A nuclear power plant is a thermal power station
in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor.
As is typical in all conventional thermal
power stations the heat is used to generate
steam which drives a steam turbine connected
to a generator which produces electricity.
As of 23 April 2014, the IAEA report there
are 435 nuclear power reactors in operation
operating in 31 countries. Nuclear power
plants are usually considered to be base load
stations, since fuel is a small part of the
cost of production.
History
For more history, see nuclear reactor, nuclear
power and nuclear fission.
Electricity was generated by a nuclear reactor
for the first time ever on September 3, 1948
at the X-10 Graphite Reactor in Oak Ridge,
Tennessee in the United States, and was the
first nuclear power plant to power a light
bulb. The second, larger experiment occurred
on December 20, 1951 at the EBR-I experimental
station near Arco, Idaho in the United States.
On June 27, 1954, the world's first nuclear
power plant to generate electricity for a
power grid started operations at the Soviet
city of Obninsk. The world's first full scale
power station, Calder Hall in England opened
on October 17, 1956.
Systems
This section has recently been translated
from the German Wikipedia.
The conversion to electrical energy takes
place indirectly, as in conventional thermal
power plants. The heat is produced by fission
in a nuclear reactor. Directly or indirectly,
water vapor is produced. The pressurized steam
is then usually fed to a multi-stage steam
turbine. Steam turbines in Western nuclear
power plants are among the largest steam turbines
ever. After the steam turbine has expanded
and partially condensed the steam, the remaining
vapor is condensed in a condenser. The condenser
is a heat exchanger which is connected to
a secondary side such as a river or a cooling
tower. The water is then pumped back into
the nuclear reactor and the cycle begins again.
The water-steam cycle corresponds to the Rankine
cycle.
Nuclear reactors
A nuclear reactor is a device to initiate
and control a sustained nuclear chain reaction.
The most common use of nuclear reactors is
for the generation of electric energy and
for the propulsion of ships.
The nuclear reactor is the heart of the plant.
In its central part, the reactor core's heat
is generated by controlled nuclear fission.
With this heat, a coolant is heated as it
is pumped through the reactor and thereby
removes the energy from the reactor. Heat
from nuclear fission is used to raise steam,
which runs through turbines, which in turn
powers either ship's propellers or electrical
generators.
Since nuclear fission creates radioactivity,
the reactor core is surrounded by a protective
shield. This containment absorbs radiation
and prevents radioactive material from being
released into the environment. In addition,
many reactors are equipped with a dome of
concrete to protect the reactor against both
internal casualties and external impacts.
In nuclear power plants, different types of
reactors, nuclear fuels, and cooling circuits
and moderators are used.
Steam turbine
The purpose of the steam turbine is to convert
the heat contained in steam into mechanical
energy. The engine house with the steam turbine
is usually structurally separated from the
main reactor building. It is so aligned to
prevent debris from the destruction of a turbine
in operation from flying towards the reactor.
In the case of a pressurized water reactor,
the steam turbine is separated from the nuclear
system. To detect a leak in the steam generator
and thus the passage of radioactive water
at an early stage, an activity meter is mounted
to track the outlet steam of the steam generator.
In contrast, boiling water reactors pass radioactive
water through the steam turbine, so the turbine
is kept as part of the control area of the
nuclear power plant.
Generator
The generator converts kinetic energy supplied
by the turbine into electrical energy. Low-pole
AC synchronous generators of high rated power
are used.
Cooling system
A cooling system removes heat from the reactor
core and transports it to another area of
the plant, where the thermal energy can be
harnessed to produce electricity or to do
other useful work. Typically the hot coolant
is used as a heat source for a boiler, and
the pressurized steam from that boiler powers
one or more steam turbine driven electrical
generators.
Safety valves
In the event of an emergency, safety valves
can be used to prevent pipes from bursting
or the reactor from exploding. The valves
are designed so that they can derive all of
the supplied flow rates with little increase
in pressure. In the case of the BWR, the steam
is directed into the suppression chamber and
condenses there. The chambers on a heat exchanger
are connected to the intermediate cooling
circuit.
Feedwater pump
The water level in the steam generator and
nuclear reactor is controlled using the feedwater
system. The feedwater pump has the task of
taking the water from the condensate system,
increasing the pressure and forcing it into
either the steam generators or directly into
the reactor.
Emergency power supply
Most nuclear plants require two distinct sources
of offsite power feeding station service transformers
that are sufficiently separated in the plant's
switchyard and can receive power from multiple
transmission lines. In addition in some nuclear
plants the turbine generator can power the
plant's house loads while the plant is online
via station service transformers which tap
power from the generator output bus bars before
they reach the step-up transformer Even with
the redundancy of two power sources total
loss of offsite power is still possible. Nuclear
power plants are equipped with emergency power
systems to maintain safety in the event of
unit shutdown and loss of offsite power. Batteries
provide uninterruptible power to instrumentation,
control systems, and valves. Emergency diesel
generators provide direct AC power to charge
the batteries and to provide power to systems
requiring AC power such as motor driven pumps.
The emergency diesel generators do not power
all plant systems, only those required to
shut the reactor down safely, remove decay
heat from the reactor, provide emergency core
cooling, and, in some plants, spent fuel pool
cooling. The large power generation pumps
such as the main feedwater, condensate, circulating
water, and reactor coolant pumps are not backed
up by the diesels.
People in a nuclear power plant
Nuclear engineers
Reactor operators
Health physicists
Emergency response team personnel
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Resident Inspectors
In the United States and Canada, workers except
for management, professional and security
personnel are likely to be members of either
the International Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers or the Utility Workers Union of America,
or one of the various trades and labor unions
representing Machinist, laborers, boilermakers,
millwrights, iron workers etc.
Economics
The economics of new nuclear power plants
is a controversial subject, and multi-billion
dollar investments ride on the choice of an
energy source. Nuclear power plants typically
have high capital costs, but low direct fuel
costs, with the costs of fuel extraction,
processing, use and spent fuel storage internalized
costs. Therefore, comparison with other power
generation methods is strongly dependent on
assumptions about construction timescales
and capital financing for nuclear plants.
Cost estimates take into account plant decommissioning
and nuclear waste storage or recycling costs
in the United States due to the Price Anderson
Act. With the prospect that all spent nuclear
fuel/"nuclear waste" could potentially be
recycled by using future reactors, generation
IV reactors, that are being designed to completely
close the nuclear fuel cycle.
On the other hand, construction, or capital
cost aside, measures to mitigate global warming
such as a carbon tax or carbon emissions trading,
increasingly favor the economics of nuclear
power. Further efficiencies are hoped to be
achieved through more advanced reactor designs,
Generation III reactors promise to be at least
17% more fuel efficient, and have lower capital
costs, while futuristic Generation IV reactors
promise 10000-30000% greater fuel efficiency
and the elimination of nuclear waste.
In Eastern Europe, a number of long-established
projects are struggling to find finance, notably
Belene in Bulgaria and the additional reactors
at Cernavoda in Romania, and some potential
backers have pulled out. Where cheap gas is
available and its future supply relatively
secure, this also poses a major problem for
nuclear projects.
Analysis of the economics of nuclear power
must take into account who bears the risks
of future uncertainties. To date all operating
nuclear power plants were developed by state-owned
or regulated utility monopolies where many
of the risks associated with construction
costs, operating performance, fuel price,
and other factors were borne by consumers
rather than suppliers. Many countries have
now liberalized the electricity market where
these risks, and the risk of cheaper competitors
emerging before capital costs are recovered,
are borne by plant suppliers and operators
rather than consumers, which leads to a significantly
different evaluation of the economics of new
nuclear power plants.
Following the 2011 Fukushima I nuclear accidents,
costs are likely to go up for currently operating
and new nuclear power plants, due to increased
requirements for on-site spent fuel management
and elevated design basis threats. However
many designs, such as the currently under
construction AP1000, use passive nuclear safety
cooling systems, unlike those of Fukushima
I which required active cooling systems, this
largely eliminates the necessity to spend
more on redundant back up safety equipment.
Safety and accidents
There are trades to be made among safety,
economic and technical properties of different
reactor designs for particular applications.
Historically these decisions were often made
in private by scientists, regulators and engineers,
but this may be considered problematic, and
since Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, many
involved now consider free prior informed
consent and morality to be primary considerations.
In his book, Normal accidents, Charles Perrow
says that multiple and unexpected failures
are built into society's complex and tightly-coupled
nuclear reactor systems. Such accidents are
unavoidable and cannot be designed around.
An interdisciplinary team from MIT has estimated
that given the expected growth of nuclear
power from 2005 – 2055, at least four serious
nuclear accidents would be expected in that
period. However the MIT study does not take
into account improvements in safety since
1970. To date, there have been five serious
accidents in the world since 1970, corresponding
to the beginning of the operation of generation
II reactors. This leads to on average one
serious accident happening every eight years
worldwide.
Complexity
Nuclear power plants are some of the most
sophisticated and complex energy systems ever
designed. Any complex system, no matter how
well it is designed and engineered, cannot
be deemed failure-proof. Veteran journalist
and author Stephanie Cooke has argued:
The reactors themselves were enormously complex
machines with an incalculable number of things
that could go wrong. When that happened at
Three Mile Island in 1979, another fault line
in the nuclear world was exposed. One malfunction
led to another, and then to a series of others,
until the core of the reactor itself began
to melt, and even the world's most highly
trained nuclear engineers did not know how
to respond. The accident revealed serious
deficiencies in a system that was meant to
protect public health and safety.
The 1979 Three Mile Island accident inspired
Perrow's book Normal Accidents, where a nuclear
accident occurs, resulting from an unanticipated
interaction of multiple failures in a complex
system. TMI was an example of a normal accident
because it was "unexpected, incomprehensible,
uncontrollable and unavoidable".
Perrow concluded that the failure at Three
Mile Island was a consequence of the system's
immense complexity. Such modern high-risk
systems, he realized, were prone to failures
however well they were managed. It was inevitable
that they would eventually suffer what he
termed a 'normal accident'. Therefore, he
suggested, we might do better to contemplate
a radical redesign, or if that was not possible,
to abandon such technology entirely. .
A fundamental issue contributing to a nuclear
power system's complexity is its extremely
long lifetime. The timeframe from the start
of construction of a commercial nuclear power
station through the safe disposal of its last
radioactive waste, may be 100 to 150 years.
Failure modes of nuclear power plants
There are concerns that a combination of human
and mechanical error at a nuclear facility
could result in significant harm to people
and the environment:
Operating nuclear reactors contain large amounts
of radioactive fission products which, if
dispersed, can pose a direct radiation hazard,
contaminate soil and vegetation, and be ingested
by humans and animals. Human exposure at high
enough levels can cause both short-term illness
and death and longer-term death by cancer
and other diseases.
It is impossible for a commercial nuclear
reactor to explode like a nuclear bomb since
the fuel is never sufficiently enriched for
this to occur.
Nuclear reactors can fail in a variety of
ways. Should the instability of the nuclear
material generate unexpected behavior, it
may result in an uncontrolled power excursion.
Normally, the cooling system in a reactor
is designed to be able to handle the excess
heat this causes; however, should the reactor
also experience a loss-of-coolant accident,
then the fuel may melt or cause the vessel
in which it is contained to overheat and melt.
This event is called a nuclear meltdown.
After shutting down, for some time the reactor
still needs external energy to power its cooling
systems. Normally this energy is provided
by the power grid to which that plant is connected,
or by emergency diesel generators. Failure
to provide power for the cooling systems,
as happened in Fukushima I, can cause serious
accidents.
Nuclear safety rules in the United States
"do not adequately weigh the risk of a single
event that would knock out electricity from
the grid and from emergency generators, as
a quake and tsunami recently did in Japan",
Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials said
in June 2011.
Vulnerability of nuclear plants to attack
Nuclear reactors become preferred targets
during military conflict and, over the past
three decades, have been repeatedly attacked
during military air strikes, occupations,
invasions and campaigns:
In September 1980, Iran bombed the Al Tuwaitha
nuclear complex in Iraq, in Operation Scorch
Sword.
In June 1981, an Israeli air strike completely
destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear research
facility.
Between 1984 and 1987, Iraq bombed Iran’s
Bushehr nuclear plant six times.
On 8 January 1982, Umkhonto we Sizwe, the
armed wing of the ANC, attacked South Africa's
Koeberg nuclear power plant while it was still
under construction.
In 1991, the U.S. bombed three nuclear reactors
and an enrichment pilot facility in Iraq.
In 1991, Iraq launched Scud missiles at Israel’s
Dimona nuclear power plant.
In September 2007, Israel bombed a Syrian
reactor under construction.
In the U.S., plants are surrounded by a double
row of tall fences which are electronically
monitored. The plant grounds are patrolled
by a sizeable force of armed guards. The NRC's
"Design Basis Threat" criteria for plants
is a secret, and so what size of attacking
force the plants are able to protect against
is unknown. However, to scram a plant takes
fewer than 5 seconds while unimpeded restart
takes hours, severely hampering a terrorist
force in a goal to release radioactivity.
Attack from the air is an issue that has been
highlighted since the September 11 attacks
in the U.S. However, it was in 1972 when three
hijackers took control of a domestic passenger
flight along the east coast of the U.S. and
threatened to crash the plane into a U.S.
nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
The plane got as close as 8,000 feet above
the site before the hijackers’ demands were
met.
The most important barrier against the release
of radioactivity in the event of an aircraft
strike on a nuclear power plant is the containment
building and its missile shield. Current NRC
Chairman Dale Klein has said "Nuclear power
plants are inherently robust structures that
our studies show provide adequate protection
in a hypothetical attack by an airplane. The
NRC has also taken actions that require nuclear
power plant operators to be able to manage
large fires or explosions—no matter what
has caused them."
In addition, supporters point to large studies
carried out by the U.S. Electric Power Research
Institute that tested the robustness of both
reactor and waste fuel storage and found that
they should be able to sustain a terrorist
attack comparable to the September 11 terrorist
attacks in the U.S. Spent fuel is usually
housed inside the plant's "protected zone"
or a spent nuclear fuel shipping cask; stealing
it for use in a "dirty bomb" would be extremely
difficult. Exposure to the intense radiation
would almost certainly quickly incapacitate
or kill anyone who attempts to do so.
Plant location
In many countries, plants are often located
on the coast, in order to provide a ready
source of cooling water for the essential
service water system. As a consequence the
design needs to take the risk of flooding
and tsunamis into account. The World Energy
Council argues disaster risks are changing
and increasing the likelihood of disasters
such as earthquakes, cyclones, hurricanes,
typhoons, ﬂooding. High temperatures, low
precipitation levels and severe droughts may
lead to fresh water shortages. Seawater is
corrosive and so nuclear energy supply is
likely to be negatively affected by the fresh
water shortage. This generic problem may become
increasingly significant over time. Failure
to calculate the risk of flooding correctly
lead to a Level 2 event on the International
Nuclear Event Scale during the 1999 Blayais
Nuclear Power Plant flood, while flooding
caused by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and
tsunami lead to the Fukushima I nuclear accidents.
The design of plants located in seismically
active zones also requires the risk of earthquakes
and tsunamis to be taken into account. Japan,
India, China and the USA are among the countries
to have plants in earthquake-prone regions.
Damage caused to Japan's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa
Nuclear Power Plant during the 2007 Chūetsu
offshore earthquake underlined concerns expressed
by experts in Japan prior to the Fukushima
accidents, who have warned of a genpatsu-shinsai.
Multiple reactors
The Fukushima nuclear disaster illustrated
the dangers of building multiple nuclear reactor
units close to one another. This proximity
triggered the parallel, chain-reaction accidents
that led to hydrogen explosions damaging reactor
buildings and water draining from open-air
spent fuel pools -- a situation that was potentially
more dangerous than the loss of reactor cooling
itself. Because of the closeness of the reactors,
Plant Director Masao Yoshida "was put in the
position of trying to cope simultaneously
with core meltdowns at three reactors and
exposed fuel pools at three units".
Nuclear safety systems
The three primary objectives of nuclear safety
systems as defined by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission are to shut down the reactor, maintain
it in a shutdown condition, and prevent the
release of radioactive material during events
and accidents. These objectives are accomplished
using a variety of equipment, which is part
of different systems, of which each performs
specific functions.
Routine emissions of radioactive materials
During everyday routine operations, emissions
of radioactive materials from nuclear plants
are released to the outside of the plants
although they are quite slight amounts. The
daily emissions go into the air, water and
soil.
NRC says, "nuclear power plants sometimes
release radioactive gases and liquids into
the environment under controlled, monitored
conditions to ensure that they pose no danger
to the public or the environment", and "routine
emissions during normal operation of a nuclear
power plant are never lethal".
According to the United Nations, regular nuclear
power plant operation including the nuclear
fuel cycle amounts to 0.0002 mSv annually
in average public radiation exposure; the
legacy of the Chernobyl disaster is 0.002
mSv/yr as a global average as of a 2008 report;
and natural radiation exposure averages 2.4
mSv annually although frequently varying depending
on an individual's location from 1 to 13 mSv.
The Japanese myth of absolute safety
In Japan, many government agencies and nuclear
companies have promoted a public myth of "absolute
safety" that nuclear power proponents had
nurtured over decades. The tsunami that began
the Fukushima nuclear disaster could have
been anticipated and in March 2012, Prime
Minister Yoshihiko Noda acknowledged that
the Japanese government shared the blame for
the Fukushima disaster, saying that officials
had been blinded to the country's "technological
infallibility", and were all too steeped in
a "safety myth".
In Japan, a national program to develop robots
for use in nuclear emergencies was terminated
in midstream because it "smacked too much
of underlying danger". Japan, supposedly a
major power in robotics, had none to send
in to Fukushima during the disaster. Similarly,
Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission stipulated
in its safety guidelines for light-water nuclear
facilities that “the potential for extended
loss of power need not be considered.” However,
it was exactly such an extended loss of power
to the cooling pumps that caused the meltdown
at the Fukushima nuclear facilities.
Controversy
The nuclear power debate is about the controversy
which has surrounded the deployment and use
of nuclear fission reactors to generate electricity
from nuclear fuel for civilian purposes. The
debate about nuclear power peaked during the
1970s and 1980s, when it "reached an intensity
unprecedented in the history of technology
controversies", in some countries.
Proponents argue that nuclear power is a sustainable
energy source which reduces carbon emissions
and can increase energy security if its use
supplants a dependence on imported fuels.
Proponents advance the notion that nuclear
power produces virtually no air pollution,
in contrast to the chief viable alternative
of fossil fuel. Proponents also believe that
nuclear power is the only viable course to
achieve energy independence for most Western
countries. They emphasize that the risks of
storing waste are small and can be further
reduced by using the latest technology in
newer reactors, and the operational safety
record in the Western world is excellent when
compared to the other major kinds of power
plants.
Opponents say that nuclear power poses many
threats to people and the environment. These
threats include health risks and environmental
damage from uranium mining, processing and
transport, the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation
or sabotage, and the unsolved problem of radioactive
nuclear waste. They also contend that reactors
themselves are enormously complex machines
where many things can and do go wrong, and
there have been many serious nuclear accidents.
Critics do not believe that these risks can
be reduced through new technology. They argue
that when all the energy-intensive stages
of the nuclear fuel chain are considered,
from uranium mining to nuclear decommissioning,
nuclear power is not a low-carbon electricity
source.
Reprocessing
Nuclear reprocessing technology was developed
to chemically separate and recover fissionable
plutonium from irradiated nuclear fuel. Reprocessing
serves multiple purposes, whose relative importance
has changed over time. Originally reprocessing
was used solely to extract plutonium for producing
nuclear weapons. With the commercialization
of nuclear power, the reprocessed plutonium
was recycled back into MOX nuclear fuel for
thermal reactors. The reprocessed uranium,
which constitutes the bulk of the spent fuel
material, can in principle also be re-used
as fuel, but that is only economic when uranium
prices are high or disposal is expensive.
Finally, the breeder reactor can employ not
only the recycled plutonium and uranium in
spent fuel, but all the actinides, closing
the nuclear fuel cycle and potentially multiplying
the energy extracted from natural uranium
by more than 60 times.
Nuclear reprocessing reduces the volume of
high-level waste, but by itself does not reduce
radioactivity or heat generation and therefore
does not eliminate the need for a geological
waste repository. Reprocessing has been politically
controversial because of the potential to
contribute to nuclear proliferation, the potential
vulnerability to nuclear terrorism, the political
challenges of repository siting, and because
of its high cost compared to the once-through
fuel cycle. In the United States, the Obama
administration stepped back from President
Bush's plans for commercial-scale reprocessing
and reverted to a program focused on reprocessing-related
scientific research.
Accident indemnification
The Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for
Nuclear Damage puts in place an international
framework for nuclear liability. However states
with a majority of the world's nuclear power
plants, including the U.S., Russia, China
and Japan, are not party to international
nuclear liability conventions.
In the U.S., insurance for nuclear or radiological
incidents is covered by the Price-Anderson
Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act.
Under the Energy policy of the United Kingdom
through its Nuclear Installations Act of 1965,
liability is governed for nuclear damage for
which a UK nuclear licensee is responsible.
The Act requires compensation to be paid for
damage up to a limit of £150 million by the
liable operator for ten years after the incident.
Between ten and thirty years afterwards, the
Government meets this obligation. The Government
is also liable for additional limited cross-border
liability under international conventions.
Decommissioning
Nuclear decommissioning is the dismantling
of a nuclear power plant and decontamination
of the site to a state no longer requiring
protection from radiation for the general
public. The main difference from the dismantling
of other power plants is the presence of radioactive
material that requires special precautions.
Warranty period of operation of nuclear power
plants is 30 years. One from factors wear
is the destruction of the reactors shell under
the action of ionizing radiation.
Generally speaking, nuclear plants were designed
for a life of about 30 years. Newer plants
are designed for a 40 to 60-year operating
life.
Decommissioning involves many administrative
and technical actions. It includes all clean-up
of radioactivity and progressive demolition
of the plant. Once a facility is decommissioned,
there should no longer be any danger of a
radioactive accident or to any persons visiting
it. After a facility has been completely decommissioned
it is released from regulatory control, and
the licensee of the plant no longer has responsibility
for its nuclear safety.
Historic accidents
The nuclear industry says that new technology
and oversight have made nuclear plants much
safer, but 57 small accidents have occurred
since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 until
2008. Two thirds of these mishaps occurred
in the US. The French Atomic Energy Agency
has concluded that technical innovation cannot
eliminate the risk of human errors in nuclear
plant operation.
According to Benjamin Sovacool, an interdisciplinary
team from MIT in 2003 estimated that given
the expected growth of nuclear power from
2005 – 2055, at least four serious nuclear
accidents would be expected in that period.
However the MIT study does not take into account
improvements in safety since 1970.
Flexibility of nuclear power plants
It is often claimed that nuclear stations
are inflexible in their output, implying that
other forms of energy would be required to
meet peak demand. While that is true for the
vast majority of reactors, this may no longer
be true of at least some modern designs.
Nuclear plants are routinely used in load
following mode on a large scale in France,
although "it is generally accepted that this
is not an ideal economic situation for nuclear
plants." Unit A at the German Biblis Nuclear
Power Plant is designed to in- and decrease
its output 15% per minute between 40 and 100%
of its nominal power. Boiling water reactors
normally have load-following capability, implemented
by varying the recirculation water flow.
Future power plants
A number of new designs for nuclear power
generation, collectively known as the Generation
IV reactors, are the subject of active research
and may be used for practical power generation
in the future. Many of these new designs specifically
attempt to make fission reactors cleaner,
safer and/or less of a risk to the proliferation
of nuclear weapons. Passively safe plants
are available to be built and other designs
that are believed to be nearly fool-proof
are being pursued. Fusion reactors, which
may be viable in the future, diminish or eliminate
many of the risks associated with nuclear
fission.
The 1600 MWe European Pressurized Reactor
reactor is being built in Olkiluoto, Finland.
A joint effort of French AREVA and German
Siemens AG, it will be the largest reactor
in the world. In December 2006 construction
was about 18 months behind schedule so completion
was expected 2010-2011.
As of March 2007, there are seven nuclear
power plants under construction in India,
and five in China.
In November 2011 Gulf Power stated that by
the end of 2012 it hopes to finish buying
off 4000 acres of land north of Pensacola,
Florida in order to build a possible nuclear
power plant.
Russia has begun building the world’s first
floating nuclear power plant. The £100 million
vessel, the Lomonosov, is the first of seven
plants that Moscow says will bring vital energy
resources to remote Russian regions.
By 2025, Southeast Asia nations would have
a total of 29 nuclear power plants, Indonesia
will have 4 nuclear power plants, Malaysia
4, Thailand 5 and Vietnam 16 from nothing
at all in 2011.
Expansion at two Nuclear Power Plants in the
United States, Plant Vogtle and V. C. Summer
Nuclear Power Plant, located in Georgia and
South Carolina, respectively, are scheduled
to be completed between 2016 and 2019. The
two new Plant Vogtle reactors, and the two
new reactors at Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Plant,
represent the first nuclear power construction
projects in the United States since the Three
Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979.
See also
References
External links
IPPNW - International Physicians for the Prevention
of Nuclear War
MAPW - Information on Australia's research
reactor
Freeview Video 'Nuclear Power Plants - What's
the Problem' A Royal Institution Lecture by
John Collier by the Vega Science Trust.
Non Destructive Testing for Nuclear Power
Plants
Web-based simple nuclear power plant game
Uranium.Info publishing uranium price since
1968.
Information about all NPP in the world
U.S. plants and operators
SCK.CEN Belgian Nuclear Research Centre in
Mol.
Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage - World
Nuclear Association
Glossary of Nuclear Terms
Protection against Sabotage of Nuclear Facilities:
Using Morphological Analysis in Revising the
Design Basis Threat From the Swedish Morphological
Society
Critical Hour: Three Mile Island, The Nuclear
Legacy, And National Security Online book
by Albert J. Fritsch, Arthur H. Purcell, and
Mary Byrd Davis. Updated edition June 2006
An Interactive VR Panorama of the cooling
towers at Temelin Nuclear Power Plant, Czech
Republic
Interactive map with all nuclear power plants
US and worldwide
Map with all nuclear power plants US and worldwide
