Future costs, nuclear power plant

Producers of electricity from nuclear power plants are assessed a fee of 0.1 cent per kilowatt-hour to pay for future storage of spent nuclear fuel at a federal facility. Receipts from this fee are allocated to the Nuclear Waste Trust Fund and arc appropriated by Congress to cover the costs of developing and constructing a permanent storage facility. 

It is clear that there is an enormous supply of available fuel for use in nuclear power plants. However, the future of nuclear power in the United States is by no means clear. Current problems with the further use of nuclear power in the United States include economics—costs for new nuclear power plants are above current market acceptability—and public acceptance, which may have moderated in recent years but remains to be tested. 

Siemens Nuclear Power GmbH, in cooperation with plant operators, is currently implementing new and improved service concepts which can have a major effect on the way in which maintenance will be performed in the future. Innovative service packages for maintenance in nuclear power plants are available which can be used to perform a time- and cost-effective maintenance. 

Today, Siemens Nuclear Power GmbH already has a number of innovative tools and service packages available for future nuclear power plant maintenance. The potential for cost reduction in the field of maintenance of nuclear power plants has been exploited thanks to the use of optimized processes and these innovative technologies. The maintenance services provided by Siemens Nuclear Power GmbH enabled to make an important contribution to this success. 

Conventional concrete structures, and prefabricated steel structures assembled on site and filled with concrete after placement are used in various structures. Precast concrete modules would also be used. Wide use of removable formwork is employed to limit steel exposure to potential corrosion. Prefabrication of reinforced rebar modules is extensively used. In some places mechanical rebar splices are used to reduce the weight of prefabricated modules. All of these techniques have been employed in previous nuclear power plant construction. Steel structures such as the air baffle, and the containment vessel are constructed of steel panels. Panels are made of stiffened steel or corrugated plate depending on availability and cost panels for the baffle are designed with thermal expansion of the containment vessel in mind. Future inspection and maintenance are taken into consideration. 

The following sections examine the current costs of nuclear power and the projections into the future as new power plants are being built. The examination will initially focus on the cost of light water reactor plants, which represent 90% of the nuclear power plants... 

Practical Utilization, Since the potential reserves of 235U are limited, some point will be reached where this power source no longer will be competitive with fossil fuels, synthetic fuels, solar power plants, etc.—unless the development of means for the practical utilization of plutonium can be achieved. An important element of nuclear fuel cost is the credit received from the sale or future utilization of plutonium after its recovery from spent fuel. The plutonium credit is realistic only if the plutonium is used for power production, since, at present, there are few commercial uses envisioned where it would yield a similar economic return. 

The viability of the Al-air battery vehicular application seems to depend (apart from the successful solution of electrochemical and engineering problems) on the cost of electric power. If, e.g., nuclear or a renewable energy source will ensure in the future abundance of electricity, user s convenience (range, fast refueling, large car powered by a safe system) may become a more important factor than energy savings provided by other potential EV power plants. 

This stranded cost recovery process is financially similar to bankruptcy, in that the owning company exits its prior conunitment without a large debt that its future revenues cannot readily repay. Plant sales at significantly below book value accomplish much the same purpose (as did privatization in the U.K.), since the new owner/operators are imencumbered by the high initial construction cost of the plant. As a result, the competitive viability of nuclear power stations is determined by the difference between the revenues that they can produce and their incremental operating costs (i.e., marginal costs). 

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