Nuclear Power Plants

Hi,

This is my first posting to the list but I've been following the
discussions for some time now.

The discussion about the fuel usage of nuclear power plants has been
here on the list several times now, but I was missing a revised table
of the power plants.

I'm not an engineer or physicst (only a CS student) so my calculations
may be wrong. Please correct me when you discover errors or miscalculations.

Basic Assumptions:
The fuel tanks of traveller spacecraft carry liquid hydrogen (for fusion power
plants) and its ordinary hydrogen.
I've covered deuterium using plants as a new type of fuision power plant.

FISSION: I use the figures from Rob Dean's article from Dec 1990
         (article number 1914)
         Fissionanbles are enriched to 5%, burn down to 1% and fission
	 power plants have a 30% efficiency.
	 Figure: 1.3 l per year per MW of power plant output.

FUSION:  Oridinary hydrogen reaction for "standard" fusion power plants is:

	   1                4
         4  H + 2 e    --->  He + 27.05 MeV
	   1                2

         Deuterium reaction:


                     3     1
		 /->  He +  n  + 3.72 MeV
           2    /    2     0
         2  H  /
           1   \	    (or with about even probabilty)
		\    3     1
		 \->  H  +  H  + 4.03 MeV
                     1     1

	 Average of 3.875 MeV

         1 Kg of hydrogen has (1 * 6.022 * 10^26)/1 atoms
	 1 l of hydrogen weighs 0.07 Kg, so it has 0.07 * 6.022 * 10^26
	 = 4.22 * 10^25 atoms. Fusing yields (4.22 * 10^25) / 4 * 27.05
	 = 2.85 * 10^26 MeV = 4.56 * 10^13 Ws = 12700 MWh

	 1 Kg of deuterium has (1 * 6.022 * 10^26)/2 atoms
	 1 l of deuterium weighs 0.14 Kg, so it has 0.14 * 6.022 * 10^26 / 2
	 = 4.22 * 10^25 atoms. Fusing yields (4.22 * 10^25) / 2 * 3.875
	 = 8.17 * 10^25 MeV = 1.31 * 10^13 Ws = 3630 MWh

	 (6.022 * 10^26 : Avogadro's number
	  1 MeV = 1.6 * 10^-13 watt seconds
	  MeV : Mega Electron Volt
          Ws  : Watt Seconds
	  MWh : MegaWatt Hours)

          Depending on what system we use (High Guard, MegaTraveller or
	  Striker) we arrive at different efficencies.
          With the ordinary hydrogen reaction, HG plants have a 0.1% eff.,
          MTrav plants a 0.016% eff. and Striker plants an efficiency of
          0.032%.
          With the deuterium reaction, the efficiencies are 0.3%, 0.05% and
          0.1% respectively.

	  I've made fusion power plants that are between 3% and 36%
          effcient. That should satisfy engineers and be still
          competitable with fission power.

ANTIMATTER: Antimatter reaction is just total conversion of matter to
            energy, so we can use the E = m * c^2 formula here.
	    1 Kg of matter yields 1 * c^2 = 25,000,000 MWh if totally
            converted to energy.
	    The efficiency for all antimatter plants is the same for
            all TLs. The Tl 17 plant yields 4,320,000 MWh per year and
            uses 250 TONS of matter for this. And this time the rest
            cannot simply be vented outside (THAT would leave a trail in
            an atmosphere). The antimatter plants thus have all an
            efficiency of 0.00007%.
	    I assume that the antimatter <-> matter reaction is
            100 % efficient and the conversion to electrical energy is about
            30 % efficient.

Enough theory, the table:

Type        |TL| Wt|Price| Min Vol |  Pow  |  Fuel|  Fuel Type   | Efficiency
=============================================================================
Fission     | 6| 8 | 0.1 |  5.00   |  1.0  |  1.3 | Radioactives |    ----
Fission     | 8| 6 | 0.1 |  2.00   |  1.5  |  1.5 | Radioactives |    ----
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Early Fusion| 9| 6 | 0.2 | 20.00   |  2.0  | 60.0 |  Deuterium   | 24%
Early Fusion|10| 5 | 0.2 |  4.00   |  2.0  | 50.0 |  Deuterium   | 29% - 10%
Early Fusion|11| 4 | 0.2 |  1.00   |  2.0  | 40.0 |  Deuterium   | 36% - 12%
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fusion      |12| 4 | 0.2 | 10.00   |  3.0  | 40.0 |  Hydrogen    | 15% - 10%
Fusion      |13| 3 | 0.2 |  2.00   |  4.0  | 40.0 |  Hydrogen    | 20% -  7%
Fusion      |14| 3 | 0.2 |  0.40   |  5.0  | 40.0 |  Hydrogen    | 26% -  4%
Fusion      |15| 2 | 0.2 |  0.10   |  6.0  | 40.0 |  Hydrogen    | 31% -  3%
Fusion      |16| 1 | 0.2 |  0.08   |  7.0  | 40.0 |  Hydrogen    | 36% -  3%
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Antimatter  |17| 6 | 0.5 |  8.00   |   500 |  0.5 |  Antimatter  | 35%
Antimatter  |18| 5 | 0.5 |  1.00   |  1000 |  1.0 |  Antimatter  | 35%
Antimatter  |19| 4 | 0.5 |  0.50   |  2500 |  2.5 |  Antimatter  | 35%
Antimatter  |20| 3 | 0.5 |  0.10   | 15000 | 15.0 |  Antimatter  | 35%
Antimatter  |21| 2 | 0.5 |  0.02   | 50000 | 50.0 |  Antimatter  | 35%
============================================================================
Wt is in tons per Kl of plant. Price is in MCr per Kl of plant.
Minimum Volume is in Kl. Pow is power output per Kl of plant.
Fuel is fuel usage in liter per year per Kl of plant.
Efficiency is the efficiency of the plants of the given level. The right
number is the efficiency for the largest plant (14+ Kl) and the left
number is the efficiency for the smallest possible plant for the given TL.

The only problem I've now is that the endurance of almost anything
nuclear powered is way too large and the jump drive fusion plants become
even more inefficient. A 250 MW laser could be powered for a whole year
with 0.56 Kl at TL 15.
Perhaps I should make the plants an order of magnitude less efficient
for the sake of game balance. Decrease efficiency by a factor of 40 ?
(The laser above would than need 1.85 Kl per month)

						Klaus

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