Tarea

MS&E 193 – Oct 5

* India has ambitious plans – plant set to go online next year
* Develop nuclear capacity indigenously
* China will buy whoever sells it
* China is a latecomerto nuclear power but their plans are enormous in helping economic rise of Chinese economy
* India has projected increase in power for past 50 yrs but have fallen short
* China keeps gettingahead of predictions
* As public has become more aware of the potential and complicated effects of global climate change, nuclear has additional adv of being carbon-free
* 1979 disaster inUS. No radioactivity escaped containment vessel in 3-mile island
* 1986 in Chernobyl. Different reactor design that didn’t have containment vessel. Several mistakes in design, safety procedures,etc and eventually blew top thus letting out radioactivity
* institutions were set up for the world to learn from each other for designing/operating nuclear power plants
* Greatest advances innuclear business –
* No new ones were built/designed in the US since 3-mile island incident
* Learned how to do it safer and more economical
* Capacity factor was in low 60% back then.Now it’s 90-92%
* Challenge for nuclear plants in US is building a new one
* Too expensive
* Security is a concern
* Issue of somebody stealing nuclear material
* Nonproliferation– if you make nuclear power, have to make sure it can’t be used for weapons at the same time
* Waste disposal – waste from nuclear power is very toxic
* Good news: very little of it
* Somechallenges with disposal are technical. Greatest challenges are societal.
* US has created nuclear depository underground
* Current administration has given up – congressional delegationof NV has been against it because they didn’t want it in their own state
* Finland/Sweden has come close to finding a solution
* Seismic analysis is big challenge for nuclear systems...