Status of the APPLICATION OF NUCLEAR REACTORS in the PROCESS INDUSTRIES

摘要

The market surveys of the uses of low-temperature process heat show that the total amount of fossil fuel used for producing process heat that could be produced by a nuclear reactor designed with currently foreseeable technology is approximately 40 per cent as great as the amount of fossil fuel used for producing electricity. The chemicals and allied products, pulp and paper products, and products of petroleum and coal industries have high load factors and offer the most promising areas for immediate application. The majority (97 per cent) of industry low-temperature process heat installed units are less than 80 Mw (t). Eighty-three per cent is less than 32 Mw (t). However, five-sixths of the fuel consumed is for boilers larger than 32 Mw (t). The surveys also show that some process industries pay as much as $0.60/ million Btu for their fuel. Although fuel costs tend to be higher in the process industry than in the utility industry, the proportion of total manufacturing cost paid for fuel is small (2 to 6 per cent). Thus the incentive for any individual company to install a nuclear heat source rather than a fossil-fuel boiler is not as great as that for the electric power industry.