Power Cycles of Generation III and III+ Nuclear Power Plants

Abstract

It is well known that the electrical-power generation is the key factor for advances in any other industries, agriculture and level of living. In general, electrical energy can be generated by: 1) non-renewable-energy sources such as coal, natural gas, oil, and nuclear; and 2) renewable-energy sources such as hydro, wind, solar, biomass, geothermal and marine. However, the main sources for electrical-energy generation are: 1) thermal - primary coal and secondary natural gas; 2) “large” hydro and 3) nuclear. The rest of the energy sources might have visible impact just in some countries. Modern advanced thermal power plants have reached very high thermal efficiencies (55–62%). In spite of that they are still the largest emitters of carbon dioxide into atmosphere. Due to that, reliable non-fossil-fuel energy generation, such as nuclear power, becomes more and more attractive. However, current Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) are way behind by thermal efficiency (30–42%) compared to that of advanced thermal power plants. Therefore, it is important to consider various ways to enhance thermal efficiency of NPPs. The paper presents comparison of thermodynamic cycles and layouts of modern NPPs and discusses ways to improve their thermal efficiencies.

Nuclear Power as a Basis for Future Electricity Generation

“…Table 6 Typical ranges of thermal efficiencies (gross) of modern nuclear power plants [2,6]. (T −s diagrams of various power cycles of NPPs are shown in [11] and a comparison of various properties of nuclear-reactor coolants in [12]))…”

“…Table 2 lists the top 11 largest power plants in the world, and Table 3 lists the largest power plants in the world by energy source. Figures 5,6,8,9,11,and 12 show photos of selected power plants around the world, mainly hydro and renewable energy power plants. Figures 7 and 10 show maps of wind speed and annual average direct normal solar-resource-data distributions over the U.S.…”