The Atomic Show #140 – Margolis – Oil 150, Light Water Converters, On-Demand Power
Robert Margolis and Rod Adams engage in a panel of two (August is a slow month for news and a tough month to find guests) discussion about the 150 year anniversary of the first oil well in America, nuclear energy development plans in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, the responsibilities of a start up engineer, and improving the fuel utilization rate in light water reactors.
We also had a bit of a discussion about my assertion that nuclear energy is on demand power that can be designed to supply people the power they need wherever they need it. There are several examples of how this has already been proven, we mention how reactors have been operated under the polar ice cap, on the Antarctica continent, under the ice sheet in Greenland, and even in earth orbit.
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Regarding long life cores, and as most plant engineers will tell you, there is much more to do during a refueling outage than just replace the fuel. Steam plants need periodic maintenance and much of the non-nuclear section of the plant is composed of commercial grade piping, valves, pumps, etc. I’m all in favor of longer life cores, but they also need to make some long life, minimal maintenance steam plants, too.
Many of the plants in western Europe have multiple trains such that there is always a train under preventative maintenance while online. Of course, this brings in the issue of capital cost (more trains = more $) vs cost savings from longer runs. Multiple trains are not the only way to allow for online maintenance, but illustrative of the idea.