COST.

 operations and maintenance (O&M) costs of nuclear

plants over time, compared with competing technologies
show relative stability in the overall generating cost of
nuclear power plants. This has resulted essentially from
two different factors: Nuclear fuel costs have fallen due
to lower uranium and enrichment prices together with
new fuel designs allowing higher burnups.
FUEL COST.

NUCLEAR FUEL COST DEPENDS ON…

 mining of the uranium ore,

 conversion to U3O8 (uranium oxide - yellowcake form),

 conversion to uranium hexafluoride,

 enrichment from 0.7% U235 to 2-5% U235,

 conversion to uranium dioxide (UO2) pellets,

 loading of the fellets into rods, then into fuel assemblies.

FUEL COST. (CONT.)
 Transportation costs are high for coal because of the
amount of material needed to generate the same energy
as the nuclear fuel.
 High quantitative waste.
COMPARATIVE COST TABLE(U.S.)
Item Cost Element Nuclear
Coal
$/Mw-
$/Mw-hr
hr
1 Fuel 5.0 11.0
Operating & Maintenance -
2 6.0 5.0
Labor & Materials
3 Pensions, Insurance, Taxes 1.0 1.0
4 Regulatory Fees 1.0 0.1
5 Property Taxes 2.0 2.0
6 Capital 9.0 9.0
Decommissioning & DOE waste
7 5.0 0.0
costs
8 Administrative / overheads 1.0 1.0
Total   30.0 29.1
EFFECTS ON ENVIRONMENT.

COAL
 Coal based power plants discharge millions ton of CO2.
 High sulphur content coal based plants are responsible
for acid rain.
 Where ash was disposed H2SO4 mix with ground water .
 Above all factors directly affects the human life.

NUCLEAR
 Under ground fully insulated for radiation waste storage.
 Well maintained waste storage not affects human life.
WASTE DISPOSAL PROBLEMS.

COAL
 Waste disposal from coal power plant qauntitavely very
high so transportation cost is high.
 Ash handling, ash removing and dust collection system
like ESP are costly.
NUCLEAR
 Waste disposal from nuclear power plant qauntitavely
very small so transportation cost is low.
 High cost of waste storage plant.
WATER REQUIREMENTS.

 The amount of cooling required by any steam-cycle

power plant (of a given size) is determined by its thermal
efficiency.  It has nothing essentially to do with whether
it is fuelled by coal, gas or uranium. 
 However, currently operating nuclear plants often do
have slightly lower thermal efficiency than coal
counterparts of similar age.
 AVAILABILITY OF FUEL IN FUTURE.

Nuclear fuel is one type of non conventional fuel

and when end will comes of all conventional fuels
world will diverted into non conventional energy
sources
LIFE OF PLANT.

NUCLEAR
 Estimated life of nuclear power plant is 50 to 60 years.

 At the End of life decommisioning is a big problem for

dismantling and waste disposal.
COAL
 Estimated life of coal power plant is max.50 years for
clean coal and mini. 20 years.(Vary between 20 to 50
according to coal quality)
 Total decommissioning is not necessary. Any component
of plant will be replaced after lost of its functioning..
CONCLUSION
 Generating cost slightly higher than fossil fuels, but if
we will continuously increasing emission than we all
know about the day after tomorrow, so we conclude that
“ nuclear power generation is most economical.”
THANK YOU