Introduction to Nuclear Energy
Presented by:
4/25/2025
Slides courtesy of whatisnuclear.com
ENERGY
Context and issues
(navigate down or press space)
Energy gives us freedom
It is a substitute for labor and time
Quality of life is correlated with energy use
Plot by A. Alhajri
Fossil fuels powered modernity
- Iron, copper, steel, concrete
- Fertilizer
- Railroads
- Global health
- Moon landing
- Internet
- Chihuly
Coal saved the forests of Europe from being decimated for charcoal.
The National Academy of Engineering chose electrification as the top innovation of the 20th century.
But, fossil fuel (and biofuel) cause air pollution
The WHO estimates 7 million premature deaths due to combustion of dirty indoor biofuel and outdoor fossil fuel
And climate change
Fortunately, we have low-carbon sources
What is
NUCLEAR ENERGY?
Atoms have protons, neutrons, and electrons (derived from BruceBlaus)
(2012rc)
Three isotopes of hydrogen (Balajijagadesh)
The first few rows of the Chart of the Nuclides (National Nuclear Data Center)
Chart of the Nuclides zoomed out (National Nuclear Data Center)
Nuclei can undergo spontaneous or induced nuclear reactions, like these (CC-BY-SA LibreTexts)
Nuclear fission: nucleus splits apart (MikeRun)
Fission yields from fissioning U-235 (National Nuclear Data Center)
Marie Curie pioneered nuclear chemistry and coined the term 'radioactive' (1898)
Ida Noddack correctly hypothesized fission based on an experiment (1934)
Lise Meitner was instrumental in confirming nuclear fission (1938)
Nuclear fusion: nuclei pushed together (src)
Key nuclear reactions for energy
|
Fission (splitting large) |
Fusion (combining small) |
|
|---|---|---|
| In nature | Georeactors in Oklo, Gabon | The stars and Sun |
| Discovered | 1938 | 1932 |
| 1st chain reaction | 1942 at CP-1 | 1951 George shot |
| Weaponized | 1945 Trinity shot | 1951 George shot |
| Made electricity | 1951 at EBR-1 | Working on it |
| Propulsion | 1955 on USS Nautilus | N/A |
| Powered ice base | 1960 at Camp Century | N/A |
| In space | 1965 on SNAP-10A | N/A |
| Competitive power | 1965 Oyster Creek | Thinking about it |
| In 2023 | Makes 10% of world electricity | In development |
How a
NUCLEAR POWER PLANT
works
Eta Carinae (NASA/ESA)
Uranium ore (Geomartin)
Yellowcake (IAEA)
Isotopic concentrations (whatisnuclear)
Gas centrifuges (GAO-18-126)
Nuclear fuel pellets (NRC)
Fuel assembly (NRC)
Reactor core refueling (D.C. Cook)
A neutron chain reaction
A Pressurized Water Reactor (TVA)
Spent fuel pool (NRC)
A dry cask (@ParisOrtizWines)
STATUS
of nuclear power
In 2022, nuclear fission made:
- 4.2% of world energy
- 10% of world electricity
- 22% of US electricity
- 55% of US low-carbon electricity
There are ~437 power reactors in operation (Carbon Brief)
Global capacity changes (Carbon Brief)
France went all-in on nuclear (@whatisnuclear)
We've gotten extremely good at running nuclear plants
Fraction of the time the plant is running at full capacity (whatisnuclear.com)
Nuclear plants can load follow at around 40 MW per minute!
Technical and Economic Aspects of Load Following with Nuclear Power Plants (OECD-NEA)
Nuclear plants can load follow at around 40 MW per minute!
Technical and Economic Aspects of Load Following with Nuclear Power Plants (OECD-NEA)
Barakah: 4 APR-1400s in UAE
- Started with proven design
- Brought in Korean workforce
- Went from 0 to APR-1400 in 10 years
- Now offering world's first green certificates for nuclear-powered aluminum plant
Used with permission from @AngelicaOung
Hualong One
- "China Dragon 1"
- Developed by CGN and CNNC
- 3-loop PWR
- Approved by European Utility Requirements and UK GDA
- 5 operational, 11 under construction as of Jan 2024
- ~5 years to construct
Hualong One CC-BY-4.0 Ji Xing
VVER-1200
- $1,200/kW overnight construction cost
- 54 month construction time
- 34.8% net thermal efficiency
- Being exported broadly
- Foreign projects often financed by Russian govt
Manufacturing a VVER-1000 RIA Novosti Archive CC-BY-SA 3.0
Westinghouse AP-1000
- Up-rated from original AP-600 design for economy of scale
- Vogtle units 3 & 4 first nuclear plants to start construction in US since 1978
- Boondoggled
- Unit 3 entered commercial operation in 2023!
- Construction started in 2013
- Related VC Summer project cancelled, riddled in scandal
Vogtle Unit 3 (NRC)
Reactor
DESIGN CHOICES
Fuel nuclides
- Uranium consumer
- Uranium-Plutonium breeder
- Thorium-Uranium breeder
- Deuterium-Tritium fusion
- Deuterium-Helium-3 fusion
Fuel cycles
- Once-through
- Single recycling
- Full recycling
Fuel forms
- Metal (solid or molten)
- Oxide
- Carbide
- Nitride
- Molten salt
- Gas/plasma (e.g. D-T, UF₆)
Coolants
- Water
- Heavy water
- Liquid metal
- Sodium/NaK
- Lead/PbBi/Bi
- Mercury
- Enriched Li
- Gas
- Air
- Nitrogen
- CO₂
- Helium
- Organics/hydrocarbons
- Molten salt
- Fluoride
- Chloride
- Liquid Hydrogen
- Heat pipes
Moderators
- Water
- Heavy water
- Graphite
- Unmoderated (fast reactor)
- Beryllium
- Organics
- Hydrogen/hydride
Power cycles
- Rankine
- Brayton
- Stirling
- Piston (Otto)
- Chemical
- Thermionic
- Magnetohydrodynamic
- ...
Other design parameters
Size/Power level
- Micro
- Small
- Medium
- Large
- Gargantuan
Site
- Space
- Air
- Land
- Underground
- Ice base
- Sea (surface)
- Sea (submerged)
Construction method
- Stick-built
- Factory-built modules
- Factory-built reactor
- Hybrid
OTHER USES
of nuclear energy besides central power stations
Propulsion
District heat
Making special radionuclides
Lutetium-177 treatment of metastatic prostate cancer (ref)
“This day marks a paradigm shift in medical isotope supply wherein the international medical community can now depend on scalable, reliable, Canadian, power-reactor produced isotopes for their cancer treatments.” -- David Harris
Remote power
Desalination
Nuclear desalination options (Khamis, IAEA)
A nuclear-powered agro-industrial complex (AEC)
Disarmament
What about
THE WASTE?
Nuclear waste is composed of nuclei left over after neutron irradiation
Most of the energy of fission comes out immediately, but some comes out later
The energy comes out on different time scales
How much waste is there?
If all US nuclear waste were loaded into dry casks, it would stack this high (whatisnuclear.com)
Nuclear waste solution options
- On-site dry cask storage
- Interim consolidated dry cask storage
- Deep geologic repository
- Mined repository
- Rock (e.g. Onkalo, KBS-3, Yucca Mtn.)
- Salt formations (e.g. WIPP)
- Deep borehole
- Recycling/reprocessing
Operational nuclear waste repository in salt at WIPP (DOE)
Finland's Onkalo repository (Posiva)
Nuclear waste disposal is already paid for by rate payers
- In the US, the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act set up a Nuclear Waste Fund
- All commercial plants paid 1.0 mill per kWh generated
- Current balance is about $55 billion
- Payments were suspended in 2014 because repository stalled
- Research and construction for Yucca Mountain spent about $10 B
- Similar funds in Canada, Germany, Finland, etc.
A 2020 audit report of the Nuclear Waste fund (DOE)
So what's the problem? No one wants it.
Anti-nuclear organizations oppose proposed solutions
Pushing back against waste solutions is documented policy
Strategy document from a 500-person meeting opposing nuclear power in 1991 including Ralph Nader, Amory Lovins, etc. (from Atomic Insights)
Going forward on waste
- Onkalo will clearly demonstrate the solution (if WIPP hasn't)
- Consent-based siting efforts may make progress
- Need to find out how to get communities to reach out as repository host
- Challenge anti-nuclear organizations who oppose solutions
- Inconsistency: You can't simultaneously consider waste horrifying while stone-walling its safe disposal.
-
Alternate: recycling
- Required for 1000+ year sustainability
- Still needs repository for process losses and long-lived FPs
- Far more expensive, and we need to make nuclear power cheaper
- Historical proliferation issues ("plutonium!")
Here's a more positive view of nuclear waste (Photo from NRC)
But
IS IT SAFE?
Afterglow heat is the key safety challenge
Reactor power does not go to zero when the chain reaction is stopped (whatisnuclear.com)
Nuclear has proven to be among the safest and cleanest forms of energy
From Our World in Data
By 2013, nuclear power had prevented 1.8 million premature deaths and 64 billion tonnes of CO₂ emissions
Kharecha and Hansen (NASA Goddard Institute)
If that's not safe enough, there are other reactor design options
ADVANCED REACTORS
What advances have occurred?
- The existing fleet gained operational experience. Next-generation models of the same type incorporated the lessons.
- World energy context changed enough for previous non-water concepts to gain new interest
- New technology was developed that can be incorporated into new designs
Advanced reactors today intend to solve contemporary problems
- Natural safety without backup systems
- More practical to finance (smaller)
- Decarbonize hard-to-decarbonize sectors
- Industry
- Shipping
- World-scale million-year+ sustainability (breeding)
- Waste processing/reduction
But...
- There are lessons to be learned in initial construction and scaling
- New reactor development is hard and slow
A small reactor (ANL)
Advanced water-cooled reactors
Based on proven, well-known technology
- Advanced large LWRs
- Modular construction
- Simplified systems
- 72 hours without backup power
- Digital instrumentation and control
- ABWR, AP-600, AP-1000, APR-1400, Hualong 1, VVER
- Small water-cooled reactors
- Modular delivery and/or construction
- Depends on economies of mass production exceeding economies of scale
An AP1000 advanced reactor (Westinghouse)
Fast-neutron reactors
Reactors that don't include a moderator
Pros
- World-scale sustainability
- Waste processing/reduction
- Natural safety
- High thermal efficiency
- Industrial heat
Cons
- Higher fissile concentration
- Chemically reactive coolants
- Extra costs from extra coolant loops
- Plutonium scares people
Fast reactor history (adapted from Walter, Fast Breeder Reactors)
Breeder reactors are necessary in the long run
Breeder reactors are as renewable as anything else (whatisnuclear.com)
Thorium reactors
Breeder reactors that don't need fast neutrons
- Plentiful in India and China
- Used in Indian Point initial core
- Works well with fluid-fuel reactors
- China about to turn on a new experimental Thorium Molten Salt Reactor called TMSR-LF1
- Does not completely eliminate proliferation or waste issues
The TMSR-LF1 in China (WNN)
Fusion Power Plants
- Much less radioactive waste (no fission products or actinides)
- No afterglow heat to cool
- Many highly-funded startups catching headlines
- Still challenging physics and engineering
- Underdeveloped power conversion engineering
- Often necessitates tritium breeding
- Often a powerful neutron source
- Expected to break-even soon
- Even after break-even, economical power plant timeline still uncertain
- Worth continued investment!
WHAT ABOUT BOONDOGGLES?
Historical construction costs (Lovering, 2016)
The UAE just built 4 large LWRs (IAEA, 2021)
Project Delivery is key
Suggestions to reduce cost
- Complete detailed design prior to construction
- Use proven supply chain and skilled workforce
- Incorporate manufacturers and builders into design teams early
- Appoint single primary contract manager with experience
- Use contract structure that aligns all actors with project success
- Enable a flexible regulatory environment that can accommodate changes quickly.
- Do more serial manufacturing of standardized plants
- Use inherent and passive safety features
- Incorporate CO₂ into the cost of energy
- Governments should establish reactor sites where companies can deploy prototypes
- Governments should fund prototype testing and commercial deployment via licensing cost share, R&D cost share, technology milestone funding, and production credits for successful demonstration of new designs
Ok, but
WHY BOTHER?
given the progress in wind and solar?
Nuclear has proven decarbonization at scale
Indian Point was replaced with fossil (Nuclear NY)
HOW TO HELP
Save Clean Energy rally in SLO last November organized by Isabelle Boemeke (@IsabelleBoemeke)
Things you can do
THANK YOU!
Find more info and contact form at whatisnuclear.com