coal2nuclear.com 
There are
These options are how most of the steam power plants will stop making Global Warming CO2.
CONVERSION'S ADVANTAGES
AND OPTIONS
OVER BUILDING NEW
The author thinks any of these options are far wiser than Clean Coal's "Carbon
Capture and Sequestration scheme.
1. The Full-power, TRISO Nuclear, Re-use The Turbine Conversion Option >>>
2. The Reduced-power, Conventional Nuclear, Re-use The Turbine Conversion Option >>>
3. The New Small Modular Nuclear Power Plant Unit, Re-use The Coal Yard Option >>>
Conversion's advantages
already paid for - NO NEW COSTS FOR MOST OF THE EQUIPMENT
already wired to our cities - NO NEW TRANSMISSION LINE RIGHT-OF-WAYS NEEDED
already have cooling water - NO NEW RIPARIAN OR PRIOR APPROPRIATION RIGHTS NEEDED
already have access roads - NO NEW ROAD RIGHT-OF-WAYS NEEDED
already have railroad tracks - NO NEW RAILROAD RIGHT-OF-WAYS NEEDED
usually have ample land for several additional future units - NO NEW LAND NEEDED
no construction delays - THEY ARE ALREADY RUNNING, CAN CONTINUE TO RUN DURING UPGRADE EQUIPMENT INSTALLATION
already have proven operators who know the equipment - FEWER OPERATORS LOOSE JOBS, EXISTING OPERATORS WOULD BE BETTER PAID
cleaner working environment - NUCLEAR PLANTS ARE SQUEAKY CLEAN
[A helpful operator reader suggested I add the following. (Thank you)]
A few advantages you may want to list in terms of BOP. Feel free to use them or
not...
1. Construction is made *cheaper* because all necessary roads, water transport
and rail lines are already in place. A huge savings relative to a green field
plant and even a currently operating nuclear plant.
2. Licensing:
a. Water usage for everything from cooling to potable water. In place.
b. Sewage and waste water discharge. In place.
c. Air pollution (not that it's needed) in place, frees up carbon licenses if
this occurs.
d. Hazardous waste storage/processing (all industrial facilities have to pay for
this, regardless). In place.
e. Lube oil and chemical usage/storage licenses. In place.
3. Control Room(s). Only a retrofit of the existing coal plant (to bring it up
to N-stamp standards) controls have to occur.
4. Grid access. The grid and switchyard is *in place* and ready to swap over. If
MW out put is close to the same, it's even possible the same main bank
transmission can be used, a huge savings, along with, BTW, all the associated
remote monitoring (relays for undervoltage, overvoltage, shorts, grounds, etc
etc), already in place. No major transmission upgrades needed if MWs are to stay
the same and even then, only minor ones at worse.
5. Human Resources. The coal plant will have trained operators and maintenance
personnel many/some/a lot of whom will be able to migrate over (literally by
walking) to the new plant after NRC qualifications.
6. Overall reduced footprint. Wildlife (my personal favorite) sanctuaries can be
built as security belts around the formally soot-laden, coal spewed, plant site.
Allows room for expansion for subsequent PBMR/LFTR use (desalination,
chemical/hot process steam usage, etc etc).
If we built nothing but new nuclear, what would we do with all the existing fossil-fuel burning power plants we now have? This is a major economic and grid logistics question no one is asking. Many have 40 or more years of productive and profitable life remaining. This is the most important consideration when second and third world countries think about ending their Global Warming CO2.
Our government's carbon restrictions are about to create chronic, severe electricity shortages. We must continue to get what electricity we can out of our existing electrical generating facilities by upgrading them to nuclear now. Otherwise, carbon laws will soon cause hundreds of our smaller, older, and less clean power plants to be shut down and dismantled forever while their large, long build-time nuclear replacements are tied up forever in endless court battles.
Since writing the above last winter, the author completed a personal inventory of most of the generating equipment actually on-line in the State of Michigan. Compared where we were in 1995, we have fallen incredibly fast into a state of electricity generation dissolution unimaginable in the mid-80s. No new large capacity exists, what is new consists largely of rather CO2 dirty and short-lived natural gas and coal combustion turbines. We've become a ghetto-like threadbare patchwork of electricity sources of all sizes, reliabilities, and efficiencies. The entire nation may not be any better off. Few new power plants have been built in the last decade, it seems to be as difficult to get a new fossil plant constructed as a nuclear plant. I blame a lot of the infrastructure apathy and neglect on the various Clinton-era electricity deregulation schemes, less on the Greens, who haven't had anywhere as much to say about it as Wall Street.
Electrically, the entire United States is approaching the electrical shambles California already has deteriorated into. We simply don't have the power to compete industrially with the rest of the world anymore. It's all getting quite old. Babcock & Wilcox's mPower nuclear modules - by the thousands, installed at today's large gas turbine sites - may well be the United Sates' best hope for a stronger future.
Cooling Water. Like your car, a power plant MUST have a radiator to remove the heat energy it could not convert into mechanical energy. Cooling water advantages of upgrading existing fossil fuel power plants to nuclear and adding new hybrid nuclear power plants at the same site are significant. Re-use of existing cooling water sites combined with the nuclear pebble's water-frugal heat provides a thermodynamically sound way the United States can increase the proportion of it's nuclear power plant fleet while avoiding the conventional reactor cooling problems France runs into during their summer heat waves.
"Dry" cooling towers don't cost a whole lot more than the almost universal "wet" cooling towers that use so much water.
The worse Global Warming becomes, the more critical the conventional nuclear reactor cooling water issue will become. Thermoelectric electricity generation in the United States currently accounts for 39% of it's total fresh water withdrawal and 3% of it's total water evaporation. The less efficient conventional nuclear plants (less of its heat is being turned into electricity, more into cooling water vapor), running about 500°F cooler than coal plants, consume about 125% as much cooling water per kiloWatt hour as a coal plant.
Disadvantages to re-using existing coal-burning power plants:
not new - partially worn out - POWER PLANTS TYPICALLY HAVE A 70 YEAR LIFE - PLANTS OLDER THAN 30 YEARS MAY NOT BE GOOD INVESTMENT
(If you can think of more, please let me know. -- JH)
Conversion is 5 ways
capture and sequestration.
1. We can do it now - not 10 to 20 years from now.
2. No risk of dozens of Lake Nyos type CO2 leakage
disasters from a large earthquake.
3. Conversion eliminates nearly 100% of the CO2, Capture
could let as much as 50% of the CO2 slip past.
4. Conversion has no parasitic power losses. Capture is estimated to be as
high as 25%.
5. Electricity and jobs of more smaller plants would be saved.
The Full-power (1,000+
What this web site is advocating.
The Reduced-power Option Using 600
(Compared with "Clean Coal," it might not be that bad after all)
(As a retired engineer, I do not face a career reputation-ruining risk by
broaching this subject.)
Conventional nuclear boilers produce steam at about 550 degrees F. That's about 400 degrees F cooler than a coal-burning boiler produces. Powering an existing coal boiler steam electric generating turbine with a 400 degrees F cooler conventional nuclear boiler appears possible but the turbine-generator might produce only 60% as much electricity.
I might change what I'm about to say very soon, but, at this moment, it looks like what would happen is that driving a 1,000°F three stage turbine - High pressure, Intermediate Pressure, and Low pressure - with steam intended for use by a two stage turbine - Intermediate Pressure and Low Pressure - we would wind up with a turbine with two intermediate pressure turbines and a single low pressure turbine. High pressure turbine steam is much dryer (0.3 lb/ft3) than intermediate pressure turbine steam (1.5 lb/ft3) so this might not be a practical option for most turbines.
Driving a high pressure turbine as an intermediate pressure turbine is
clearly a sub-optimal situation BUT - and this is key - this still might
entail less overall electricity generation loss and operating overhead than
would be suffered if the generating unit had been converted to Carbon
Capture and Sequestration (CCS) instead. A 30% loss of net power
penalty for a generating unit that has been retrofitted with CCS is being
suggested as "normal and to be expected" for CCS.
A CCS facility is another emissions control
chemical plant that will also generate a whole raft of new operating costs
in addition to the energy needed to power it.
New Modular Nuclear Power Plant Option:
The New Small Modular
Nuclear Power Plant Unit Option
Continue to take
advantage of your existing site while expanding your profits.
Installing an entirely new modular nuclear power plant unit in a corner of your soon-to-be-abandoned coal yard has a lot going for it.
Soon modular conventional nuclear generating units will be available as 1 to 10 module packages.
125 MWe - Babcock & Wilcox's web site:
http://www.babcock.com/products/modular_nuclear/
B&W claims a
SINGLE one of their mPower units will, over it's lifetime, avoid the production of 57 MILLION
METRIC TONS of CO2.
Are conventional Super-Sized nuclear power plants simply too big?
The limits of growth seem to have been reached for conventional nuclear power plants. Very large concrete spans are the Achilles heel for construction. And today's 2.2+ million horsepower nuclear power plants have long concrete spans bearing enormous loads all over the place.