Heat recovery from nuclear power plants

The thermodynamic efficiency of a standard Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) is around 33%. Therefore, about two third of the heat generated by the nuclear fuel is literally wasted in the environment. Given the fact that the steam coming out from the high pressure turbine is superheated, it could be advantageously used for nonelectrical applications, particularly for district heating. Considering the technological improvements achieved these last years in heat piping insulation, it is now perfectly feasible to envisage heat transport over quite long distances, exceeding 200 km, with affordable losses. Therefore, it could be energetically wise to revise the modifications required on present reactors to perform heat extraction without impeding the NPP operation. In this paper, the case of a French reactor is studied showing that a large fraction of the wasted nuclear heat can be actually recovered and transported to be injected in the heat distribution network of a large city. Some technical and economical aspects of nuclear district heating application are also discussed. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.