Current and Future Activities For Nuclear Energy in the United States

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Current and Future Activities For Nuclear Energy
in the United States
Per F. PetersonProfessor Department of Nuclear
Engineering University of California,
Berkeley CITRIS Research Exchange October 11,
2006

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U.C. Berkeley and Nuclear Science
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Context Recent Events

• Important recent events
• Global coal consumption reaches 5.4 billion tons
  per year in 2002
• As of June 2006, 42 U.S. plants had received
  20-year license renewals, 8 were under review,
  and 23 were planned for submission by 2010 (70
  of U.S. plants total). Nuclear Regulatory
  Commission announces plans to hire 300 engineers
  (October 2005)
• 2005 Energy Bill provides major incentives for
  new near-term commercial reactor construction
• Announcements for new Combined Construction and
  Operating Licenses (as of July, 2006)
• 19 plant sites
• 26 plants (5 dual unit AP-1000s and 2 dual unit
  ABWRs)
• U.S. Senate selects Yucca Mountain as site for
  national repository, July 2002, final one-million
  year EPA safety standard late 2006, DOE license
  application submission in June 2008, NRC
  construction license possibly in 2011-2012
• In 2004, average production cost of nuclear
  electricity reaches 1.7 cents/kWhr, average
  capacity factor 90.7, 70 fraction of all
  non-fossil energy produced in United States

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Current status on new construction license
application announcements as of January, 2006

• 10 utilities
• 11 reactor sites (19 sites as of July, 2006)
• 16 new reactors (26 as of July, 2006)

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Energy from Nuclear Fission

• Fission Fuel Energy Density 8.2 x 1013 J/kg
• Fuel Consumed by 1000-MWe Plant 3.2 kg/day
• Waste

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Energy from Nuclear Fusion

• Fusion Fuel Energy Density 3.4 x 1014 J/kg
• Fuel Consumed by 1000-MWe Plant 0.6 kg/day
• Waste

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Energy from Fossil Fuels

• Fossil Fuel (Coal) Energy Density 2.9 x 107
  J/kg
• Fuel Consumed by 1000-MWe Plant 7,300,000
  kg/day
• Waste

2005 Global Coal Consumption 5.4 billion tons
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France closed its last coal mine in April, 2004
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Germany has perfected coal strip mining
45,500-ton German Krupp earth mover, can mine
76,455 cubic meters (100,000 large 40 cu. yd.
dump trucks) per day
In the United States, 70 of all railroad freight
is coal
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California Electricity Consumption 2004
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Resource inputs will affect future capital costs
and competition

• Nuclear 1970s vintage PWR, 90 capacity
  factor, 60 year life 1
• 40 MT steel / MW(average)
• 190 m3 concrete / MW(average)
• Wind 1990s vintage, 6.4 m/s average wind
  speed, 25 capacity factor, 15 year life 2
• 460 MT steel / MW (average)
• 870 m3 concrete / MW(average)
• Coal 78 capacity factor, 30 year life 2
• 98 MT steel / MW(average)
• 160 m3 concrete / MW(average)
• Natural Gas Combined Cycle 75 capacity factor,
  30 year life 3
• 3.3 MT steel / MW(average)
• 27 m3 concrete / MW(average)

Concrete steel are gt95 of construction inputs,
and become more expensive in a carbon-constrained
economy
1. R.H. Bryan and I.T. Dudley, Estimated
Quantities of Materials Contained in a
1000-MW(e) PWR Power Plant, Oak Ridge
National Laboratory, TM-4515, June (1974) 2. S.
Pacca and A. Horvath, Environ. Sci. Technol., 36,
3194-3200 (2002). 3. P.J. Meier, Life-Cycle
Assessment of Electricity Generation Systems and
Applications for Climate Change Policy
Analysis, U. WisconsinReport UWFDM-1181, August,
2002.
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DOE Energy Information Agencys electricity
projections depend strongly upon assumed capital
cost of nuclear power plants

• 2006 EIA Energy Outlook report
• Reference case 1901/kW declining by 10 by
  2025 - 6 GW new nuclear plants
• Advanced nuclear 1818/kW declining 28 - 34
  GW new nuclear plants by 2030
• Vendor estimate 1604/kW declining 38 - 77
  GW new nuclear plants by 2030
• Nucleonics Week (July 6, 2006)
• AP-1000 1500-1800/kW
• ABWR 1850/kW
• ESBWR 1600/kW
• U.S. EPR 1800-2000/kW

EIA 2006 Reference Case
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The new passive reactor designs (e.g.,
ESBWR/AP1000) reverse the trend of increasing
steel and concrete inputs
This has implications for the likely capital
costs of the plants selected by Nustart for COL
development (ESBWR/AP1000)
Scaled Comparison
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Detailed comparison of building volume, concrete
volume and steel consumption - based on
arrangement drawings
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Nuclear has very low life-cycle CO2 emissions
If we assume that nuclear electricity is used for
uranium enrichment, rather than coal electricity,
nuclear life-cycle emissions drop further
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Life-cycle impacts of energy production include
effects on workers and on public health
Coal mine worker, China, 2004
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U.S. coal mining provides a comparison for worker
safety
Safety and Reliability - 1
(Chernobyl worker fatalities 31 workers)
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Worker safety in the nuclear industry much higher
than other energy sectors
Safety and Reliability - 1
Nuclear Energy x 10
Nuclear in 1980
National Institute of for Occupational Health and
Safety
INPO, Nuclear News, May, 2001
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Recent study shows healthy worker effect

• Columbia University Mailman School of Public
  Health recently completed health study for
  nuclear workers (Nov., 2004)
• Study involved 53,698 nuclear power plant
  employees
• Compared to the general population, mortality
  rates were
• 35 percent lower for all cancers
• 66 percent lower for all non-cancers
• 60 percent lower for all-causes of mortality.
• For the 53,698 employees studied, there were
  1,190 actual deaths when, compared to the general
  population, more than 2,900 deaths would have
  been expected based on factors including age and
  gender
• No statistically detectable correlation was found
  between worker doses and cancer

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Coal, oil and biomass provide a baseline for
public health effects from routine emissions

• The Natural Resources Defense Council estimates
  that particulate air pollution, primarily from
  coal, oil, and wood combustion, causes 64,000
  premature deaths each year in the United States.

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The Generations of Nuclear Energy
Source DOE Generation IV Project
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Gen III The ESBWR
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Gen III The AP-1000
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Generation III the ABWR

• Advanced Boiling Water Reactor - an
  Evolutionary design
• Developed by General Electric, Hitachi and
  Toshiba
• 1350-MWe capacity
• 3 units constructed in Japan
• 3 units under construction in Taiwan and Japan

Modular assembly reduced construction time to 52
months
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New nuclear infrastructure will be more highly
optimized
2000 4-D computer aided design and virtual
walk-throughs
1978 Plastic models on roll-around carts
McGuire Nuclear Station Reactor Building Models.
2002 NRC processing time for 20-year license
renewal 18 months
1000 MW Reactor (Lianyungang Unit 1)
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High-temperature Gen IV reactors can achieve
higher efficiency/power density
HTR-300 274 MWe
PBMR 165 MWe
AHTR-IT-MCGC 1235 MWe
GT-MHR 286 MWe
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High temperature reactors can make hydrogen
directly through for thermo-chemical processes
ORNL DWG 2001-102R
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Overview of Yucca Mountain repository system
The current performance standard requires that
maximum doses be below 2 percent of natural
background radiation exposure for at least 10,000
years, and no higher than natural background for
at least one million years
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Projected Contaminant Path in the Groundwater
Yucca Mountain
Amargosa Valley
At the current legal capacity limit of 63,000 MT,
spent fuel in Yucca Mountain produced the energy
equivalent of 5 billion tons of coal
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Chemical contamination of groundwater from
natural and human sources is extensive
Scaled comparison of California wells with
current nitrate, perchlorate, and arsenic
groundwater contamination, to the potential
groundwater plume that might be generated at
Yucca Mountain
28 miles
640 miles
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Advanced fuel cycles can impact repository
performance

• Yucca Mountains current legal capacity limit is
  63,000 MT of spent fuel
• Current U.S. plants will reach this limit in 2014
• The technical limit for the current 2000 acre
  repository footprint is between 120,000 and
  300,000 MT of spent fuel, and up to 4200 acres
  may be available
• Advanced fuel cycles that recycle the heavy
  elements in spent fuel would increase this
  capacity by a factor of 50x.

Under advanced fuel cycles, Yucca Mountain could
potentially hold 500 kg/m of fission products in
800 km of drifts (4000 acres), equal to one
trillion tons of coal
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Approximate Yucca Mountain time line

• 2002 Site selection occurs
• 2004 Appeals Court ruling requires EPA to shift
  from a 10,000 to a one-million year safety
  standard
• Late 2006 Final EPA one-million year safety
  standard to be issued
• Requires that maximum dose to any future
  individual using ground water in the Armagosa
  valley, and not testing that ground water, be
  below 15 mrem up to 10,000 years, and below 350
  mrem up to one million years.
• No other materials or activities exist where EPA
  requirements extend to these time frames
• June 2008 DOE submission of license application
  to NRC
• 2011-2012 NRC review complete, if positive a
  construction license is issued
• Domenici-Craig legislative proposal
• Removes 70,000 MT statutory capacity cap
• Withdraws land for repository and railroad use
• Opens temporary storage facility at same time as
  construction license is issued, and begin
  immediate receipt of defense wastes
• Requires a determination by the Secretary of
  Energy that a recycle technology will not be
  available in a reasonable period of time before
  commercial spent fuel can be transferred to Yucca
  Mountain

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Conclusions

• Recent activity in nuclear energy has been
  substantial
• Waste repository site selected in United States
• Over 50 of U.S. reactors to receive 20-year
  license renewals by 2007
• 19 U.S. sites applying for combined construction
  and operating, 3 new reactor designs in queue
  with NRC for certification
• 2005 Energy Bill provisions for new nuclear
  construction and RD
• New nuclear power plant orders in Europe and Asia
• New research to demonstrate high-efficiency
  electricity and hydrogen production
• Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP)
  proposals for developing recycle and fast reactor
  technologies