Potential advantages and disadvantages of sequentially building small nuclear units instead of a large nuclear plant
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D. Feretić
Abstract
Renewal of nuclear power programs in countries with modest electricity consumptions and weak electrical grid interconnections has raised the question of optimal nuclear power plants sizes for such countries. The same question would be also valid for isolated or weakly connected regions within a large country. Building large size nuclear power plant could be prevented by technical or financial limits. Research programs have been initiated in the International Atomic Energy Agency and in the USA (within the framework of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) program) with the aim to inspect under which circumstances small and medium reactors could be the preferred option compared to large nuclear plants. The economy of scale is a clear advantage of large plants. This paper compares, by using probabilistic methods, the net cash flow of large and medium size plants, taking as example a large nuclear plant (around 1200 MW) and four sequentially built smaller plants (300 MW). Potential advantages and disadvantageous of both options have been considered. Main advantages of the sequential construction of several identical small units could be the reduced investor risk and reduced investment costs due to the learning effect. This analysis is a part of studies for the Croatian power generating system development.
Kurzfassung
Die Erneuerung von Programmen zum Kernkraftwerksbau in Ländern mit eher geringerem Stromverbrauch und einem schwachen Leitungsnetz hat zur Frage geführt, was die optimale Größe eines Kernkraftwerks für solche Länder ist. Die gleiche Frage ergibt sich für isolierte oder schwach angebundene Regionen innerhalb eines großen Landes. Der Bau großer Kernkraftwerke könnte sich aufgrund technischer oder finanzieller Grenzen nicht lohnen. Von der Internationalen Atomenergiebehörde und von den USA (im Rahmen des Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) Programms) wurden deshalb Forschungsprogramme initiiert mit dem Ziel, zu untersuchen, unter welchen Bedingungen Reaktoren kleiner und mittlerer Größe die beste Option wären verglichen mit einem großen Kernkraftwerk. Die Wirtschaftlichkeit ist ein klarer Vorteil großer Anlagen. Dieser Beitrag vergleicht mit Hilfe von probabilistischen Verfahren den Netto-Cash-Flow bei Anlagen großer und mittlerer Größe, wobei als Beispiel eine große Anlage (rund 1200 MW) und vier in Folge gebaute kleine Anlagen (300 MW) verwendet werden. Potentielle Vor- und Nachteile beider Optionen werden betrachtet. Hauptvorteile der Option mit nacheinander gebauten identischen kleinen Anlagen könnten in dem geringeren Risiko für den Investor und den geringeren Investitionskosten aufgrund des Lerneffekts liegen. Diese Analyse ist ein Teil der Studien für die Entwicklung eines kroatischen Stromversorgungssystems.
References
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© 2008, Carl Hanser Verlag, München
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Contents/Inhalt
- Contents
- Summaries/Kurzfassungen
- Summaries
- Technical Contributions/Fachbeiträge
- Development and validation of the pressure surge computer code DYVRO mod. 3
- Simulation model of a nuclear power plant turbine
- Study on the thermal-hydraulics characteristics of a boiling two-phase natural circulation loop with nanofluids
- The effect of combination of different materials on neutron absorption in a nuclear research reactor spent fuel pool
- Re-evaluation of the criticality experiments of the “Otto Hahn Nuclear Ship” reactor
- Potential advantages and disadvantages of sequentially building small nuclear units instead of a large nuclear plant
- Radiological consequences of potential sabotage attack to storage casks on the ISFSI site
- Unified treatment of the P(λ)n approximation to solve the reflected slab criticality problem with strong anisotropy
- A comparative study on classical polynomial approximations to the transport equation in spherical media albedo problems
- Solution of half space and slab albedo problems for linearly anisotropic scattering with the modified FN method
- Study of the effect of anisotropic scattering on the critical slab problem in neutron transport theory using Chebyshev polynomials
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Contents/Inhalt
- Contents
- Summaries/Kurzfassungen
- Summaries
- Technical Contributions/Fachbeiträge
- Development and validation of the pressure surge computer code DYVRO mod. 3
- Simulation model of a nuclear power plant turbine
- Study on the thermal-hydraulics characteristics of a boiling two-phase natural circulation loop with nanofluids
- The effect of combination of different materials on neutron absorption in a nuclear research reactor spent fuel pool
- Re-evaluation of the criticality experiments of the “Otto Hahn Nuclear Ship” reactor
- Potential advantages and disadvantages of sequentially building small nuclear units instead of a large nuclear plant
- Radiological consequences of potential sabotage attack to storage casks on the ISFSI site
- Unified treatment of the P(λ)n approximation to solve the reflected slab criticality problem with strong anisotropy
- A comparative study on classical polynomial approximations to the transport equation in spherical media albedo problems
- Solution of half space and slab albedo problems for linearly anisotropic scattering with the modified FN method
- Study of the effect of anisotropic scattering on the critical slab problem in neutron transport theory using Chebyshev polynomials
