Nuclear Power as a Basis for Future Electricity Generation

Abstract

It is well known that electrical-power generation is the key factor for advances in industry, agriculture, technology and the level of living. Also, strong power industry with diverse energy sources is very important for country independence. In general, electrical energy can be generated from: 1) burning mined and refined energy sources such as coal, natural gas, oil, and nuclear; and 2) harnessing energy sources such as hydro, biomass, wind, geothermal, solar, and wave power. Today, the main sources for electrical-energy generation are: 1) thermal power – primarily using coal and secondarily - natural gas; 2) “large” hydro power from dams and rivers and 3) nuclear power from various reactor designs. The balance of the energy sources is from using oil, biomass, wind, geothermal and solar, and have visible impact just in some countries. In spite of significant emphasis in the world on using renewables sources of energy, in particular, wind and solar, they have quite significant disadvantages compared to “traditional” sources for electricity generation such as thermal, hydro, and nuclear. These disadvantages include low density of energy, which requires large areas to be covered with wind turbines or photovoltaic panels or heliostats, and dependence of these sources on Mother Nature, i.e., to be unreliable ones and to have low (20 – 40%) or very low (5 – 15%) capacity factors.Fossil-fueled power plants represent concentrated and reliable source of energy. Also, they operate usually as “fast-response” plants to follow rapidly changing electrical-energy consumption during a day. However, due to combustion process they emit a lot of carbon dioxide, which contribute to the climate change in the world. Moreover, coal-fired power plants, as the most popular ones, create huge amount of slag and ash, and, eventually, emit other dangerous and harmful gases. Therefore, Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs), which are also concentrated and reliable source of energy, moreover, the energy source, which does not emit carbon dioxide into atmosphere, are considered as the energy source for basic loads in an electrical grid. Currently, the vast majority of NPPs are used only for electricity generation. However, there are possibilities to use NPPs also for district heating or for desalination of water. In spite of all current advances in nuclear power, NPPs have the following deficiencies: 1) Generate radioactive wastes; 2) Have relatively low thermal efficiencies, especially, watercooled NPPs; 3) Risk of radiation release during severe accidents; and 4) Production of nuclear fuel is not an environment-friendly process. Therefore, all these deficiencies should be addressed in the next generation or Generation-IV reactors. Generation-IV reactors will be hightemperature reactors and multipurpose ones, which include electricity generation, hydrogen cogeneration, process heat, district heating, desalination, etc.