Page 247 - Handbook of Energy Engineering Calculations

SECTION 5

NUCLEAR ENERGY ENGINEERING

Nuclear Power-Plant Calculation Parameters

Selecting a Nuclear Power Reactor

Analysis of Nuclear Power-Plant Cycles

Fuel Consumption of Nuclear Reactors

Comparison of Coal and Fissionable Materials as Heat-Generation
Sources

Nuclear Radiation Effects on Human Beings

Nuclear Power and Its Use in Desalinization

NUCLEAR POWER-PLANT CALCULATION PARAMETERS

Nuclear power plants offer advantages over conventional fossil-fuel-fired
steam plants. The major advantage of a nuclear plant over a fossil-fuel plant
is the reduction of greenhouse gases (GHG) offered by nuclear power. Some

larger utility companies today are shutting down older fossil-fuel steam
plants and replacing them with a larger nuclear power plant.
Balanced against the GHG reduction provided by nuclear plants is the

supposed “danger” posed by such facilities. Yet, in the United States, there
has not been one significant nuclear accident since the three mile island
(TMI) incident in 1979. This record speaks well for the operation of the more
than 100 (104 at the time of this writing—69 pressurized-water reactors; 35
boiling-water reactors) nuclear energy plants in the United States. The record

is even more spectacular when it is recalled that the first nuclear power plant