atw - International Journal for Nuclear Power | 05.2020

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atw Vol. 65 (2020) | Issue 5 ı May 292 Inside Herzlichen Glückwunsch! KTG INSIDE Wenn Sie künftig eine Erwähnung Ihres Geburtstages in der atw wünschen, teilen Sie dies bitte der KTG- Geschäftsstelle mit. Die KTG gratuliert ihren Mitgliedern sehr herzlich zum Geburtstag und wünscht ihnen weiterhin alles Gute! Juni 2020 55 Jahre | 1965 04. Dipl.-Phys. Jan-Christian Lewitz, Dresden 60 Jahre | 1960 14. Dipl.-Ing. Hermann Altendorfer, Essenbach 81 Jahre | 1939 06. Dr. Peter Drehmann, Kornwestheim 07. Dr. Peter Antony-Spies, Liederbach 10. Dipl.-Ing. Reinhard Seepolt, Hamburg 14. Dr. Gustav Meyer-Kretschmer, Jülich 23. Dr. Rolf Krieg, Karlsruhe 82 Jahre | 1938 25. Dipl.-Ing. Horst Roepenack, Bruchköbel 87 Jahre | 1933 12. Prof. Dr. Carsten Salander, Bad Sachsa 88 Jahre | 1932 28. Hans Schuster, Aachen 94 Jahre | 1926 27. Dipl.-Ing. Heinz-Arnold Leising, Bergisch Gladbach KTG Inside Verantwortlich für den Inhalt: Die Autoren. Lektorat: Natalija Cobanov, Kerntechnische Gesellschaft e. V. (KTG) Robert-Koch-Platz 4 10115 Berlin T: +49 30 498555-50 F: +49 30 498555-51 E-Mail: natalija.cobanov@ ktg.org www.ktg.org 70 Jahre | 1950 21. Dr. Sieghard Hellmann, Grossenseebach 76 Jahre | 1944 08. Jürgen Fabian, Büsingen am Hochrhein 24. Hans-Jürgen Schlesinger, Essen 78 Jahre | 1942 10. Ing. Wolfgang Feltes, Bergisch Gladbach 79 Jahre | 1941 15. Dr. Frank Depisch, Erlangen 80 Jahre | 1940 04. Dipl.-Phys. Hans-Peter Dyck, Forchheim 13. Dr. Heinz Hoffmann, Einhausen 83 Jahre | 1937 10. Dipl.-Phys. Reinhard Wolf, Grosskrotzenburg 84 Jahre | 1936 12. Dipl.-Ing. Heinz Malmström, Ahaus 24. Dipl.-Ing. Christian-Theodor Körner, Breitenbronn 30. Kai-Michael Pülschen, Erlangen 85 Jahre | 1935 08. Dr. Ing. Heinrich Löffler, Wennigsen/CH 08. Ing. Karl Rudolph, Wettingen 17. Dipl.-Ing. Peter Gottlob, Stutensee-Friedrichstal 23. Dipl.-Ing. Werner Schultz, Hirschberg 22. Dipl.-Ing. Johann Pisecker, Tulln Nachträgliche Geburtstagsnennungen: März 2020 80 Jahre | 1940 7. Dr. Volker Klix, Gehrden Mai 2020 79 Jahre | 1941 16. Dr. Jürgen Baier, Höchberg NEWS Top Nuclear power supports clean energy transition with secure and flexible electricity supply (iaea) With a transition underway in the global energy industry to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stem climate change, countries are looking at ways to ensure a continuous 24/7 supply of clean electricity while avoiding power blackouts and disruptions to other critical facilities, such as public transport and medical care. Nuclear power is one solution, as the International Energy Agency noted this week in a commentary on how the Covid-19 crisis also highlights the need for a secure and flexible electricity supply. As countries increasingly turn to solar and wind to generate electricity, flexibly operated nuclear power plants (NPPs) can provide a reliable stream of low carbon power as well as fill the output gaps left when variable renewable sources (VREs) lack sunshine or wind. Likewise, NPPs can adapt their power production when renewable generation varies. This balancing act, known as non-baseload operation, can ensure the supply of power and limit the risk of disruptions by enhancing the reliability of the electrical grid. But this flexibility comes at a cost. Most existing NPPs are best run at full or “baseload power” because with high upfront costs but very low operating costs, their economics depend on running close to capacity over many years. “Flexible operation results in higher operation and maintenance costs, and the magnitude of those costs will depend on the grid system’s flexibility needs,” said Nikhil Kumar, a contributor to a forthcoming IAEA report on the economics of flexible operation and Managing Director at U.K.-based Intertek, an assurance, inspection, product testing and certification company. “These costs increase as the depth and periodicity of load following increases.” France, where NPPs provide almost three-quarters of the country's electricity, has years of operational experience adjusting output based on electricity demand. Around twothirds of France's NPPs utilize load following and frequency control on a regular basis, which helps minimize the days per year in which electricity generation exceeds demand. Germany also uses load following and frequency control to respond to market demand and ensure grid stability. Load following NPPs have KTG Inside
atw Vol. 65 (2020) | Issue 5 ı May helped integrate greater shares of variable renewable sources, which produced almost half of Germany’s electricity last year and are expected to further expand in years to come. “The outstanding issue in many power markets is what kind of value to assign to these services for the grid,” said Victoria Alexeeva, an energy economist at the IAEA. “In the absence of an adequate valuation for such services, nuclear power’s economic competitiveness is reduced,” added Nesimi A. Kilic, an IAEA nuclear engineer. Amid the clean energy transition, electrical grids may face different challenges. Last August, for example, the UK suffered its most severe power outage in more than a decade – a blackout of between 15 and 50 minutes for more than a million customers that disrupted some passenger trains and caused a temporary loss of power at one hospital and airport. In a report last month, Germany’s grid operators said the country may need to import electricity at times in the coming years as firm sources such as coal and nuclear are retired. The IAEA supports countries in understanding all relevant aspects of flexible NPP operation through publications, workshops and technical meetings, including one held in Phoenix in the U.S. state of Arizona in December 2019. Around 60 plant operators, regulatory officials and policymakers from 10 countries discussed “future energy needs and proactive actions that would ensure nuclear power plants continue to provide clean, affordable and reliable power to people around the world,” said Robert Bement, Executive Vice President and Advisor to the Chief Executive Officer at Arizona Public Service, which hosted the meeting. The IAEA is also working with governmental and non-governmental bodies, including the Flexible Nuclear Campaign for Nuclear-Renewables Integration. The campaign – a project of the Clean Energy Ministerial led by the Nuclear Innovation: Clean Energy Future (NICE Future) initiative – seeks to model revenue for flexible NPPs, including costs and technical requirements. “A clear understanding of how flexible integrated energy systems – that include both nuclear and renewable energy – can meet our future energy needs must be developed and communicated,” said Kelly Lefler, a Senior Advisor at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy. “Technical meetings and other initiatives by the IAEA and the Clean Energy Ministerial bring together governments, research institutions, non-governmental organizations and industry to explore innovative clean energy solutions with nuclear power.” | Jeffrey Donovan and Matt Fisher, IAEA Department of Nuclear Energy www.iaea.org (201121401) World The Versatile Test Reactor can help unlock the future of carbon-free energy (nei) The 2020s will be the decade of innovations in nuclear energy. The technologies and tools that will enable advanced nuclear reactors to become a reality are being developed now. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) is one of those cutting-edge, specialized tools. Just getting under way, the VTR is intended to mimic the conditions that would exist in a category of advanced reactors now under development: fast reactors, which include sodiumcooled fast reactors, molten salt reactors and high-temperature gas reactors. With a pressing need to reduce carbon emissions and a growing worldwide demand for electricity, it is urgent to commercialize advanced reactor technologies, many of which use molten salt, sodium or helium gas (instead of water, as current plants do). Fast reactors are quite different than the reactors currently operating in the United States. When they run, the neutrons – subatomic particles that sustain the chain reaction – are moving with vastly more energy than in today’s reactors, in some cases with 100,000 times more energy. Those more energetic neutrons have many advantages. They can split a much wider variety of atoms to make energy, including many atoms that were produced in today’s reactors and would otherwise be considered waste. They can run reactors that operate at much higher temperatures than are common today, which would produce steam that can be used for many more purposes. And many of those designs would run at far lower pressures, making them easier and less expensive to build. There is a catch, though. No one is completely sure how all of the components of these new reactors would behave after a few decades in the stew of high-energy neutrons. And engineers don’t want to wait to find out. With a simulated environment, engineers can bathe the components in neutrons at a pace three or four times faster than they would see in an actual power reactor, pull the parts out for evaluation, and if necessary, make changes and try again. This is exactly what the VTR would provide. “We want to do a quick screening of these technologies,” said Kemal Pasamehmetoglu, executive director of the VTR project. In fact, the reactor could also be used to test materials for other industries and for materials that could be useful in today’s reactors. To prosper, experts say the U.S. needs its own high-tech test facility for fast neutrons. “The nuclear leadership that we had in the world derived from our technical leadership,” said Irfan Ali, who is on the board of directors of Advanced Reactor Concepts, a sodium -cooled reactor developer. “For us to maintain that, we have to keep moving forward with the technology.” Because of the lack of testing facilities in the United States, Terra- Power LLC, the company backed by Bill Gates, has had to use a reactor in Russia, the BOR-60. But access to that reactor, and problems moving irradiated materials across international borders, make that a cumbersome route. Congress gave initial approval to a versatile neutron source in the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act, signed into law in September 2018. Two companies have already submitted a proposal to develop the reactor. Once completed, the Versatile Test Reactor would enable the development of these fast reactors. Along with other types of advanced reactors, the next generation of nuclear will power our way of life into the future, without carbon emissions. | www.nei.org (201121455) Research Wendelstein 7-X fusion device at Greifswald to be upgraded (ipp-mpg) The next round of the stepwise expansion of the Wendelstein 7-X fusion device at Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) at 293 NEWS News
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