EXTENDING NUCLEAR ENERGY TO NON-ELECTRICAL APPLICATIONS
Electricity represents less than half of all energy consumed in the United States and globally. Although a few commercial nuclear power plants world-wide provide energy to non-electrical applications such as district heating and water desalination, nuclear energy has been largely relegated to base-load electricity production. A new generation of smaller-sized nuclear power plants offers significant promise for extending nuclear energy to many non-electrical applications. The NuScale small modular reactor design is especially well suited for these non-traditional customers due to its small unit size, very robust reactor protection features and a highly flexible and scalable plant design. A series of technical and economic evaluation studies have been conducted to assess the practicality of using a NuScale plant to provide electricity and heat to a variety of non-electrical applications, including water desalination, oil refining, and hydrogen production. The studies serve to highlight the unique design features of the NuScale plant for these applications and provide encouraging conclusions regarding the technical and economic viability of extending clean nuclear energy to a broad range of non-electrical energy consumers.
- Research Organization:
- Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC07-05ID14517
- OSTI ID:
- 1169226
- Report Number(s):
- INL/CON-14-33321
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: The 19 pacific Basin Nuclear Conference (PBNC2014),Hyatt Regency Hotel Vancouver British Columbia,Canada,08/24/2014,08/28/2014
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Markets and Economic Requirements for Fission Batteries and Other Nuclear Systems
Proceedings of the 2006 international congress on advances in nuclear power plants - ICAPP'06