What is the Efficiency of a Nuclear Power Station?

Answer 1

The ratio of the electric power output from the station (ie after subtracting house load used on the station) to the thermal output of the reactor. Both measured in MegaWatts, and expressed as a percentage.

Depending on the design, a typical nuclear steam supply combined cycle is about 33% efficient. One plant that I worked at was rated around 2400 MWt, with the generator producing 850 MWe. With a house load of about 30 MWe, the net output was about 820 MWe, an efficiency of 34.2%.

Answer 2

Thermal power plants using the steam cycle usually have efficiency at around 35 percent, and nuclear plants are no different in this respect, as the steam cycle part of the plant is much the same as for a fossil fuel plant.

Answer 3

Efficiency is defined as the ratio of the thermal output of the reactor in MW to the net electrical output of the power station, that is the power sent out down the power lines. For the PWR and BWR designs this is about 33 percent. Higher efficiencies have been achieved with gas cooled reactors like the AGR in the UK which reaches about 40 percent, and with a helium cooled reactor coupled to a gas turbine could be higher than that.

Answer 4

For light water reactors it is about 33 percent, that is the ratio of output to the grid to the thermal output of the reactor. For gas cooled reactors such as AGR it is higher, about 40 percent, because of better steam conditions mainly.

Answer 5

Nuclear energy (NE) has many pros and cons, like other energy sources do. All energy production in the world costs money and the cost is a big factor in understanding energy efficiency. A good place to start looking for more information is by following the links below. NE is projected to actually cost less than coal and oil in the near future. However, when production and maintenance costs to build and maintain NE plants are taken into consideration, actualized efficiency is difficult to pinpoint. For example (as comparison), hydroelectric power efficiency usually increases with bigger turbines, but there is a cost associated with building and maintaining such turbines. Nuclear energy suffers similar cost-to-efficiency concerns.

Furthermore, if environmental impact is taken into account, NE may offer benefits to other forms of energy production (coal) but less benefits compared to wind.

Some plants have 33%, Really good ones have 40% efficiency.

Modern industrial-scale electric generators are on the order of over 90% efficient in transforming kinetic energy to electrical energy. Such generators are being used every type power plant. The question is more of the systems to produce that kinetic energy in each type of plant.

Modern steam turbines (which are used in geothermal, fossil fuel, and nuclear plants) can be up to 75% efficient.

In geothermal plants, there is very little loss in getting the fuel (naturally-produced steam) to the turbine, so they have approximately 75% efficiency turning steam into kinetic energy.

Fossil fuel plants require an internal combustion engine or steam boiler, neither of which is very good. ICE efficiency tops out at 60% or so for a gas turbine, while boiler efficiency is much lower, and requires the loss inherent in the steam turbine, so, overall, oil or coal plants are under 25% efficient.

Industrial windmills are limited to no more than 60% efficiency in converting wind to kinetic energy.

Hydroelectric power involves direct conversion of stored kinetic energy into rotating kinetic energy, so the efficiency is well above 95%.

Nuclear power involves several heat-exchanger levels coupled to a steam turbine, plus a relatively large amount of energy from fission is absorbed by other sections of the fuel or control rods, so they are somewhere around 1-2% efficient at turning nuclear energy into kinetic.

In terms of raw numbers, nuclear energy is by far the least efficient, as a huge loss is seen in the absorption of radiation and energy required to continue the chain reaction.

But, looking at it another way, in terms of power-produced per unit of fuel, nuclear energy is extraordinarily efficient. So much power is produced per unit of fuel that even at very low levels of absolute efficiency, the "usable" energy produced by nuclear power is still ridiculously larger than any other form of energy. On the order of several thousand times more than the next most efficient.

Answer 6

Nuclear energy is considered to be quite efficient. The criticisms tend to concern safety, rather than efficiency.

Answer 7

Nuclear power is very efficient and very clean, although it is very expensive and is very dangerous due to the use of radioactive substances uranium and plutonium.