role of fuel in power plant economics

8/8/2019 Role of Fuel in Power Plant Economics

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ROLE OF FUEL IN POWER PLANT

ECONOMICS

Prepared by

J G KuchhadiyaRoll No.- 131 M E (Th. Sci.)


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FUEL BASED COMPARISON OF COAL AND

NUCLEAR POWER PLANT.

FACRORS TO BE CONSIDERED FOR POWER

PLANT ECONOMICS.

Capital cost.

Operation and maintenance cost. Fuel cost.

Effects on environment.

Waste disposal problems.

Water requirements.

Availability of fuel in future.

Life of plant.


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CAPITAL COST.

Capital cost of nuclear plants is higher than

other fossil fuel power plants due to safety-

related equipments and higher standards of

structures. Coal plants are required to include scrubbers to

remove airborne pollutants as sulfur dioxide,

nitrous oxides, and particulates but cost of these

equipments are less costly.


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OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE COST.

operations and maintenance (O&M) costs of

nuclear plants over time, compared with

competing technologies show relative stability in

the overall generating cost of nuclear powerplants. This has resulted essentially from two

different factors: Nuclear fuel costs have fallen

due to lower uranium and enrichment prices

together with new fuel designs allowing higher

burnups.


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FUEL COST.

NUCLEAR FUEL COST DEPENDS ON

mining of the uranium ore,

conversion to U3O8 (uranium oxide - yellowcake

form), conversion to uranium hexafluoride,

enrichment from 0.7% U235 to 2-5% U235,

conversion to uranium dioxide (UO2) pellets,

loading of the fellets into rods, then into fuelassemblies.


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FUEL COST. (CONT.)

Transportation costs are high for coal because of

the amount of material needed to generate the

same energy as the nuclear fuel.

High quantitative waste.


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COMPARATIVE COST TABLE(U.S.)

Item Cost Element Nuclear Coal

$/Mw-hr$/Mw-hr

1 Fuel 5.0 11.0

2 Operating & Maintenance -Labor & Materials

6.0 5.0

3 Pensions, Insurance, Taxes 1.0 1.0

4 Regulatory Fees 1.0 0.1

5 Property Taxes 2.0 2.0

6 Capital 9.0 9.0

7Decommissioning & DOE

waste costs5.0 0.0

8 Administrative / overheads 1.0 1.0

Total 30.0 29.1


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EFFECTS ON ENVIRONMENT.

COAL

Coal based power plants discharge millions ton ofCO2.

High sulphur content coal based plants are

responsible for acid rain. Where ash was disposed H2SO4 mix with ground

water .

Above all factors directly affects the human life.

NUCLEAR

Under ground fully insulated for radiation wastestorage.

Well maintained waste storage not affects humanlife.


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WASTE DISPOSAL PROBLEMS.

COAL

Waste disposal from coal power plant

qauntitavely very high so transportation cost is

high.Ash handling, ash removing and dust collection

system like ESP are costly.

NUCLEAR

Waste disposal from nuclear power plantqauntitavely very small so transportation cost is

low.

High cost of waste storage plant.


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WATER REQUIREMENTS.

The amount of cooling required by any steam-

cycle power plant (of a given size) is determined

by its thermal efficiency. It has nothing

essentially to do with whether it is fuelled by

coal, gas or uranium.

However, currently operating nuclear plants

often do have slightly lower thermal efficiency

than coal counterparts of similar age.


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AVAILABILITY OF FUEL IN FUTURE.

Nuclear fuel is one type of non conventional fuel

and when end will comes of all conventional fuels

world will diverted into non conventional energy

sources


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LIFE OF PLANT.

NUCLEAR

Estimated life of nuclear power plant is 50 to 60

years.

At the End of life decommisioning is a bigproblem for dismantling and waste disposal.

COAL

Estimated life of coal power plant is max.50 years

for clean coal and mini. 20 years.(Vary between20 to 50 according to coal quality)

Total decommissioning is not necessary. Any

component of plant will be replaced after lost of

its functioning..


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CONCLUSION

Generating cost slightly higher than fossil fuels,

but if we will continuously increasing emission

than we all know about the day after tomorrow,

so we conclude that nuclear power generation is

most economical.


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THANK YOU

role of fuel in power plant economics

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