Primary Fuels for Electrical Nuclear Power Plants

Electrical Renewable Primary Fuels

In our last post we covered fossil fuels. As you remember, these are made of organic materials that have been compressed and heated over millions of years. This means that they're also finite or non renewable. I want to talk about another non renewable primary fuel source that's mined. Has zero emissions, is relatively inexpensive, has been around since the 50s. Is great for base load, is also not an fossil fuel. Any guesses as to what that might be? Sounds perfect, right? Now what if I told you it's nuclear? That single word can be pretty loaded.

Nuclear Power Plants For Electrical Energy

Nuclear power plant's primary fuel source is uranium. It's a naturally occurring element, and it's the one that we'll focus on for this discussion. And it's also highly energetic. In fact two pounds of it, or one kilogram, can produce as much energy as ten tons of oil. You might remember from a previous lesson that like coal and natural gas, it works by the thermo process I described. With generating heat and moving turbines, etc.

There are 444 nuclear electricity generating plants in the world right now, in over 30 different countries, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. And they produce about 11% of the world's electricity. Probably as you watch this there are even more. About 60 of these commercially operating nuclear plants are in the US. You know how important reliability and affordability is. And nuclear offers both of these things. They're expensive to build and they take a long time for permitting. But once they're up and running, they have very low operating costs and high reliability. Including no impact from a typical storm.

There have been very visible concerns about the environmental impacts associated with mining,
transporting. And the ultimate disposal of the radioactive waste that comes from this process. It's a very highly regulated and regimented industry. And fortunately, accidents are rare. And that's why countries like the USA and France include it in their generation mix. Now I'm not mind reader, but I'll be willing to bet that the Fukushima Nuclear accident in 2011, that followed a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami, popped into your head.

I know your heart had to sink as you watched report after report of the extensive damage to three reactors. And the release of contaminated water into the sea. And the brave employees and emergency response people that risked their lives to manage the situation. To give you some perspective, that earthquake was a nine on a Richter scale. And anything over a six is considered at the strong end. If you're old enough, you might even remember Chernobyl or Three Mile Island.

Fukushima and Chernobyl weren't contained. But Three Mile Island was contained and had a successful outcome. With all three of these incidents, which are considered the worst in history, more safeguards were put into place. And security measures have been tight and have only gotten tighter. Just so you know, in the more than 16,000 reactor years of commercial nuclear power
operation in the world.

These three are the only major accidents that have occurred. Still, the general population can be
pretty fearful about nuclear power. And for some countries, this meant re-looking at their plans to include more nuclear in the mix as a fuel source for generation. I will tell you that many countries have seriously started looking at it again, including the US. Experts believe that nuclear has to be a big part of how we can reduce the carbon footprint and keep rates affordable.

Let's revisit expert opinion on this.

So our country has had ups and downs with how we feel about nuclear energy. Including a few years ago, when the accident occurred at Fukushima. But one of the things that I think's important to remember is nuclear energy is a baseload resource that provides energy 24/7. And it's carbon emissions free. It's a really important part of a carbon emissions free future. 

From another expert,

So, nuclear power's been very important for power generation in many countries. Particularly France, which is the majority nuclear powered, the US, other countries. It does provide a very consistent power source once it's up and running. And very high capacity factors as it's going. So, in that sense an existing nuclear power plant is a very efficient operating piece of equipment. But the challenge with nuclear, of course, is that it takes very long time to construct. They're very large, they're very complex.

The permitting is very complex. And there is a lot of things around the fuels, and the waste and the other things that have to be considered. So I think nuclear plays an important role, it certainly is considered a low carbon technology. So as we look at addressing climate change in the world and what technologies can reduce the amount of carbon emissions. Nuclear's potentially going to play a role in that, in combination with renewables. We're actually doing some research here, looking at renewables and nuclear compatibility and complimentary. So I think they're going to play a role, I think as the new technologies in nuclear come along. Some folks are looking at small modular
reactors which are going to be safer and easier to operate and easier to construct. We may see a bigger role for nuclear in the future. But I think it'll for a long time, it will be a role until maybe other technologies come along.

 It's time well spent for all of us to learn even more about nuclear power generation. Feel free to check out the sources I recommend so you can get even smarter about it.

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