Nuclear power plants, worldwide

Worldwide, 430 nuclear plants generate about 17% of all electricity. In France, nuclear s share is 79% in Japan it is 28%. Whereas there has not been a new nuclear plant ordered in the United States since 1978, there were 24 nuclear power plants worldwide under construction in 2005 (ElA 2006c). Many countries have ambitious plans to build more plants. China, with just nine plants currently in operation, plans on building as many as 25 new plants by 2025. Given the potential size of the Chinese market, reactor vendors from several countries are actively pursuing Chinese contracts, with the hope that China will use their designs for future plants. 

Looking at the operating experience of nuclear power plants worldwide we cover also extreme events. 

As of January 1, 2009, the number of nuclear power plants around the world is 432, and their total output is 390 GW in electricity. PWRs account for about 60% and BWRs for about 20% of the total. This means LWRs account for around 80% of reactors and serve as the major nuclear power plant worldwide (Japan Atomic Industrial Forum Inc 2009). 

Level 1 PSAs have now been carried out for most nuclear power plants worldwide. However, in recent years, the emerging standard is for Level 2 PSAs to be carried out for many types of nuclear power plants. To date, relatively few Level 3 PSAs have been carried out. 

Demand. The demand for uranium in the commercial sector is primarily determined by the requirements of power reactors. At the beginning of 1993, there were 424 nuclear power plants operating worldwide, having a combined capabity of about 330 GWe. Moderate but steady growth is projected for nuclear capacity to the year 2010. The capacity in 2010 is expected to be about 446 GWe (29). 

Nucleai energy is a principal contributor to the production of the world s electricity. As shown in Table 1, many countries are strongly dependent on nuclear energy. For some countries, more than half of the electricity is generated by nuclear means (1,3). There were 424 nuclear power plants operating worldwide as of 1995. Over 100 of these plants contributed over 20% of the electricity in the United States (see also Power generation). 

In 1956, the world s first commercial nuclear power plant started operation in England. By the 1960s, many nuclear power plants were built worldwide. At the end of the twentieth century, nuclear generating plants are used widely by U.S. electric utiHties. Since 1984, these plants have provided the second largest share of total U.S. electricity generation, 21% of annual GW-h generated, behind coal-fired power plants (see Nuclearreactors). 

The demand for uranium ia the commercial sector is primarily determined by the consumption and inventory requirements of nuclear power reactors. In March 1997, there were 433 nuclear power plants operating worldwide with a combined capacity of about 345 GWe (net gigawatts electric)... 

The nuclear power plant accident at Chernobyl in April 1986 (IAEA Technical Report 1991) proved to be a much more potent source of environmental contamination in many surrounding countries, over distances up to several thousands of kilometers, and was a cause of worldwide problems in international trade in food products contaminated (or possibly contaminated) with radionuclides. The resulting requirement by many countries to establish systems for monitoring radionuclides in foodstuffs and in the environment led to a large worldwide increase in the demand for suitable reference materials. 

The nuclear community has failed to provide full and accurate information to these same entities. In particular, the nuclear community has failed to provide information to the public about the highly successful, coordinated, worldwide efforts by nuclearutility organizations over the past ten years to improve safety and performance of nuclear power plants. 

Nuclear wastes are sometimes divided into two categories low-level wastes and high-level wastes. The difference in these two categories is the intensity of radiation produced. Low-level wastes tend to produce relatively small amounts of radioactivity and pose moderate health problems compared with high-level wastes. About 99 percent of all low-level waste originates in nuclear power plants. Such wastes consist of protective clothing, trash, contaminated water, and contaminated equipment, such as filters. X-ray equipment, and smoke alarms. Worldwide, low-level wastes make up about 90 percent by volume of all nuclear wastes, but they account for only about 1 percent of the total radioactivity emitted by those wastes. 

Millions of radioactive sources exist around the world, usually distributed not only at nuclear power plants, but also medical radiotherapy facihties and industrial irradiators. Unfortunately, the radioactive materials housed in these places are often not under adequate control and are therefore susceptible to theft by terrorists.34 The appalling events of September 11, 2001, spawned a major international initiative to strengthen security for such materials and facihties worldwide. Highly toxic radionuchdes (plutonium radionuclides, 210Po or 137Cs) at trace level are increasingly being used as modern weapons to kill undesirable persons. 

One ton of natural UTanium can produce more than 40 million kilowatt-hours of electricity. This is equivalent to burning 16,000 tons of coal ot 80,000 barrels of oil.There are currently 103 operating U.S. nuclear power plants that produce over 20 percent of U.S. electricity. Worldwide, there are about 442 nuclear power plants that supply about 23 percent of the world s electricity. About 90 percent of all carbon emissions averted by U.S. industries from 1981 to 1994 was on account of the use of electricity from nuclear power plants. Wohd UTanium production in 1996 was 35,199 metric tons, or 78.8 million pounds. 

The 1986 accident at Chernobyl, in which dozens of people died and thousands more were exposed to radiation that might lead to cancer in the future, caused fear and outrage worldwide and led some people to call for the closing of all nuclear plants. Yet many people choose to smoke cigarettes in spite of the fact that 2 million people die every year from smoking-related diseases. The risks posed by nuclear power plants are involuntary, risks we must all share like it or not,... 

Nuclear power plants use fuel rods with a life span of about three years. Each year, roughly one-third of spent fuel rods are removed and stored in cooling basins, either at the reactor site or elsewhere. Typical modern nuclear power plants discharge about 30 tons of the spent fuel per reactor per year. Comparatively little of Lite radioactive wastes, as is currently reliably known worldwide, has been processed for return to the fuel cycle. Actually, fuel reprocessing causes a net increase in the volume of radioactive wastes, but, as in the ease of military wastes, they are less hazardous in the long term. Nevertheless, the wastes from reprocessing also must be disposed of with great care. 

Provides abstracts of worldwide research on design and performance of mechanical draft and natural draft wet, dry, and dry-wet combination cooling towers. Abstracts cover studies on size reduction, corrosion protection, and economic optimization of cooling towers primarily used with nuclear power plants and fossil fuel power plants. Also covered are abstracts which pertain to cooling towers used in waste-water treatment. It contains 305 abstracts, 65 of which are new entries to the previous edition. 

Nuclear power is any method of doing work that makes use of nuclear fission or nuclear fusion reactions. hi its broadest sense, the term refers to both the uncontrolled release of nuclear energy, as in fission or fusion weapons, and to the controlled release of energy, as in nuclear power plants. Most commonly, however, the expression nuclear power is reserved for the latter. Approximately 430 nuclear reactors devoted to the manufacture of electricity are operating worldwide. 

Worldwide, there are more than 400 operating nuclear power plants such as this one. Currently, 18 countries rely on nuclear power to supply at least 25% of their total electricity needs. 

An historic example is the 2 billion spent essentially for R D on the Manhattan Project from 1940 to 1945 and the resulting worldwide nuclear power industry with 408,285 MWe operable, under construction or on order as of June 30, 1978. These nuclear power plants, at 500/kwe represent a capital investment of over 200 billion, plus expenditures for fuel, at 20 millsAwh, of 50 billion per year. 

Nuclear power is a major source of energy for electrical generation worldwide. Nuclear power plants are found in over 30 countries and generate about 17% of the world s electricity. France gets about 76% of its electricity from nuclear power, Japan gets about 33%, and tbe United States gets about 22%. Special Topic 18.1 A New Treatment for Brain Cancer describes another use for a fission reaction. 

Nuclear power is considered by many to be the most promising C02-free energy technology with long-term fuel supply security. According to a statement by IAEA, in 1996 the nuclear power installed worldwide saved an additional impact on the atmosphere of 2.3 billion tons of CO2 per year corresponding to 8 % of additional release [3]. Principally used as base load power plants, nuclear off-peak electricity could be applied for hydrogen production. 

A look at the use of different reactor types demonstrates the dominant role of the LWR line in commercial electricity production. From 428 nuclear power plants operating worldwide in 1996 to produce 363 GW(e) or 17 % of the international electricity supply -plus 62 units under construction to produce 55 more GW(e) - 342 plants are LWRs, 249 PWRs and 93 BWRs, for a total of 311 GW(e) [27]. And the trend to larger power units was observed. Not more than 5 GW(th) of global nuclear power are presently employed to supply hot water and steam, mostly in Canada, China, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine [25]. 

Strontium-90 is also found in waste from nuclear reactors. It is considered one of the more hazardous constituents of nuclear wastes. The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant al.so introduced a large amount of Sr-90 into the environment. A large part of the Sr-90 was deposited in the Soviet Republics. The rest was dispersed as fallout over Northern Europe and worldwide. No significant amount of stronium-90 reached the U.S. 

Nuclear reactions are also used to generate electricity. Roughly 15% of the electricity generated worldwide comes from nuclear power plants, though the percentage varies from one country to the next, as A FIGURE 21.1 shows. 

Since early nineties of the last century, PSA methods have been used as a complementary approach to common deterministic analyses within the process of ensuring acceptable level of nuclear power plant operation safety in Czech Republic. More recently, PSA concept has become a fi eestanding decision-making tool for controlling both instantaneous and permanent plant risk level. Since human factor has been playing a fairly significant role in plant risk profile, special HRA methods had to be adopted as a part of worldwide know-how transfer and used to address human related specifics of Czech NPPs operation, in order to keep the corresponding PSA models as realistic as possible. 

IRS Incident Reporting System IRS is a database jointly operated by IAEA and OECD/NEA (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development / Nuclear Energy Agency). The purpose of the database is to improve the safety of nuclear power plants by worldwide information exchange on safety related events, https //irs.iaea.org/... 

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