This book is a unique introduction to the economic costs of nuclear power. It examines the future of the nuclear power industry and unpacks the complicated relationships between its technical, economic and political variables. It does so by modelling the costs, risks and uncertainties of one of the world’s most opaque industries using micro-econometrics, econometrics, and cost engineering. Economics of Nuclear Power examines the very important costs of externalities (storing of nuclear waste and the impact of a Chernobyl or Fukushima event) and compares those to the externalities of alternative carbon based energies (oil, coal, natural gas). With over 100 tables and figures this book details nuclear power production around the world - present and planned, providing a completely global focus. It also includes an overview of the past 70 years of international nuclear power developments. This book is essential reading for students, scholars and professionals interested in energy economics, nuclear engineering and energy policy.

We are fortunate to live in incredibly exciting and incredibly challenging time. Energy demands due to economic growth and increasing population must be satisfied in a sustainable manner assuring inherent safety, efficiency and no or minimized environmental impact. These considerations are among the reasons that lead to serious interest in deploying nuclear power as a sustainable energy source. At the same time, catastrophic earthquake and tsunami events in Japan resulted in the nuclear accident that forced us to rethink our approach to nuclear safety, design requirements and facilitated growing interests in advanced nuclear energy systems. This book is one in a series of books on nuclear power published by InTech. It consists of six major sections housing twenty chapters on topics from the key subject areas pertinent to successful development, deployment and operation of nuclear power systems worldwide. The book targets everyone as its potential readership groups - students, researchers and practitioners - who are interested to learn about nuclear power.

America’s nuclear energy industry is in decline. Low natural gas prices, financing hurdles, failure to find a permanent repository for high-level nuclear waste, reactions to the Fukushima accident in Japan, and other factors are hastening the day when existing U.S. reactors become uneconomic. The decline of the U.S. nuclear energy industry could be much more rapid than policy makers and stakeholders anticipate. China, India, Russia, and others plan on adding nuclear technology to their mix, furthering the spread of nuclear materials around the globe. U.S. companies must meet a significant share of this demand for nuclear technology, but U.S. firms are currently at a competitive disadvantage due to restrictive and otherwise unsupportive export policies. Without a strong commercial presence in new markets, America’s ability to influence nonproliferation policies and nuclear safety behaviors worldwide is bound to diminish. The United States cannot afford to become irrelevant in a new nuclear age.

This revised book covers the fundamentals of thermodynamics required to understand electrical power generation systems, honing in on the application of these principles to nuclear reactor power systems. This text treats the fundamentals of thermodynamics from the perspective of nuclear power systems. In addition to the Four Laws of Thermodynamics, it discusses Brayton and Rankine power cycles in detail with an emphasis on how they are implemented in nuclear systems. Chapters have been brought up-to-date due to significant new results that have become available for intercooled systems and combined cycles and include an updated steam table. The book starts with basic principles of thermodynamics as applied to power plant systems. It then describes how Nuclear Air-Brayton systems will work. It documents how they can be designed and the expected ultimate performance. It describes several types of Nuclear Air-Brayton systems that can be employed to meet different requirements and estimates component sizes and performance criteria for Small Modular Reactors (SMR) based on the Air-Brayton concept. The book provides useful insight into the engineering of nuclear power systems for students and the tabular data will be of great use to practicing engineers.