This article discusses how much water is needed to cool a nuclear reactor, and what amount of power it takes to run the pumps for this cooling. In addition, how much power does it take to run the water pumps for the spent fuel pools that also need to be kept cool?
unincredulous November 27, 2014 ...."Can someone tell me how much power, in watts, would be required to pump a million gallons of water per minute to the average height of a reactor cooling unit? That's a lot of water. Are nuclear powered military ships just driving around the ocean sucking up a million gallons of water every minute? At that rate, how long would it take to run the worlds oceans through a BWR? The oceans are big, but not infinite? How many lies per minute (LPM) does a nuclear power plant require? The atmosphere is big, but not infinite.
Via AirSepTech November 27, 2014 "1 hp(.75k/w)= 3960 gal/min per foot of lift(head)…….or250 hp/200kw approx. @ 1 foot head for 1,000,000gal/min. This would be a big pump or more likely multiple pumps. How high, pipe size, distance, all matters. Sounds like a lot, but nothing close to what is going on when the plant is actually running. The reactors on a ship are tiny in comparison to these. To power a war machine that should not be needed. Mankind has a long way to go."http://www.cdph.ca.gov/certlic/occupations/Documents/Opcert/ConversionSheetWDandWTPage1.pdf
This article discusses how much water is needed to cool a nuclear reactor, and what amount of power it takes to run the pumps for this cooling. In addition, how much power does it take to run the water pumps for the spent fuel pools that also need to be kept cool?
unincredulous November 27, 2014 ...."Can someone tell me how much power, in watts, would be required to pump a million gallons of water per minute to the average height of a reactor cooling unit? That's a lot of water. Are nuclear powered military ships just driving around the ocean sucking up a million gallons of water every minute? At that rate, how long would it take to run the worlds oceans through a BWR? The oceans are big, but not infinite? How many lies per minute (LPM) does a nuclear power plant require? The atmosphere is big, but not infinite.
250 hp/200kw approx. @ 1 foot head for 1,000,000gal/min. This would be a big pump or more likely multiple pumps. How high, pipe size, distance, all matters. Sounds like a lot, but nothing close to what is going on when the plant is actually running. The reactors on a ship are tiny in comparison to these. To power a war machine that should not be needed. Mankind has a long way to go."
OPEN LOOP ONCE THROUGH NUCLEAR REACTOR COOLING SYSTEMS
The water usage by a once-through cooling system depends on the size of the nuclear power reactor it services. As detailed in Attachment 1, the minimum amount of water needed in a once-through cooling system can be estimated from the following equation using the electrical output of the reactor in megawatts (Mwe) and the differential temperature of the cooling water passing through the condenser (∆T, ºF): Flow, gpm = 14,295 * Mwe ∆T
For example, the typical 1,000 Mwe nuclear power reactor with a 30ºF ∆T needs approximately 476,500 gallons per minute. If the temperature rise is limited to 20ºF, the cooling water need rises to 714,750 gallons per minute. Some of the new nuclear reactors being considered are rated at 1,600 Mwe. Such a reactor, if built and operated, would need nearly 1,144,000 gallons per minute of once-through cooling for a 20 degree temperature rise. Actual circulating water system flow rates in once-through cooling systems are 504,000 gpm at Millstone Unit 2 (CT); 918,000 gpm at Millstone Unit 3 (CT); 460,000 gpm at Oyster Creek (NJ); 311,000 at Pilgrim (MA); and 1,100,000 gpm at each of the twp Salem reactors (NJ).
CLOSED LOOP NUCLEAR REACTOR COOLING SYSTEMS
When both reactors at the Susquehanna nuclear plant in Pennsylvania operate in summer, nearly 30 million gallons of makeup water per day (or nearly 21,000 gallons per minute) are needed from the river to compensate for cooling tower drift. Water must also be discharged from closed-cycle cooling systems in order to control the chemistry of the recycled water and to limit the build-up of sediment and other debris in the cooling tower basins. The Susquehanna nuclear plant uses another 11 million gallons per day (about 7,600 gallons per minute) from the river that balances the discharge flow rate back to the river for cooling tower basis chemistry control.
NUCLEAR REACTOR EMERGENCY WATER COOLING SYSTEM
When a lake, river, or oceans serves as the UHS, the water needed by the ESW system during an accident is in the 10,000 to 30,000 gallons per minute range.
EXPERIMENTAL FUSION REACTORS POWER USE
ET consumes large amounts of power – for fusion to occur we need to create and maintain plasma at extremely high temperatures. Additionally we need to contain the plasma by energising large magnetic coils. In total, when JET runs, it consumes 700 – 800 MW of electrical power (the equivalent of 1-2% of the UK’s total electricity usage!)..... JET does not have the set up to harvest any energy produced, as it is not a power reactor, but an experiment.
Mining – Uranium mining consumes one to six gallons of water per million Btus of thermal energy output, depending on the mining method.[6] Mining uranium also produces waste that can contaminate local water sources, and which can be especially dangerous given the radioactivity of some of the materials involved.
Processing – Uranium processing consumes seven to eight gallons of water for every million Btus of thermal output.[7],[8]
Milling – The milling process uses a mix of liquid chemicals to increase the fuel's uranium content ; milling leaves behind uranium-depleted ore that must be placed in settling ponds to evaporate the milling liquids.[9]
Enrichment – The next step, enriching the gaseous uranium to make it more effective as a fuel accounts for about half of the water consumed in uranium processing. The conventional enrichment method in the United States is gas diffusion, which uses significantly more water than the gas centrifuge approach popular in Europe[10],[11]
Fuel Fabrication – Fabrication involves bundling the enriched uranium into fuel rods in preparation for the nuclear reactor.
SPENT FUEL POOL COOLING
San Onofre nuclear power plant closed in 2014, due to defective steam tubes and accelerating costs plus losses. "The ocean-water cooling system is still operating, but no longer to cool the plant’s steam generators. Now it is used only to cool the two pools that house the plant’s spent nuclear fuel rods, which will stay in the pools for several years before being moved to dry cask storage. The system once pulled in more than 1 billion gallons of ocean water per day. Now it’s down to about 25 million gallons."
The above article is probably totally wrong in terms of how much water San Onofre uses to cool the spent fuel pool, but what if this is accurate? Each spent fuel pool not only has multiple water pumps, it also has a filtration system that takes water pumping and power for that as well. What is that cost of supplying power to a plant and pumping water each year inside of a nuclear power plant's spent fuel pools that is no longer operating, and during it's decommissioning period, which can take 100 years?
ISFS is equipped with its own cooling and purification station. Since of the increased requirements on the heat sink for the removal of residual heat generated by spent fuel (greater depletion, more spent fuel assemblies), the original cooling system was replaced by a new one.
http://www.ujd.gov.sk/ujd/web.nsf/nr_april_03.pdfORPHAN NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS AND SPENT FUEL POOLS
As of November 2010, there were 63 “independent spent fuel storage installations” (or ISFSIs) licensed to operate at 57 sites in 33 states. These locations are shown on a map on the NRC website at:http://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent-fuel-storage/locations.pdf. Over 1400 casks are stored in these independent facilities.
How much fuel is stored at decommissioned reactors? Is it in pools or casks?
There are currently 10 decommissioned nuclear power reactors at 9 sites with no other nuclear operations. According to a 2008 Department of Energy report to Congress, approximately 2800 metric tons of spent fuel is stored at these nine sites. As of the writing of that report, seven of the sites had independent spent fuel storage installations, or ISFSIs. Two additional sites had approximately 1000 metric tons of spent fuel remaining in pool storage.
http://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent-fuel-storage/faqs.html
Bottom line, this NRC provided fact means that 10 nuclear plants are requiring huge amounts of power, just to store nuclear waste in 'orphaned' spent fuel pools. No power is being produced by a nuclear plant at these locations. Power customers are being charged to store garbage. How long will this go on? How much is it costing? No one knows, yet. But as the power bills keep rising, maybe someone will be interested enough to find out and AGRP will publish this information.
Bottom line, this NRC provided fact means that 10 nuclear plants are requiring huge amounts of power, just to store nuclear waste in 'orphaned' spent fuel pools. No power is being produced by a nuclear plant at these locations. Power customers are being charged to store garbage. How long will this go on? How much is it costing? No one knows, yet. But as the power bills keep rising, maybe someone will be interested enough to find out and AGRP will publish this information.
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How Much Water Is Needed To Cool Nuclear Reactors And Spent Fuel Pools? How Much Power Is Used To Pump That Water?
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