Nuclear power, economic viability

The newly enacted financial incentives for nuclear power in the United States will improve the overall economic viability of nuclear power. Whether new plants will be built still may hinge on other factors, including public attitudes toward nuclear power, the disposition of nuclear waste, and the overall regulatory environment. 

Both the acceptability and the economic viability of nuclear power plants depend on their demonstrating a very high level of safety. The safety considerations for a nuclear power plant encompass all normal and postulated abnormal operating conditions. Nuclear safety objectives are twofold ... 

In 2002-2003 KAERI together with the BATAN (Indonesia) and the IAEA performed a two-year programme of the Preliminary economic feasibility study of nuclear desalination in Madura Island, Indonesia under the framework of IAEA Technical Cooperation Project. The primary objective of this programme was to examine the economic viability of construction of a nuclear desalination plant with SMART in the Madura Island to support industrialization of the Madura Region. Milestones for the construction of a nuclear desalination plant with SMART reactor were established under an agreement between the BATAN and KAERI. The utility requirement documents (URDs) for nuclear desalination in Indonesia are under preparation. Two units of the SMART nuclear power plant are considered to supply 200 MW of electricity and 40,000 tons of potable water per day. The timeline targeted for the plant construction is 2018. 

The viability of H2 production from nuclear power ultimately depends upon the economics, which, in turn, depend upon both the proposed methods of H2 produetion and the available reactors. Four methods have been proposed to produce H2 from nuelear power. 

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