Parametric study on maximum transportable distance and cost for thermal energy transportation using various coolants
The operation temperature of advanced nuclear reactors is generally higher than commercial light water reactors and thermal energy from advanced nuclear reactor can be used for various purposes such as district heating, desalination, hydrogen production and other process heat applications, etc. The process heat industry/facilities will be located outside the nuclear island due to safety measures. This thermal energy from the reactor has to be transported a fair distance. In this study, analytical analysis was conducted to identify the maximum distance that thermal energy could be transported using various coolants such as molten-salts, helium and water by varying the pipe diameter and mass flow rate. The cost required to transport each coolant was also analyzed. The coolants analyzed are molten salts (such as: KClMgCl2, LiF-NaF-KF (FLiNaK) and KF-ZrF4), helium and water. Fluoride salts are superior because of better heat transport characteristics but chloride salts are most economical for higher temperature transportation purposes. For lower temperature water is a possible alternative when compared with He, because low pressure He requires higher pumping power which makes the process very inefficient and economically not viable for both low and high temperature application.
- Research Organization:
- Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- DOE - NE
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC07-05ID14517
- OSTI ID:
- 1126745
- Report Number(s):
- INL/JOU-13-29923
- Journal Information:
- Progress in Nuclear Energy, Vol. 74; ISSN 0149-1970
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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