Exergo-ecological and economic evaluation of a nuclear power plant within the whole life cycle

The multi-criteria analysis of different power technologies takes into account TEC (thermo-ecological cost); direct and cumulative emissions; and economic evaluation. The environmental and ecological comparison of the planned nuclear power plant with the existing conventional ones (coal and gas plants) requires the evaluation of the whole life cycle of electricity generation. The main cause of the imperfection of nuclear fuel cycle appears in the stage of conversion, enrichment and nuclear fuel fabrication. TEC analysis takes into account all connected process starting from natural resources extracting, through all related processes influencing product generation, up to.disposal or recycling. For this reason, TEC and exergy efficiency evaluate the nuclear fuel life cycle. TEC expresses the total (cumulative) exergy consumption of non-renewable resources burdening the analysed product, which means exergy assembly of the whole cycle of this product. TEC also takes into account the additional non-renewable exergy consumption required for environmental losses mitigation caused by the harmful emissions. A significant amount of GHG (greenhouse gasses) emissions is not covered by the direct analysis since the CO2 emissions also occur in the stages of mining and transportation of fuel production. The nuclear power units are characterized by lower GHG emissions than the coal and gas technologies, for which the GHG emissions is on a comparable level. Additionally, the economic analysis revealed that the investment cost of the nuclear power plant is significantly higher than those of coal or gas power plant the unit cost of electricity generated by the nuclear installation could be about twice lower than from other technologies. It results from an operating cost: the cost of fuel and the fee of direct GHG emissions are higher for coal and gas technology than for nuclear power plant. The nuclear power plants seem to be the competitive technologies for the coal or gas installation and should be taken into account while planning the policy for energy generation. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.