The year 2000 power plant
Every utility seeks extended service life from its existing power plants before building new ones. It is not easy to justify a new power plant. The licensing and cost of new plants have become uncertain. In response to these conditions, electric utilities are undertaking plant life-extension studies and, in some cases, reconditioning/upgrading old power plants to significantly increase useful service life. Other technologies like robotics and artificial intelligence/expert systems are also being developed to reduce operating and maintenance (O and M) expenses, to remove workers from potentially hazardous environments, and to reduce plant downtime. Together, these steps represent an interim solution, perhaps providing some relief for the next few decades. However, there are serious physical and economic limits to retrofitting new technology into existing power plants. Some old plants will simply be beyond their useful life and require retirement. In nuclear plants, for instance, retrofit may raise important and time-consuming licensing/safety issues. Based on their robotics and artificial intelligence experience, the authors of this article speculate bout the design of the year 2000 power plant - a power plant they feel will naturally incorporate liberal amounts of robotic and artificial intelligence technologies.
- Research Organization:
- PSE and G Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Task Forces, NJ (US)
- OSTI ID:
- 6015779
- Journal Information:
- IEEE Comput. Applicat. Power; (United States), Vol. 2:2
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS//MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
29 ENERGY PLANNING
POLICY AND ECONOMY
22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
USES
ELECTRIC UTILITIES
SERVICE LIFE
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS
COMPUTERIZED CONTROL SYSTEMS
EXPERT SYSTEMS
FORECASTING
PLANNING
RETROFITTING
ROBOTS
SAFETY
TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT
CONTROL SYSTEMS
NUCLEAR FACILITIES
POWER PLANTS
PUBLIC UTILITIES
THERMAL POWER PLANTS
200104* - Fossil-Fueled Power Plants- Components
990210 - Supercomputers- (1987-1989)
296000 - Energy Planning & Policy- Electric Power
220400 - Nuclear Reactor Technology- Control Systems
220900 - Nuclear Reactor Technology- Reactor Safety