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Necessary Nuclear Energy

How Is Electricity Generated?

  • Steam turbines are most commonly utilized
  • Water is heated into steam and then pushed through a turbine

How It Works

Turbine

Hoover Dam Turbine Hall - Jim West

Nuclear Reaction

  • Nuclear uses a process of radioactive materials called nuclear fission

  • Creates a chain reaction

  • Reaction is controlled by introducing different material between radioactive material

Nuclear

Benefits of Nuclear

Nuclear has two major areas of benefit:

  • Scalability
  • Clean Energy Production

Using nuclear in efficient ways can increase the amount of energy gathered from nuclear reaction

Nuclear Benefits

How is it Scalable?

Scalability

  • Less requirements to build

  • Lower fuel requirements

  • Output can be easily adjusted to demand

Clean Energy

"Greenhouse gas emissions of nuclear power plants are among the lowest of any electricity generation method and on a lifecycle basis are comparable to wind, hydro-electricity and biomass" - World Nuclear Association

Emissions Graph

World Nuclear Association

Efficient Use

Efficent Use

"Nuclear power plants generate electricity and a large amount of waste heat which is valueable for cogeneration. District heating (DH) is a suitable technology to decarbonize the European heat sector" - Leurent

Incorporating other processes during nuclear energy generation, more energy can be gathered

Nuclear Generation Example

Graph from Bragg-Sitton

Carbon Lifecycle

  • Carbon emissions during generation are not the only emissions to consider

  • “... will increase total life cycle emissions substantially to 130,000 t CO2/TWh (Lenzen 2008) or even 220,000-437,000 t CO2/TWh (Mudd & Diesendorf 2010)” - Diesendorf

Emissions

Visual

Nuclear Plant

Resource Mining & Transport

Waste Handling

Plant Construction

Carbon Emissions Will Decrease

Big Picture

  • A broader thinking of emissions helps understand the issue and why it is a non-issue
  • Big push in society to electrify as much as possible
  • Carbon emissions will decrease as the world moves towards electrification

Safety Concerns

  • Safety concerns are an important issue

  • Possibility of nuclear radiation

Safety

Past Disasters

Fukushima:

  • Caused by natural disaster

Chernobyl

  • Caused due to gross safety and health oversight failures

Past Disasters

Current Operating Plants

Current Plants

  • 437 currently running nuclear power stations - Statista Research Department

  • Doesn't account for military

  • Other sources of radiation in business and private sector

Conclusion

Nuclear provides many benefits such as:

  • Scalability
  • Efficiency

While as a whole has more of a carbon footprint than initially believed, it will continue to shrink

Current nuclear plants operate safely and effectively

References

  • Bragg-Sitton, Shannon M., et al. "Reimagining future energy systems: Overview of the US program to maximize energy utilization via integrated nuclear-renewable energy systems." International Journal of Energy Research 44.10 (2020): pp. 8156-8169, https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.proxy.wichita.edu/doi/10.1002/er.5207. 6 October 2022.
  • Diesendorf, Mark. "Subjective judgements in the nuclear energy debate." Conservation Biology 30.3 (2016): pp. 666-669, https://www-jstor-org.proxy.wichita.edu/stable/24760996?pq-origsite=summon&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents. 10 October 2022.
  • Leurent, Martin, et al. "Driving forces and obstacles to nuclear cogeneration in Europe: Lessons learnt from Finland." Energy Policy 107 (2017): pp. 138-150, DOI:10.1016/j.enpol.2017.04.025.

References

References

  • Statista Research Department. Number of operational nuclear reactors worldwide from 1954 to 2021. (2022): https://www.statista.com/statistics/263945/number-of-nuclear-power- plants-worldwide/. 4 November 2022.
  • World Nuclear Association. Comparison of Lifecycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Various Electricity Generation Sources. (2011): https://www.world- nuclear.org/uploadedFiles/org/WNA/Publications/Working_Group_Reports/comparison_ of_lifecycle.pdf. 5 November 2022.

References

Cont.

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