NUCLEAR POWER – DEPLOYMENT, OPERATION AND SUSTAINABILITY Edited by Pavel V. Tsvetkov Nuclear Power – Deployment, Operation and Sustainability Edited by Pavel V. Tsvetkov Published by InTech Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia Copyright © 2011 InTech All chapters are Open Access articles distributed under the Creative Commons Non Commercial Share Alike Attribution 3.0 license, which permits to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt the work in any medium, so long as the original work is properly cited. After this work has been published by InTech, authors have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in any publication of which they are the author, and to make other personal use of the work. Any republication, referencing or personal use of the work must explicitly identify the original source. Statements and opinions expressed in the chapters are these of the individual contributors and not necessarily those of the editors or publisher. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the published articles. The publisher assumes no responsibility for any damage or injury to persons or property arising out of the use of any materials, instructions, methods or ideas contained in the book. Publishing Process Manager Petra Zobic Technical Editor Teodora Smiljanic Cover Designer Jan Hyrat Image Copyright Barnaby Chambers, 2010. Used under license from Shutterstock.com First published August, 2011 Printed in Croatia A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com Additional hard copies can be obtained from orders@intechweb.org Nuclear Power – Deployment, Operation and Sustainability, Edited by Pavel V. Tsvetkov p. cm. ISBN 978-953-307-474-0 free online editions of InTech Books and Journals can be found at www.intechopen.com Contents Preface IX Part 1 Nuclear Power Deployment 1 Chapter 1 Nuclear Naval Propulsion 3 Magdi Ragheb Chapter 2 Assessment of Deployment Scenarios of New Fuel Cycle Technologies 33 J. J. Jacobson, G. E. Matthern and S. J. Piet Chapter 3 The Investment Evaluation of Third-Generation Nuclear Power - From the Perspective of Real Options 69 Ying Fan and Lei Zhu Chapter 4 Characteristic Evaluation and Scenario Study on Fast Reactor Cycle in Japan 91 Hiroki Shiotani, Kiyoshi Ono and Takashi Namba Chapter 5 Nuclear Proliferation 113 Michael Zentner Chapter 6 Ethics of Nuclear Power: How to Understand Sustainability in the Nuclear Debate 129 Behnam Taebi Part 2 Operation and Decomissioning 151 Chapter 7 Long-Term Operation of VVER Power Plants 153 Tamás János Katona Chapter 8 A Novel Approach to Spent Fuel Pool Decommissioning 197 R. L. Demmer Chapter 9 Post-Operational Treatment of Residual Na Coolant in EBR-II Using Carbonation 211 Steven R. Sherman and Collin J. Knight VI Contents Part 3 Environment and Nuclear Energy 241 Chapter 10 Carbon Leakage of Nuclear Energy – The Example of Germany 243 Sarah von Kaminietz and Martin Kalinowski Chapter 11 Effects of the Operating Nuclear Power Plant on Marine Ecology and Environment - A Case Study of Daya Bay in China 255 You-Shao Wang Chapter 12 Microbial Leaching of Uranium Ore 291 Hadi Hamidian Part 4 Advances in Nuclear Waste Management 305 Chapter 13 Storage of High Level Nuclear Waste in Geological Disposals: The Mining and the Borehole Approach 307 Moeller Dietmar and Bielecki Rolf Chapter 14 Isotopic Uranium and Plutonium Denaturing as an Effective Method for Nuclear Fuel Proliferation Protection in Open and Closed Fuel Cycles 331 Kryuchkov E.F., Tsvetkov P.V., Shmelev A.N., Apse V.A., Kulikov G.G., Masterov S.V., Kulikov E.G. and Glebov V.B Part 5 Thorium 363 Chapter 15 Implementation Strategy of Thorium Nuclear Power in the Context of Global Warming 365 Takashi Kamei Chapter 16 Thorium Fission and Fission-Fusion Fuel Cycle 383 Magdi Ragheb Chapter 17 New Sustainable Secure Nuclear Industry Based on Thorium Molten-Salt Nuclear Energy Synergetics (THORIMS-NES) 407 Kazuo Furukawa, Eduardo D. Greaves, L. Berrin Erbay, Miloslav Hron and Yoshio Kato Part 6 Advances in Energy Conversion 445 Chapter 18 Water Splitting Technologies for Hydrogen Cogeneration from Nuclear Energy 447 Zhaolin Wang and Greg F. Naterer Chapter 19 Reformer and Membrane Modules (RMM) for Methane Conversion Powered by a Nuclear Reactor 467 M. De Falco, A. Salladini, E. Palo and G. Iaquaniello Contents VII Chapter 20 Hydrogen Output from Catalyzed Radiolysis of Water 489 Alexandru Cecal and Doina Humelnicu Preface We are fortunate to live in incredibly exciting and incredibly challenging time. The world is rapidly growing; country economies developing at accelerated growth rates, technology advances improve quality of life and become available to larger and larger populations. At the same time we are coming to a realization that we are responsible for our planet. We have to make sure that our continuous quest for prosperity does not backfire via catastrophic irreversible climate changes, and depleted or limited resources that may challenge the very existence of future generations. We are at the point in our history when we have to make sure that our growth is sustainable. Energy demands due to economic growth and increasing population must be satisfied in a sustainable manner assuring inherent safety, efficiency and no or minimized environmental impact. New energy sources and systems must be inherently safe and environmentally benign. These considerations are among the reasons that lead to serious interest in deploying nuclear power as a sustainable energy source. Today’s nuclear reactors are safe and highly efficient energy systems that offer electricity and a multitude of co-generation energy products ranging from potable water to heat for industrial applications. At the same time, catastrophic earthquake and tsunami events in Japan resulted in the nuclear accident that forced us to rethink our approach to nuclear safety, design requirements and facilitated growing interests in advanced nuclear energy systems, next generation nuclear reactors, which are inherently capable to withstand natural disasters and avoid catastrophic consequences without any environmental impact. This book is one in a series of books on nuclear power published by InTech. It consists of six major sections housing twenty chapters on topics from the key subject areas pertinent to successful development, deployment and operation of nuclear power systems worldwide: Nuclear Power Deployment 1. Nuclear Naval Propulsion 2. Deployment Scenarios for New Technologies 3. The Investment Evaluation of Third-Generation Nuclear Power - from the Perspective of Real Options 4. Characteristic Evaluation and Scenario Study on Fast Reactor Cycle in Japan X Preface 5. Nuclear Proliferation 6. Ethics of Nuclear Power: How to Understand Sustainability in the Nuclear Debate Operation and Decommissioning 7. Long-Term Operation of VVER Nuclear Power Plants 8. Novel, In-situ Spent Fuel Pool Decommissioning 9. Post-Operational Treatment of Residual Na Coolant in EBR-II Using Carbonation Environment and Nuclear Energy 10. Carbon Leakage of Nuclear Energy – The Example of Germany 11. Effects of the Operating Nuclear Power Plant on Marine Ecology & Environment- a Case Study of Daya Bay in China 12. Microbial Leaching of Uranium Ore Advances in Nuclear Waste Management 13. Storage of High Level Nuclear Waste in Geological Disposals: The Mining and the Borehole Approach 14. Isotopic Uranium and Plutonium Denaturing as an Effective Method for Nuclear Fuel Proliferation Protection in Open and Closed Fuel Cycles Thorium 15. Implementation Strategy of Thorium Nuclear Power in the Context of Global Warming 16. Thorium Fission and Fission-Fusion Fuel Cycle 17. New Sustainable Secure Nuclear Industry Based on Thorium Molten-Salt Nuclear Energy Synergetics (THORIMS-NES) Advances in Energy Conversion 18. Water Splitting Technologies for Hydrogen Cogeneration from Nuclear Energy 19. Reformer and Membrane Modules (RMM) for Methane Conversion Powered by a Nuclear Reactor 20. Hydrogen Output from Catalyzed Radiolysis of Water. Our book opens with the section on general aspects of nuclear power deployment. Later sections address selected issues in operation and decommissioning, economics and environmental effects. The book shows both advantages and challenges emphasizing the need for further development and innovation. Advances in nuclear waste management and thorium-based fuel cycles lead to environmentally benign nuclear energy scenarios and ultimately, towards nuclear energy sustainability. Improvements in applications and efficiency of energy conversion facilitate economics competitiveness of nuclear power. With all diversity of topics in 20 chapters, the nuclear power deployment, operation and sustainability is the common thread that is easily identifiable in all chapters of our book. The “system-thinking” approach allows synthesizing the entire body of provided information into a consistent integrated picture of the real-life complex engineering system – nuclear power system – where everything is working together. [...]... became fully operational The Sturgis MH-1A was a floating nuclear power plant ship It was carrying a 45 Megawatts Thermal (MWth) PWR providing remote power supplies for the USA Army Reactor type A2W A4W/A1G C1W D2G S5W S5G S6W S8G S9G Rated power shaft horse power, [shp] 35,000 14 0,000 40,000 35,000 15 ,000 17 ,000 35,000 35,000 40,000 [MW]* 26 .1 104.4 29.8 26 .1 11. 2 12 .7 26 .1 26 .1 29.8 *1 shp = 745.6999... interesting and useful Pavel V Tsvetkov Department of Nuclear Engineering Texas A&M University United States of America XI Part 1 Nuclear Power Deployment 1 Nuclear Naval Propulsion Magdi Ragheb Department of Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 216 Talbot Laboratory, Urbana, Illinois USA 1 Introduction The largest experience in operating nuclear power plants... (Lamarsh, 19 83) The most prominent of these fission products from the perspective of reactor control is 54Xe135 It is formed as the result of the decay of 53I135 It is also formed in fission and by the decay of the tellurium isotope: 52Te135 This can be visualized as follows: Fission 13 5 52Te 13 5 53 I 13 5 54 Xe 13 5 55 Cs 13 5 53 I 13 5 54 Xe135 52Te 13 5 -1 e 0 * 53 I 13 5 -1 e 0 ... to operation from the fuel is caused by U235 decay gammas and the spontaneous fission of U238 The total exposure rate is 19 .9 [µRöntgen / hr] of which the gamma dose rate contribution is 15 .8 and the neutron dose rate is 4 .1 14 Nuclear Power – Deployment, Operation and Sustainability Isotope Composition (percent) Activity (Curies) Decay Mode U234 U235 U238 0.74 97.00 2.259 6 .1 Pu239 Total 0.0 01 Alpha... (SSN-5 71) started on June 14 , 19 52, its first operation was on December 30, 19 54 and it reached full power operation on January 13 , 19 55 It was commissioned in 19 54, with its first sea trials in 19 55 It set speed, distance and submergence records for submarine operation that were not possible with conventional submarines It was the first ship to reach the North Pole It was decommissioned in 19 80 after... ( x aX ) p (18 ) Dividing numerator and denominator by σaX we get: ( X I ) ( x p aX (18 )’ ) - The parameter: X 0.77 x1 013 aX at 20 degrees C, and has units of the flux [neutrons/(cm2.sec)] (19 ) 20 Nuclear Power – Deployment, Operation and Sustainability The expression for the reactivity is written in terms of as: ( X I ) ( ψ p (18 )’’ ) For a reactor... * 53 I 13 5 -1 e 0 * 54 Xe 13 5 -1 e0 * 55 Cs 13 5 ( stable ) -1 e0 * 56 Ba (1) The half lives of the components of this chain are shown in Table 4 The end of the chain is the stable isotope 56Ba135 Because 52Te135 decays rapidly with a half life of 11 seconds into 53I135, one can assume that all 53I135 is produced directly in the fission process 17 Nuclear Naval Propulsion Denoting... (t ) dt where: I is the fission yield in [nuclei/fission event], f is the thermal fission cross section in [cm -1] , λI is the decay constant in [sec -1] , with λ I = ln2 , T1 is the half life T1 2 2 Isotope 52Te135 53I135 54Xe135 55Cs135 56Ba135 Half Life, T1/2 11 sec 6.7 hr 9.2 hr 2.3x106 yr Stable Table 4 Half lives of the isotopes in the xenon decay chain A rate equation can also be written for... unpoisoned core is given by: f0 And for the poisoned core it is: aF aF aM (11 ) 19 Nuclear Naval Propulsion f aF aF aM aP (12 ) where: aM is the moderator's macroscopic absorption coefficient, aP is the poison's macroscopic absorption coefficients From the definition of the reactivity in Eqn 10 , and Eqns 11 and 12 we can readily get: - aP aF aM (13 ) It is convenient to express... percent in U235 The burnable poisons and high enrichment allow a long core lifetime and provide enough 6 Nuclear Power – Deployment, Operation and Sustainability reactivity to overcome the xenon poisoning reactor dead time An axial direction doping provides a long core life, and a radial doping provides for an even power and fuel burnup distributions 3 .1 STR or S1W pressurized water reactor design The . NUCLEAR POWER – DEPLOYMENT, OPERATION AND SUSTAINABILITY Edited by Pavel V. Tsvetkov Nuclear Power – Deployment, Operation and Sustainability Edited. Part 1 Nuclear Power Deployment 1 Nuclear Naval Propulsion Magdi Ragheb Department of Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 216 Talbot. Japan 91 Hiroki Shiotani, Kiyoshi Ono and Takashi Namba Chapter 5 Nuclear Proliferation 11 3 Michael Zentner Chapter 6 Ethics of Nuclear Power: How to Understand Sustainability in the Nuclear