the New word in the electric power industry is small modular nuclear reactors – is already on the threshold. In the next decade in the UK will be built 10-15 of these power plants, the company said Rolls-Royce. The modules, which will be collected from similar setup, it will be possible to get on a normal truck.
Recall that with proper maintenance nuclear power pollutes the environment with radioactive substances is even less than heat. In addition, the plant emits harmful products of combustion, including carbon dioxide causing global warming. Finally, in the fission of one kilogram of uranium-235 is allocated to 2.5 million times more energy than the combustion of one kilogram of carbon. This means that a nuclear plant doesn’t require regular supply of fresh fuel.
Mankind has long appreciated the benefits. The New edition of the Atlas with reference to the world nuclear Association reports that today there are 448 civilian nuclear reactors, another 53 are under construction.
In this classic nuclear power station is a huge building with several reactors, total power of which is estimated gigawatts. The footprint of a nuclear power plant is generally greater than 400 thousand square meters.
Such giants are built long and expensive. With hundreds of kilometers of power lines they deliver energy to entire regions.
In recent years, actively discussed an alternative approach to nuclear energy: construction of small modular reactors (small modular reactor). It is assumed that a small reactor will be assembled from several modules, manufactured at the plant.
Thus, the construction of the reactor will occur under carefully controlled conditions of the factory production. On the site it will remain to seal between these blocks, like the designer items. The developers believe that this approach will make nuclear power even safer.
Also, buildgovernment small reactor will not take much time. Finally, the network of small nuclear power plants will be more flexible to respond to changes in power needs than a small number of giant plants.
“rolls-Royce” will likely be the first company to translate these ideas into reality. The British government has promised to allocate 18 million pounds (nearly 1.5 billion rubles at the current exchange rate). About the same amount in the project will put the company.
it is Assumed that each station will have one reactor. The plant will produce 440 megawatts of electricity (enough to supply a city with a population of 750 thousand people). They will occupy an area of about 40 thousand square meters (ten times less than a large nuclear power stations), of which about six thousand square meters will have on the reactor itself. The lifetime of such a system should be 60 years.
the company’s Managers hope to begin the supply of electricity in 2029 and sell it for 60 pounds (about 5 thousand rubles at the current exchange rate) per megawatt-hour.
“rolls-Royce” plans to build in the UK 10 to 15 such stations. If successful, the company will export reactors. According to experts of concern, the capacity of this market is 250 billion pounds (more than 20 trillion rubles at the current exchange rate).
the company stressed that it is not experimenting with new types of fuel, cooling and so on. The developed reactor is a scaled and minimally modified version of the well-established classical systems. Thus a possible risk when introducing new items is minimized.
By the way, earlier “News.Science” (nauka.vesti.ru) wrote about a nuclear reactor for colonization of Mars and the moon. We also talked about the Chinese innovative reactor.
Text: To.Science
