• Nuclear energy is produced by fission, which is the splitting of atoms and the opposite of fusion.
• E=mc^2, Einstein’s famous formula is used in nuclear power to convert an atoms mass to the amount of energy produced when it’s broken up.
• Nuclear reactions take place in fuel rods to control their chain reactions which create heat and then heat water to convert it to steam and power steam turbines.
• A inch long pellet of Uranium 235 has more energy than 1 ton of coal.

• France uses produces over 80% of it’s energy from Nuclear power plants.
• Nuclear energy is was first discovered in 1896 by a French physicists named Henri Becquerel.
• Nuclear energy currently powers 14% of the world.
• The first nuclear power plant was the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant in the USSR in 1954. It produced 5MW of power.
• The largest nuclear power plant in the world today, produced over 7500 MW of electricity.
• The incident in Chernobyl was the worst in Nuclear energy’s history and was caused by a uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction.
• Nuclear fusion is what keeps the sun shining each day. The fusion is over two hydrogen atoms to produce Helium.
• Nuclear energy has few pollutants and green houses gases but the one waste it produces has led to many problems with it’s storage and containment. Despite the radioactive waste, nuclear energy could be considered a green energy source.
• There are 439 nuclear power plants in the world. 104 of them are in the United States. They generate about 20% of America’s energy demands.
• Living near nuclear power plants exposes you to the same amount of radiation as a single x ray.
• Nuclear power is reliable and consistent and Uranium is found evenly all over the world and prices are relatively stable compared to hydrocarbons.
• Many countries banned the construction of new nuclear power plants after the distaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan. As the amount of energy produced by nuclear power each year has been decreasing due to the lack of public support for the projects and technology. Chernobyl and Three Mile island are also still fresh in the minds of many people.
• Nuclear radiation from nuclear plants has not caused any deaths worldwide other than the 50 or so men at Chernobyl.

Related Posts

• Nuclear Power Plants
  Nuclear power seems like a difficult subject to understand but it's power stations are remarkably easy to comprehend. Nuclear power plants work along the same principles as coal burning steam stations...
• Nuclear Waste Disposal
  What is nuclear waste and how do we dispose of it? Nearly everything we do creates some sort of waste. Nuclear power is no exception to this, it's just that it's waste is a bit more dangerous than th...
• Floating Nuclear Power Stations
  Believe it or not, a Russian company, Rosatom, is now developing floating nuclear power stations. Currently one is in product with six more to be completed by 2015. This isn't even the first ship of i...
• Non Renewable Resources List
  A non renewable resource is any resource which cannot be grown or produced at a rate equal or more than it's consumption. Basically once it's used, that it for it. There are not many examples but the ...

Nearly everything we do creates some sort of waste. Nuclear power is no exception to this, it’s just that it’s waste is a bit more dangerous than that McDonald’s food wrapper you had yesterday. Nuclear waste is the amount of radioactive material that is left over after being produced at a nuclear reactor. It consists of the spent fuel and the fuel rods as well as anything else that may have been contaminated by the fission process.

Radioactive waste can divided into three categories depending on what was contaminated and by how much it was damaged.

• Low Level Waste: Items not necessarily used nuclear reactors but more so the items used in a hospital for nuclear medicine purposes, such as clothes or containers. Most nuclear waste is of this variety.
• Mid Level Waste: This refers to the fuel rods used in nuclear processes to control and contain the nuclear reactions.
• High Level Waste: This is the most dangerous form of radioactive waste and is the fuel that has been used up in nuclear reactors. This is the waste that people are most worried about as it is highly reactive and many times still has residual energy even after being produced.

How do we Dispose of Nuclear Waste?

A Nuclear Fuel Rod

Of course it depends on the type of waste produced. Low level waste is not very threatening due to it’s short half life. This means that most of it’s radioactivity is gone after a few hours or days. Once it’s totally safe to manage this type of waste is incinerated or disposed otherwise. It’s safe to do so by then.

Anything above low level waste is stored at specific containment areas. These areas consist of large concrete bunkers sheltered from the outside world. Some of these facilities are placed underground in large shelters that don’t allow the radioactivity to effect the surrounding ground water and soil.

Very high risk radioactive waste such as it’s fuel is put into cooling ponds initially because of it’s very high energy. They cool the fuel until it’s safe to handle an even at that point those fuel rods and pellets are still generating electricity for years. This cooling process can take up to a decade. Once they are taken out of the water they are much safer to handle and after a few hundred years they have lost almost all of their radioactivity.

Related Posts

• Nuclear Energy Facts
  Here's a short list of nuclear energy facts: Nuclear energy is produced by fission, which is the splitting of atoms and the opposite of fusion. E=mc^2, Einstein's famous formula is used in nucle...
• Nuclear Power Plants
  Nuclear power seems like a difficult subject to understand but it's power stations are remarkably easy to comprehend. Nuclear power plants work along the same principles as coal burning steam stations...
• Floating Nuclear Power Stations
  Believe it or not, a Russian company, Rosatom, is now developing floating nuclear power stations. Currently one is in product with six more to be completed by 2015. This isn't even the first ship of i...
• Floating Wind Turbines
  A floating wind turbine is an offshore wind turbine that sits on some floating structure in areas where it wouldn't be feasible to generate electricity with bottom mounted turbines. They are a new and...

These power plants require a special type of fuel known as Uranium 235. It’s manufactured and distributed a small blocks, less than 1 inch long and each of these 1 blocks will give off enough energy as a ton of coal. The pellets are put into a rod called a fuel rod, which are then all put together in a group.

The heat created is due to fission, or the splitting of atoms. When U235 splits one of it’s neutrons is released to hit another molecule which will then split and send one more neutron. The chain reaction is what drives a nuclear reactor. The rods mentioned just prior absorb the neutrons so they isolate each chain reaction from the other. Another type of rod is also in the chamber prior to the reaction. It’s job is to absorb particles which naturally come off the U235 and to prevent a chain reaction before it can happen.

The reaction heats the water which is then sent to a pressurizer, which allows the water to super heat to temperatures of 150 degrees Celsius while still being in a liquid form. Then it is released through valves to steam generators which are surrounded by another liquid that super heats upon contact with the initial liquid.

The steam is now directed at the turbines to make them rotate. The rotation causes energy to be produced. The steam is then funneled to a third liquid, this time a coolant which brings the water back down to temperatures low enough to be used in the process again.

Those large dome like towers you see at plants are part of the cooling process. Water is circulated to the top of the structures and then allowed to seep down the sides. The shape of the structure brings up air from the inside which then cools the water by the time it reaches the ground and system again.

And that’s how a nuclear power plant works!

Related Posts

• Nuclear Energy Facts
  Here's a short list of nuclear energy facts: Nuclear energy is produced by fission, which is the splitting of atoms and the opposite of fusion. E=mc^2, Einstein's famous formula is used in nucle...
• Nuclear Waste Disposal
  What is nuclear waste and how do we dispose of it? Nearly everything we do creates some sort of waste. Nuclear power is no exception to this, it's just that it's waste is a bit more dangerous than th...
• Floating Nuclear Power Stations
  Believe it or not, a Russian company, Rosatom, is now developing floating nuclear power stations. Currently one is in product with six more to be completed by 2015. This isn't even the first ship of i...
• Non Renewable Resources List
  A non renewable resource is any resource which cannot be grown or produced at a rate equal or more than it's consumption. Basically once it's used, that it for it. There are not many examples but the ...

Floating Wind Farm History

The first floating wind park and turbine was produced by Blue H Technologies in the Netherlands in 2008. It was transported to Southeast Italy to waters 113m deep and 21km from the shoreline. It generated 80kW. After the success of this project Blue H began construction of a 2.4 MW project in Brindisi, Italy which will be a part of a potential floating wind farm called Tricase, which could generate 90MW off the Italian coast.

Another recent project was by Hywind, which installed a 2.3 MW floating wind turbine in the North Sea, off Norway in September 2009. The wind turbine cost $62 million to build and position and is still generating power today. It’s expect to produce  9 GWh of electricity each year. The turbine has already survived a year in rough seas, including 11 meter waves with little ware and tare.

By building these structures in deeper water, they become more economically viable due to the fact that wind flows are more consistent, strong and reliable in the deeper waters. Feasibility studies are now showing that due to increasing energy prices of non renewable resources off shore and shallow shore wind farms maybe be soon make economical sense to build.

Floating Wind Turbine Concepts

In the last 3 years a number of new concepts have been put forward to increase the efficiency of offshore turbines. Most of these have been pushed by the European community. A French company called Ideol has developed a method of floating wind turbines so that they will turn with the wind and be allowed to be controlled manually from a computer onshore. The cost for their concept is one million euros/ MW. Prototypes will be built in 2013.

In Portugal a company called WindFloat is developing a way to reduce motion and increase stability with a new type of platform. Their project costs 30 million dollars and has already begun.

There are some ideas for floating wind farms in North America but due to regulations and American economic weakness, this projects have been stalled indefinitely.

Related Posts

• Geothermal Energy Facts
  Geothermal energy has already been described on SpartanSaving multiple times and it's finally time to set all the facts about this form of renewable energy. This is a brief list of all the geothermal ...
• Solar Energy Facts
  Solar energy is the most abundant and cleanest energy source that we have on this planet. It's almost always available and can be found almost any where at any time. Here is a list of the most positiv...
• Renewable Resources
  The world has three types of energy sources. Those which once used, are gone : Nonrenewable Resources. Those which will last forever: Perpetual Energy Resources. Those which once used can be used agai...
• What is the Cost of Solar Energy?
  The cost of solar energy is significantly higher when compared to the energy produced by coal and hydrocarbon sources. For this article we will be using kWh as a comparison tool between different ener...

The MH-1A was built for $17 million in 1963. The Sturgis, which used to be called the SS Charles H. Cugle, had the reactor installed and testing started in 1967. It was fueled by low enriched uranium (4% to 7%), which led it to supply operations at the panama canal 10MW of electricity from 1968 to 1975. The ship was needed due to water control by a hydroelectric plant at the canal. In 1975 the program was scrapped due to high costs and the ship was moved to Fort Eustis, Virginia.

The current Russian project began in the early 2000′s in Arkhangelsk but was transferred later to St. Petersburg. The first ship, Akademik Lomonosov, was built from 2007-2010 and is expected to be in service by 2012. It’s 144 meters long and carry’s a crew of 69 people. The nuclear ship will be able to produce 70 MW of electricity but is unable to propel itself.

The other ships in the project are expected to have lives of 40 years and will need to be taken to shore every 3 years to be refueled. The ship has also safe guards to prevent possible terrorist attacks. Officials have said that there is no possible way that an airplane striking the ship could cause an accident. The officials also point out that Russia has maintained a nuclear powered navy for many decades now with only a few incidents. Also the ship would be safe from the danger of earthquakes and tsunami’s as they have minimal effect on objects in the water.

All the ships would be used in the Russian Arctic and will be powering oil and gas developments for Gazprom and other oil companies.

Related Posts

• Nuclear Energy Facts
  Here's a short list of nuclear energy facts: Nuclear energy is produced by fission, which is the splitting of atoms and the opposite of fusion. E=mc^2, Einstein's famous formula is used in nucle...
• Nuclear Waste Disposal
  What is nuclear waste and how do we dispose of it? Nearly everything we do creates some sort of waste. Nuclear power is no exception to this, it's just that it's waste is a bit more dangerous than th...
• Nuclear Power Plants
  Nuclear power seems like a difficult subject to understand but it's power stations are remarkably easy to comprehend. Nuclear power plants work along the same principles as coal burning steam stations...
• Floating Wind Turbines
  A floating wind turbine is an offshore wind turbine that sits on some floating structure in areas where it wouldn't be feasible to generate electricity with bottom mounted turbines. They are a new and...

 Advantages of Nuclear Power

• Nuclear energy emits low levels of carbon dioxide and is not a large contributor to global warming.
• The technology is mature and developed. There isn’t any capital required for new advancements for new power plants. Also the infrastructure for nuclear energy is already in place.
• A single nuclear power plant can generate a huge amount of energy. The largest plant in the world produces over 7500 MW.
• Uranium is found all over the world so no country or region has a monopoly over the resource. This keeps prices low and increases the reliability of the power plants.
• Nuclear power already accounts for 14% of the world’s energy resources with countries such as France being operated almost solely on it. It has a proven track record.

Disadvantages of Nuclear Power

• The biggest issue for nuclear power is what to do with the radioactive waste. There is still no clear cut method of safely disposing the waste as it contaminates everything that touches it including all water supplies and even the dirt it’s housed in. It will also be dangerous for another 10000 years.
• There is a larger potential for terrorist attacks on nuclear plants and even their radioactive waste sites. Even a simple attack could affect thousands of people in the surrounding areas.
• New nuclear power plants require a lot of capital and take decades to be completed.
• There is a strong anti-nuclear sentiment with many people and many other people have a stringent NIMBY policy (not in my backyard).
• Significant risk of a major meltdown. While it’s only happened a few times in history and most incidents were contained within days of them occurring, any nuclear accident is a large nuclear accident. Chernobyl drove out tens of thousands of people and thousands of people became sick. Fukushima evacuated over 10000 and the surrounding areas are no go. Still to see this in context, coal mining accidents in just 2004 led to the deaths of over 6000 people.
• Uranium supply could possibly be significantly less than expected. Some analysts believe we only have 30- 60 more years of productive mining of the ores until we run out.

Related Posts

• Nuclear Energy Facts
  Here's a short list of nuclear energy facts: Nuclear energy is produced by fission, which is the splitting of atoms and the opposite of fusion. E=mc^2, Einstein's famous formula is used in nucle...
• Nuclear Waste Disposal
  What is nuclear waste and how do we dispose of it? Nearly everything we do creates some sort of waste. Nuclear power is no exception to this, it's just that it's waste is a bit more dangerous than th...
• Nuclear Power Plants
  Nuclear power seems like a difficult subject to understand but it's power stations are remarkably easy to comprehend. Nuclear power plants work along the same principles as coal burning steam stations...
• Floating Wind Turbines
  A floating wind turbine is an offshore wind turbine that sits on some floating structure in areas where it wouldn't be feasible to generate electricity with bottom mounted turbines. They are a new and...

This is the first geothermal energy plant in the world, in Italy.

• Geothermal energy has already been in use for thousands of years. Hot springs were used by the Romans and Native American’s alike.
• Geothermal comes from the Greek words: Geo, earth and therme, heat.
• Geothermal energy is unique as it can provide heat as well as energy from the same source.
• The first geothermal plant was built in Italy in 1904 and is still running today.
• Iceland generates over 87% of it’s heat from geothermal sources and over 25% of it’s electricity is generated from 5 geothermal power plants.
• There are currently about 24 countries in the world using geothermal power, all situated near or on tectonic boundaries.
• Geothermal energy is clean, reliable and renewable.
• Despite all these advantages, geothermal energy accounts for only 10,715 MW of worldwide energy production but project in development will raise that amount to 18,500 MW by 2015.
• 90% of the geothermal energy produced in the United States is produced in over 30 plants all located in California.
• Geothermal power stations are much smaller than other power stations and can easily be grown if demand was increased.

• The resource base for geothermal energy is greater than the combined resource base of coal, uranium and all petroleum products combined.
• Every 100 meters under the surface, the heat rises by about 3 degrees Celsius, on average. This is called the geothermal gradient.
• Dry stream reservoir geothermal power plants were first used in the United States in the 1960′s at The Geysers, 90 miles North of San Fransisco. The project was a great success.
• A hot water geothermal power plant works by bringing up liquid water heated from 300-700 degree Fahrenheit to the surface. At surface the pressure is gone and the superheated liquid water flashes into steam which then powers turbines for energy.
• In places like the Azores and Iceland, people have been using geothermal hot springs to cook food in remarkable ways for hundreds of years.
• There are over 250 communities in the United States that source their electricity from geothermal plants.
• The energy source has very low emissions of greenhouse and other gases over the lifetime of it’s power plant.
• The heat required for the power plants will continue in the same region under the Earth from 5000- 1 million years from now basically making the energy source infinite for our needs.

Related Posts

• Renewable Resources
  The world has three types of energy sources. Those which once used, are gone : Nonrenewable Resources. Those which will last forever: Perpetual Energy Resources. Those which once used can be used agai...
• What is the Cost of Solar Energy?
  The cost of solar energy is significantly higher when compared to the energy produced by coal and hydrocarbon sources. For this article we will be using kWh as a comparison tool between different ener...
• Floating Wind Turbines
  A floating wind turbine is an offshore wind turbine that sits on some floating structure in areas where it wouldn't be feasible to generate electricity with bottom mounted turbines. They are a new and...
• Solar Energy Facts
  Solar energy is the most abundant and cleanest energy source that we have on this planet. It's almost always available and can be found almost any where at any time. Here is a list of the most positiv...

The most used product for energy is currently coal. A report by Credit Suisse which utilized a variety of factors from government incentives, interest rates and production costs to calculate the cost per kWh of various energy sources. This report was released around 2009.

The most used energy source in the world is coal energy, which is used by around 39% of the planet. Energy prices in recent years have been driven up by Chinese growth and demand, while the use of the energy source has dropped in the West due to concerns about it’s environmental record. It’s cost per kWh ranges from $.066 – $.046.

Natural gas is next with a global usage of around 15%. It’s cost is from $.064 – $.04. This price is based on the price of hydrocarbons which has historically been growing higher and higher each year.

Following natural gas we have nuclear power which accounts for 24% of the worlds energy needs. It’s cost ranges from $.064 – $.035. There has been a recent backlash against nuclear plants across the world due to the incident at Fukushima and it seems like some governments have listened to the concerns by calling for plans to replace their older units.

Wind power is one of the cheapest renewable resources with a cost of $.061 -  $.029 per kWh. But it suffers many draw backs just as noise, inefficiency problems, unpredictability of wind and mechanical issues.

Geothermal plants can produce remarkably cheaper energy costs from $.30 to $.022 and their prices have gone down in recent years. But it’s low figure is due to the many incentives that could be attained by creating a new geothermal plant. It doesn’t mean that they would be though, which would drive up the price considerably to that $.3/kWh range.

Hydropower runs from $.11 to $.051. Cheap and renewable it’s the supply for 20% of the worlds energy. Some problems but the best renewable energy that we’re tapping currently.

Now on to Solar power. There were three types of solar power listed in the report:

1. Solar PV (Crystalline) $.20 – $.12
2. Solar PV (Thin Film) $.18 – $.11
3. Solar Thermal $.126 – $.069

While those numbers don’t seem too expensive, compared to the cheapest power sources they can be up to 5 times more expensive. They are also costly to replace and manufacture. But there are some very large solar plant projects in the works. The largest solar thermal project is in the United States and produces over 350 MW at peak energy production. Another hindrance to the decrease of solar panel costs is the lack of major manufacturing of the pv cells. If there was enough demand we could see prices drop by multiples.

Related Posts

• Renewable Resources
  The world has three types of energy sources. Those which once used, are gone : Nonrenewable Resources. Those which will last forever: Perpetual Energy Resources. Those which once used can be used agai...
• Geothermal Energy Facts
  Geothermal energy has already been described on SpartanSaving multiple times and it's finally time to set all the facts about this form of renewable energy. This is a brief list of all the geothermal ...
• Solar Cell Efficiency
  If we could harness every single photo that hit a solar panel, one would probably be enough for each person. But solar cell efficiency is variable and unfortunately not very efficient. New technologie...
• List of Solar Power Plants
  Large scale solar power plants started being put into operation in the 1980's due to a response in the West to the oil embargo's of the 1970's. While growth was strong in the first years of the 19080'...

As of 2010 the most efficient solar cell produced are by Solar Junction and are three-junction concentrators at 43.5%, followed by single junction concentrators at 29%. But these are not produced for industrial or even residential usage, but are research productions and it’ll be a long time until you see one of them on someones roof top. On top of that they are produced by using rare and expensive elements that wouldn’t be available for mass production of public models.

Most common multicrystalline Silicon solar cells have efficiencies of 14-19%. These are the ones you’ll find in a store like home depot and the most likely ones you’ll see on residential properties. Some newer models, called concentrators ( like the ones in the last paragraph), use optics to increase the solar light intensity and can do so by 15% or more.

The factors reducing solar efficiency are the type of solar cells being used, the amount of dirt and dust on the panel, which is a serious problem in dry or desert like environments and the amount of irradiation that the solar panel is subject too. There is also a theoretical limit to solar energy efficiency of 86% due to the Carnot limit. Consult Wikipedia and a calculus book to get the most out of that.

Solar energy is still very expensive compared to other forms of energy. In average irradtin zones such as Europe, the energy produced is done at a cost of $.60/kWh. In high irradiation zones where the sun is always shining the price drops to $.30/kWh. A nice advantage of the panels is that they have long lives of up to 35 years and generally have warranties on them for a decade or more to guard against defects. This means that unless your electricity is sourced from a renewable resource such as hydro, wind or solar, your price for energy will cheaper down the line as energy prices worldwide are only increasing as we run out of non renewable resources.

Related Posts

• What is the Cost of Solar Energy?
  The cost of solar energy is significantly higher when compared to the energy produced by coal and hydrocarbon sources. For this article we will be using kWh as a comparison tool between different ener...
• List of Solar Power Plants
  Large scale solar power plants started being put into operation in the 1980's due to a response in the West to the oil embargo's of the 1970's. While growth was strong in the first years of the 19080'...
• Solar Paint
  Using nanotechnology and plastic, we can now spray any surface and make it become it's own solar panel that will even work on cloudy days. A sweater sprayed with the compound could charge a cellphone ...
• What is Concentrated Solar Power?
  Concentrated solar power systems, are systems which concentrate sunlight by use of mirrors and reflectors to a specific small area. That small area receives the reflectors sunlight and converts it int...

List of Solar Power Plants

Many of the largest solar power plants are situated in Germany, so this list is one for the largest plants in a specific country and the largest photovoltaic power station that is being built in that country along with their respective Nominal Power in MW.

For comparison the largest nuclear power plant generates over 7900 MW and the largest solar thermal plant is rated for 354 MW.

Germany

• Completed: Solarpark Senftenberg. Located near Cottbus the plant uses some 700 000 solar modules. 166MW.
• Under Construction: N/A

Canada

• Built: Sarnia Photovoltaic Power Plant. This is the largest photovoltaic power plant in North America and the largest in the world up to 2010. 80MW.
• Under Construction: N/A

Italy

• Built: Montalto di Castro Photovoltaic Power Station. Developped by SunPower and using 78 720 solar panels, this massive project was completed in late 2010. 72MW
• Under Construction: N/A

Spain

• Built: Olmedilla Photovoltaic Park. It was completed in 2008 and generates enough energy to power 40 000 homes. It’s cost was $530 million. 60MW.
• Under Construction: N/A

USA

• Built: Copper Mountain Solar Facility. It was built for $141 million and has additions planned that will boost it by over 200MW by 2015. 48MW
• Under Construction: Topaz Solar Farm: Will be completed in 2012. 550 MW

Portugal

• Built: Moura Photovoltaic Power Station. 376 000 panels over 250 hectares. Will have an additional expansion of 20MW. 46MW.
  
• Under Construction: N/A

Ukraine

• Built: Ohotnikovo Solar Park. Was completed in 2011 and has another 40MW under construction. 40MW.
• Under Construction: N/A

Czech Republic

• Built: Ralsko Solar Park. Completed in late 2010. 38.3MW.
• Under Construction: N/A

France

• Built: Le Gabardan Solar Park. Another 20MW will be added. 38MW.
• Under Construction: N/A.

India

• Built: Gunthawad Solar Park. Currently Asia’s largest solar power farm. 30MW.
• Under Construction: Charanka Solar Park. Will produce some 500MW by 2014. Will be Asia’s largest solar powered farm until the completion of the Ordos Solar Project in China in 2019 which will be able to produce 2000MW.

Related Posts

• What is the Cost of Solar Energy?
  The cost of solar energy is significantly higher when compared to the energy produced by coal and hydrocarbon sources. For this article we will be using kWh as a comparison tool between different ener...
• Solar Cell Efficiency
  If we could harness every single photo that hit a solar panel, one would probably be enough for each person. But solar cell efficiency is variable and unfortunately not very efficient. New technologie...
• What is Concentrated Solar Power?
  Concentrated solar power systems, are systems which concentrate sunlight by use of mirrors and reflectors to a specific small area. That small area receives the reflectors sunlight and converts it int...
• Solar Paint
  Using nanotechnology and plastic, we can now spray any surface and make it become it's own solar panel that will even work on cloudy days. A sweater sprayed with the compound could charge a cellphone ...