Over the next 10 years, several PWR-based small modular reactor (SMR) designs are expected to come online within an eight-year timeframe. Early developments in nuclear power in the 1950s resulted in a variety of designs, out of which the pressurised water reactor (PWR) became dominant for its compactness and overall economy. We explore how the nuclear industry is innovating in facing these challenges through a review of nuclear power developments in the past, present and future. In the West, financing for new builds has been difficult in the face of a deregulated energy market, billion-dollar upfront investments, long build times and in the case of the US historically low gas prices. However, a review of nuclear power plant (NPP) builds show mixed results, with delays in Finland and in the US offset by successes in China, South Korea and the UAE. Abstract Nuclear power can solve the energy trilemma of supplying baseload, clean and affordable power. The values suggested could be used to modify the function parameters for the scenarios considered, and improve the accuracy of heat demand estimations. On the other hand, function intercept increased for 7.8-12.7% per decade (depending on the coupled scenarios). The value of slope coefficient increased on average within the range of 3.8% up to 8% per decade, that corresponds to the decrease in the number of heating hours of 22-139h during the heating season (depending on the combination of weather and renovation scenarios considered). However, after introducing renovation scenarios, the error value increased up to 59.5% (depending on the weather and renovation scenarios combination considered). The results showed that when only weather change is considered, the margin of error could be acceptable for some applications (the error in annual demand was lower than 20% for all weather scenarios considered). To estimate the error, obtained heat demand values were compared with results from a dynamic heat demand model, previously developed and validated by the authors. Three weather scenarios (low, medium, high) and three district renovation scenarios were developed (shallow, intermediate, deep). The district is consisted of 665 buildings that vary in both construction period and typology. The district of Alvalade, located in Lisbon (Portugal), was used as a case study. The main scope of this paper is to assess the feasibility of using the heat demand-outdoor temperature function for heat demand forecast. Due to the changed climate conditions and building renovation policies, heat demand in the future could decrease, prolonging the investment return period. These systems require high investments which are returned through the heat sales. Nuclear power is an ‘ever ready’ source of safe, clean, reliable energy which can be made available as and when required and is a superior sustainable option to ‘renewables’.ĭistrict heating networks are commonly addressed in the literature as one of the most effective solutions for decreasing the greenhouse gas emissions from the building sector. They could also be used to provide water desalination or hydrogen production as a replacement to hydrocarbons for transport. Submarine reactor technology can be adapted to provide underwater nuclear power stations which can be anchored in coastal areas and connected to the local grid or alternatively to provide stand alone power for coastal communities or industrial or mining projects. Such technology makes all marine renewable energy projects redundant. The latest submarine reactors manufactured in Britain only require initial fuel loading and will not require any refuelling for the lifetime of the submarine. In contrast to marine ‘renewable’ experiments, nuclear submarines have been safely patrolling the world’s oceans for 50 years using a proven technology which requires little modification for civil use.
An example of this is the EMEC marine project in the North of Scotland which will take approximately seven years, if everything goes according to plan, to connect 50MW of power to Britain’s national electricity grid. The obsession with ‘renewable’ energy is leading to unaffordable experiments which are damaging our natural environment and ecology.
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