Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER
6
Nuclear-Fueled Power Plants
6.1
INTRODUCTION
The U.S. developers of commercial nuclear power plants in the late 1950s and 1960s promised to
produce vast amounts of electrical energy, electricity that would be “too cheap to meter.” The plants
would not cause air pollution and other detrimental environmental effects. Furthermore, countries,
including the United States, that import part or all of their fossil fuel needed for electric power
would not be subject to fossil energy import embargoes and price escalations.
In 1990, nuclear power plants supplied more than 20% of the electricity in the United States,
and in 2001 more than 100 nuclear power plants are in operation there. In France, more than 50
plants are operating, supplying more than three-quarters of its electricity. Japan has about 40 plants,
supplying more than one-third of its electricity. Altogether, more than 400 nuclear-fueled power
plants operate in the world in 2001, supplying about 17% of the global electricity consumption.
However, in the last two decades of the twentieth century, nuclear power plants fell into disfavor.
The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident in the United States in 1979, the Chernobyl
power plant accident in the former USSR in 1986, and the recent nuclear fuel processing plant
accident in Tokaimura in Japan in 1999 all raised grave concerns in the public eye toward further
electricity generation in nuclear power plants. Also, the issue of the disposal of the high-level
radioactive waste that keeps accumulating at the plants has not been resolved in the United States
and worldwide.
In the United States, economics is also a factor affecting the maintenance of existing nuclear
power plants and building new ones. The complexity of nuclear power plants is staggering, making
electricity production costs in existing plants equal to or greater than that in fossil-fueled plants.
At present, the capital investment of a new nuclear power plant is two- to several-fold higher than
a pulverized-coal-fired or natural-gas-fired combined cycle plant, including the capital investment
in emission control equipment that fossil-fueled power plants require. Also, fossil fuel is relatively
cheap at present, ranging from $2 to $5 per MBtu, so that fuel cost is not a deterrent to its use.
In some countries, notably France and Japan, which lack fossil fuel resources, energy security
arguments appear to predominate over safety concerns or economic factors, so that nuclear power
plants continue to supply an increasing fraction of the electricity demand.
In the future the situation may change. The global fossil energy resources are finite. We have
seen in Section 2.7.6 that at the current consumption rate—let alone if consumption will increase
with population and economic growth—fluid fuels (oil and gas) will be depleted within a century.
While coal resources may last longer, the environmental effects of coal use, notably the greenhouse
effect, militate against wider use of coal. Renewable energy may play an increasing role in marginal
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