Nuclear Power Best Available
Source for Electricity
- By Steve Tritch

As we stand here today in the World's 10th largest economy and talk about per capita income objective of $20,000 per person it is hard to believe that there is a critical shortage of energy in a large portion of the world. As reported by the International Energy Agency World Energy Outlook, "Some 1.6 billion people - one quarter of the world's population - have no access to electricity. In the absence of vigorous new policies, 1.4 billion people will still lack electricity in 2030."
These figures are astounding but there is an associated message that is even more profound. "Lack of electricity and heavy reliance on traditional biomass are hallmarks of poverty во| lack of electricity exacerbates poverty and contributes to its perpetuation as it precludes most industrial activities and the jobs they create." If we believe that poverty is the source of a number of the world's problems, what this must signal to all of us is we must find a way to provide electricity to those who do not yet have it. To accomplish this task will require a dramatic increase in electrical generation growth if we are going to keep pace with demand (Figure 1).
Consider the expectations of millions of people throughout the world for the next twenty-five or so years, as foreseen by the International Energy Agency. Global net electricity consumption is expected to nearly double over the next two decades, according to the International Energy Outlook 2004 (IEO2004) reference case forecast. Total demand for electricity is projected to increase on average by 2.3 percent per year, from 13,290 billion kilowatt hours in 2001 to 23,072 billion kilowatt hours in 2025. Much of the growth in new electricity demand is expected to come from the countries of the developing world. At present, developing countries, with more than 75 percent of the world's population, account for only about one-third of the world's electricity consumption.
The electricity sectors of the countries in developing Asia are expected to be the fastest-growing in the world. In the region as a whole, net electricity consumption is projected to increase at an average rate of 3.7 percent per year from 2001 to 2025 in the IEO2004 reference case (Figure 2).
In China alone, the projected average growth rate for electricity demand is 4.3 percent per year. Over the next two decades, electricity demand more than doubles in the IEO2004 reference case, growing from 2,650 billion kilowatt-hours in 2001 to 6,274 billion kilowatt-hours in 2025. Much of the increase in demand is projected for the residential sector, where robust growth in personal income is expected to increase demand for newly purchased home appliances for air conditioning, refrigeration, cooking, and space and water heating.
China's electric power fuel mix remains heavily reliant on coal; however, there are projects underway to increase hydropower, nuclear, and natural gas capacity and their shares of electricity generation are expected to increase over the forecast period. Coal still is expected to remain the dominant fuel for electric power supply, with a projected 72-percent share of total energy use for electric power generation in 2025, compared with 76 percent in 2001.
India has the region's second largest installed electricity capacity. India is expected to experience fast-paced growth in demand over the forecast, with strong economic growth of 5.2 percent per year projected between 2001 and 2025. Net electricity consumption is projected to grow by 3.3 percent per year, to 1,216 billion kilowatt-hours in 2025, more than double its 2001 level of 554 billion kilowatt-hours.
India's electric power sector is also dominated by coal, which accounts for 78 percent of its total generation. Hydroelectricity provides another 13 percent, and nuclear, oil, and natural gas provide the remainder. The government has plans to increase the use of hydroelectric, nuclear, and natural gas in the electric power sector over the mid-term.
The growth under discussion amounts to the addition of roughly 3,500 new plants sized at 1000 MWe or 175 plants per year in Asia alone. This is truly a staggering number that will require construction of multiple types of electricity generators. One question that needs to be addressed is what energy type should be the focus of this growth. I suggest that nuclear energy is the clear answer to this question.
Why nuclear energy? The answer is simple. Nuclear has clear benefits in economics, environmental protection, plant performance and safety. The largest percentage of overall cost of gas and oil electrical generation is for fuel. Unfortunately in today's market these fuels are subject to volatility in both their price and availability. Coal generation costs will increase due to higher transportation costs and the increase in environmental abatement cost. Natural gas is also likely to continue to increase due to high demand and pipeline limitations. Hydropower is an opportunistic source of power due to seasonal and regional availability.
For a nuclear power plant, the fuel price is only a small percentage, about 15 percent, of the plant operating cost and there is a stable and abundant supply of uranium fuel for quite some time. Over the past several years, nuclear utilities have focused their activities on improving plant performance and the reduction of operation and maintenance costs. As knowledge is shared and the number of plants and plant owners are consolidated, there will continue to be additional opportunities to reduce the operating cost of Nuclear Power Plants.
Nuclear energy has perhaps the lowest impact on the environment including air, land, water, and wildlife of any energy source, because it does not emit harmful gases, isolates its waste from the environment, and requires less area to produce the same amount of electricity as other sources. Nuclear power plants do not produce emissions when they generate electricity. The life-cycle emissions from nuclear energy from mining to plant construction to operation to fuel disposal are no greater than other non-emitting sources (i.e. hydropower, solar, wind) of electricity available today. These facts have been confirmed in a number of studies, some of which are available from NEI.
In an article on May 24, 2004 in The Independent (UK), James Lovelock, a leading environmentalist and creator of the Gaia theory states:
"By all means, let us use the small input from renewables sensibly, but only one immediately available source does not cause global warming, and that is nuclear energy... . Nuclear energy from its start in 1952 has proved to be the safest of all energy sources... We have no time to experiment with visionary energy sources; civilization is in imminent danger and has to use nuclear the one safe, available, energy source now or suffer the pain soon to be inflicted by our outraged planet."
Nuclear power is the best available source to allow us to provide electricity to the world today, while saving the planet for our children.
Capacity factor is typically used to measure power plant performance. It is essentially the percentage of electricity that a plant produced compared to the electricity that the plant could have produced operating constantly at peak output. Nuclear plants typically have the highest capacity factor of any generating source with capacity factors in the U.S. and Korea of about 90 percent. Fossil fueled plants have lower capacity factors; coal typically has around a 70 percent capacity factor and natural gas plants of different types vary from 14 percent to 50 percent. Many renewables have low capacity factors. Wind and solar generation typically average around 25 percent capacity factors. This means that nuclear plants are on line, supplying power when needed.
The nuclear industry has worked hard to improve the efficiency and reliability of plant operation as a means to improve capacity factor. Unplanned capability loss factor is defined as the ratio of the unplanned energy losses during a given period of time, to the reference energy generation, expressed as a percentage. The industry has been successful, reducing unplanned capacity loss to less than 2% worldwide.
The world's fleet of nuclear power plants are performing better now than at any point in their history. They are also performing at consistently higher levels than any other form of electrical generation. This performance must continue and provides one element of the compelling case for nuclear power.
Already one ostry goal set for 2005. Statistics from other industries show that it if the safest industrial work environments, nuclear plants improved their industrial accident rate for the fourth straight year. This is lower than the indus safer to work at a nuclear power plant than in the manufacturing sector and even the real estate and finance industries. The industry has also focused investment on plant safety. The next generation of nuclear plants, Generation III, is available now. These plants have been designed to meet industry targets, increasing plant safety calculations by more than a factor of 100.
Westinghouse has an ongoing 15 year investment in passive technology(Figure 3). We have concluded that simplification is the key to improving safety while at the same time improving plant economics. In the AP1000 plant design, the use of passive safety systems simplifies the design resulting in dramatic reductions in the number of components and bulk commodities. There is a corresponding improvement in plant safety, construction and operation as the number of active components that are needed to be operational for safe shutdown is reduced and modular construction techniques favored in other industries can be employed. The AP1000 design has received final design approval from the U.S. NRC signifying the completion of the NRC technical review and acceptance. And, Westinghouse's commitment to the future doesn't stop here as we continue to develop Generation IV technology.
Today, Korea has 26 units either in operation or under construction. Of the 26 plants, 20 are operating, 4 are under construction and 2 in North Korea are in suspension. KHNP has focused on standardization to achieve remarkable performance in a relatively sort period of time. The first two plants were turn-key projects. The next six plants were procured on a component basis from worldwide suppliers as prime contractors with limited technology transfer. Subsequent plants were designed and constructed with Korean companies as prime contractors, including the transfer of technology.
The Korean nuclear industry is now self reliant with enviable plant performance records. The standard design was adopted based on Westinghouse System 80 technology and formed the basis for the Korean Standard Nuclear Plant now called the Optimized Power Reactor rated at 1000Mwe. KHNP has focused on maintaining the standard plus upgrades based on controlled incremental changes. This approach has resulted in capacity and availability factors of 91.4% with Younggwang Unit 3 having the highest capacity factor in the world last year. KHNP has now developed the Advanced Power Reactor (APR 1400), a larger Generation III design with deployment planned for later this year.
Nuclear power now supplies 40% of the electricity demand in Korea and has fueled sustainable economic growth and personal prosperity. Today Korea has the worlds 10th largest economy and is the worlds 8th largest exporter. Last year Korea celebrated $250billion in exports and the Korean government today is targeting $20,000 in per capita income. This is a demonstration of the successful application of nuclear power to electricity supply and the accompanying economic development.
At Westinghouse we are working to continue the trend and to make nuclear the electricity supply of choice. We are changing our culture to one that is focused on the customer and doing everything we can to ensure that each customer is successful. Westinghouse technology provides the basis for the majority of the worlds PWR nuclear plants. We are investing in the future of that technology and intend to continue our technical leadership. We want to provide the most advanced technical solutions available so that issues that have yet to be encountered can be overcome without impacting plant operation.
We know from our customers that today's industry demands value from products and services and we are focused on operational excellence to ensure that those demands are achieved. We want to support continued customer excellence in Environment Health and Safety and plant operation. We know that our flawless performance, especially on plant sites, can directly influence our customers' performance in these areas.
Westinghouse is also focused on our behavior. We cannot merely provide good and efficient support. How we provide customer support is important as well. We are committed to making our Customers 1st, electrifying the world with nuclear power.


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