Ken Provost wrote: > > A technical question about nuclear (I'm sure this group has SEVERAL > people who know the answer -- pardon my ignorance :-)): > > Does a nuclear power plant need constant replacement of spent fuel rods, > or do you just "load it up" once, and then it keeps going for 20-30 > years with no additional "inputs"? > > The answer makes a big difference when conditions may be very different in > 20-30 years.... > > -K >
Hi Ken, all, I believe that the correct answer is "It depends". For example I hear, that the reactors for the ships (submarines, icebreakers) are loaded once and then used until spent... What happens then , I do not know (rebuild/retrofit perhaps?) But for the ground power plants (of course this depends on the power plant type - I am speaking about RBMK's here, I do not know the details for French or USA or Japanese type of nukes, also pebble beds...), it is usually arranged so, that each cassete is replaced as it is spent, not all cassettes at once. Each month or so, some spent cassettes are removed, replaced with new ones. The limiting factor for replacement are the channels, into which these casssetes are inserted. After some time (30-50 years? just guessing here) the neutrons from nuclear fission erode them, and they have to be replaced. This means - rebuilding the whole reactor. We have a big nuke here in Lithuania, which can supply energy to all our country (3.5 mil. people). I certainly know, that they buy nuclear fuel cassettes from Russia on a regular basis. They have a barter here - some amount of eletricity goes to Russia in exchange for nuclear fuel; This way they are not dependent on currency rate swings and can operate predictably... Some info about it here: http://www.iae.lt -- Tomas Juknevicius _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
