Debu Majumdar*

Nuclear Power Technology Development Section,

Division of Nuclear Power, Department of Nuclear Energy,

IAEA, Vienna, Austria

Lectures given at the
Workshop on Nuclear Reaction Data and
Nuclear Reactors: Physics, Design and Safety
Trieste, 25 February — 28 March 2002

LNS0520005

D. Majumdar@iaea. org

Abstract

As the standard of living increases globally, the need for fresh water and industrial products is also increasing; they require energy for production and hence, the demand for energy — both electric and non-electric, is also increasing. Nuclear energy provides now only about 7% of global energy use; fossil fuels which degrade the environment provide the rest. Nuclear energy has the potential to provide an abundance of greenhouse-gas-free energy for mankind. Currently, nuclear energy is mainly used for electricity production. This paper discusses non-electric applications of nuclear energy, summarizing the global status and enumerating the areas where it could be used.

1. INTRODUCTION

Some of the first civilian reactors in the world were used to supply heat, e. g., Calder Hall in UK (1956) and Agesta in Sweden (1963). Calder Hall provided electricity to the grid and heat to a fuel reprocessing plant, and Agesta provided hot water for district heating of a suburb of Stockholm. The first nuclear power station in Russia (1954) was also a multi-purpose facility providing electricity and heat to the closed city of Obninsk in Kaluja region, near Moscow. Currently less than 1% of the heat generated in nuclear reactors is used for non-electric applications1. Direct use of heat energy is more desirable from an energy efficiency point of view and nuclear energy is an enormous source of greenhouse-gas-free energy. However, nuclear power has remained primarily a source for electricity generation. Presently about 30% of the world’s primary energy is used for electricity production, and approximately 2/3 of this energy is thrown away as waste heat. Yet despite past and current use models, it is possible to optimise the use of nuclear heat for both electric and non­electric applications, thereby making more efficient use of nuclear energy. Experience in co-generation of nuclear electricity and heat has been gained in Bulgaria, Canada, China, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine2. This paper examines the scope of non-electric applications of nuclear energy3 .

There are four areas where nuclear heat can be utilized: for desalination of salty and waste water, district heating of residence and commercial buildings in cold countries, industrial process heat supply, and fuel synthesis. Primary experience of non-electric applications of nuclear energy is in the first two categories. There are more than 150 reactor-years of operating experience with nuclear desalination, particularly in Japan and Kazakhstan. District heating systems from nuclear power plants have operated reliably in many countries, particularly in Eastern Europe. Fuel synthesis has evolved in recent years because nuclear energy can generate high temperature heat; this heat can be used for hydrogen production, coal gasification and production of other fuels. The heating requirements of different industrial processes vary. The temperature requirements for the principal applications are shown in Table I. They vary from low temperature applications for hot water to high temperature industrial processes.

TABLE I. TEMPERATURE NEEDS OF VARIOUS TYPES
OF INDUSTRIAL PROCESSES

Various types of reactors are designed with different ranges of inlet and outlet coolant temperatures, and hence will be useful for different applications. Table II shows the range of coolant temperatures for different reactor types. A nuclear plant can provide steam or process heat from about 100 C for district heating or desalination to about 1000 C for very high temperature industrial applications. Table III shows the characteristic parameters of steam that could be produced by various reactor types4. Water reactors can provide steam in the range of 250 to 300 C at about 5 to 7 Mpa pressure, while liquid metal and gas cooled reactors can generate steam at higher temperature and pressure. LMFBRs can provide steam at approximately 500 C and gas cooled reactors at somewhat higher temperatures.