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[38] The discount rate chosen to cost a nuclear power plant's capital over its lifetime is arguably the most sensitive parameter to overall costs. [39] Because of the long life of new nuclear power plants, most of the value of a new nuclear power plant is created for the benefit of future generations.
One type uses solid nuclear graphite for the neutron moderator and ordinary water for the coolant. See the Soviet-made RBMK nuclear-power reactor. This was the type of reactor involved in the Chernobyl disaster. In the Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor, a British design, the core is made of a graphite neutron moderator where the fuel assemblies are ...
Nuclear power is cost competitive with other forms of electricity generation, except where there is direct access to low-cost fossil fuels. Fuel costs for nuclear plants are a minor proportion of total generating costs, though capital costs are greater than those for coal-fired plants and much greater than those for gas-fired plants.
Nuclear fuel process A graph comparing nucleon number against binding energy Close-up of a replica of the core of the research reactor at the Institut Laue-Langevin. Nuclear fuel refers to any substance, typically fissile material, which is used by nuclear power stations or other nuclear devices to generate energy.
Nuclear fuel cycle begins when uranium is mined, enriched and manufactured to nuclear fuel (1) which is delivered to a nuclear power plant. After usage in the power plant the spent fuel is delivered to a reprocessing plant (if fuel is recycled) (2) or to a final repository (if no recycling is done) (3) for geological disposition.
A typical RPV. Russian Soviet era RBMK reactors have each fuel assembly enclosed in an individual 8 cm diameter pipe rather than having a pressure vessel. Whilst most power reactors do have a pressure vessel, they are generally classified by the type of coolant rather than by the configuration of the vessel used to contain the coolant.
The total mass of uranium in the fuel assembly is 114.7 kg. The fuel burnup is 20 MW·d/kg. The total length of the fuel assembly is 10.025 m, with 6.862 m of the active region. In addition to the regular fuel assemblies, there are instrumented ones, containing neutron flux detectors in the central carrier.
The energy is used to heat the liquid hydrogen propellant. The vehicle depicted is the "Copernicus" an upper stage assembly being designed for the Space Launch System (2010). Bimodal nuclear thermal rockets conduct nuclear fission reactions similar to those employed at nuclear power plants including submarines.