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Florida Technological University College of Engineering Thesis; The United States' energy crisis, which has received so much publicity lately , has focused national attention on how we are to meet our energy demands. Proposed energy sources include conventional nuclear power plants, breeder reactor and fusion reactor plants, coal gasification, liquid hydrogen, solar energy, and geothermal energy. All of these except conventional fission plants are still on the drawing board or in the experimental laboratory, and are described briefly. Government and industry are betting heavily on conventional nuclear power plants. ($40 billion already spent by private utilities for 30 operating plants, 60 under construction, and 75 on order.) A. few unpublicized accidents and more and more complex instrumentation in nuclear power plant control rooms has pointed to a desperate need for more effective ways of training individuals to safely operate these plants. Recognizing this need, General Electric Company designed and built a very realistic computer-driven simulator of a plant control room. The physical enclosures and instrumentation duplicates the Dresden II control room in every way, and response to operator manipulation of controls duplicates that of a real plant. The bulk of this paper describes the simulator and its development. The last section raises questions concerning hazards of continued growth of nuclear power and presents some alternatives. ; 1973-05-01 ; M.S. ; Engineering ; Masters ; This record was generated from author submitted information. ; Electronically reproduced by the University of Central Florida from a book held in the John C. Hitt Library at the University of Central Florida, Orlando.

Achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050, a plan to which all our leading political parties are committed- except Reform- will require large scale use of low carbon energy sources, including nuclear power. Various studies confirm what is obvious: that nuclear power has a significant role to play in meeting increasing world energy demand and keeping carbon emissions low. However, that means that nuclear power will have to become a much more significant part of the energy mix than it is today. The UK government reckons that the country needs to increase its nuclear power capacity to 24 gigawatts by 2050 to meet its net zero targets. That would make it about a quarter of projected electricity demand, compared to about a seventh today.Today's large-scale nuclear power plants are difficult, time-consuming and costly to build. But enterprising companies such as Rolls-Royce propose much smaller-scale plants — Small Modular Reactors or SMRs. They promise be much lower cost and much quicker to build. Even so, there is a lot of opposition to new nuclear construction (or indeed any sort of construction) from local residents; and the UK's highly restrictive planning rules don't make it any easier. (Nor, indeed, do the UK's energy regulators.)Maybe there is a solution, though: floating nuclear power plants. We site wind turbines offshore, so why not site nuclear power plants offshore too? Of course, it sounds like a cross between science fiction and fantasy, because we still have this idea that nuclear power plants need to be huge. But they don't. Nuclear energy has been used in ships of 70 years. There are today 162 nuclear-powered vessels floating on or below the surface of the sea. Nuclear energy is used to power submarines and icebreakers, allowing them to remain operational for very long periods. So no, it is neither science fiction nor fantasy, and marine engineers are actively working on the proposal. Last August, academics from King's College London delivered two workshops on floating nuclear power plants (FNPPs), in Jakarta and Manila. And the prominent marine engineer Stuart Bannantyne has also raised the same prospect in Australia. It's a good place for it, since 92% of Australians live near the coast or by rivers. But the same is true of many countries.Already, some countries have floating diesel- or gas-powered power stations in ports. The Russians were the first, in 2019, says Bannantyne. They placed a 70mw floating plant in the remote town of Vilyuchinsk. Since then the idea has spread. In November 2023, the International Atomic Energy Agency held an international conference on the idea of floating SMRs, looking to provide clean heat and power for remote coastal locations (and to replace carbon-based generators). The conference discussed all aspects of the option: licencing, regulation, safety, security and so on. Singapore, which suffers a lack of land space, is already thinking about the prospect in practical terms. A US shipping company is developing the concept of micro reactors on ships for shore-side locations. Floating reactors might even be a way to get power back to war-torn states once the shooting stops.It is unlikely that floating nuclear power plants will replace onshore generation. But for remote locations and in times of trouble — well, watch this space.Read Stuart Bannatyne's article in Spectator Australia. https://www.spectator.com.au/author/stuart-ballantyne/

The expanding use of nuclear energy in the power generation field is such that the maintainability aspects of design and maintenance concepts will soon be of interest to an increasingly larger number of designers, logisticians and human factors engineers. This article presents a broad-brush treatment of the effect that radiations have on maintenance of nuclear power plants. It provides examples of how an acceptable degree of maintainability is achieved on a specific military nuclear power plant despite these deadly radiations. A brief glimpse at present developmental programs that will significantly improve the maintainability of nuclear power plants is presented.