From "single player" to "all-round support"——
There are so many uses for nuclear power besides generating electricity
our reporter leaves
Recently, the National Energy Administration released the national power industry statistics from January to June.
In the first half of the year, the national installed capacity of power generation was about 2.44 billion kilowatts, of which nuclear power was 55.53 million kilowatts, accounting for about 2.3%, a year-on-year increase of 6.5%.
As a clean energy, nuclear power is playing an increasingly important role in China's economic and social development.
Although China's nuclear power development started late, it has formed a high-level industrial innovation chain and industrial chain from scratch, from small to large, and its technical level and comprehensive strength have ranked first in the world.
In recent years, in addition to producing electricity, nuclear energy has also been used in many scenarios such as urban heating, industrial steam supply, seawater desalination, and synthetic fuels.
Yu Kaizhi, deputy general manager of the China Nuclear Power Nuclear Energy Development Division of China National Nuclear Corporation, said in an interview with this newspaper that the nuclear fission process releases a lot of heat energy, which can better match the needs of high-temperature process thermal parameters in the industrial production process.
The comprehensive utilization of nuclear energy is suitable for various application scenarios, or converts thermal energy into electrical energy or directly provides high-temperature process heat.
In the future, nuclear energy will shift from "single player" to "all-round support", contributing more "nuclear" power to green and low-carbon development.
Safe and energy-saving steam supply for industry
Using nuclear energy to boil water to generate electricity has always been an interesting metaphor for nuclear power by many netizens, and this analogy also essentially explains the power generation principle of nuclear power plants.
Yu Kaizhi explained that the power generation of nuclear power plants mainly relies on the release of energy by nuclear fission, which heats water and converts it into steam, thereby driving steam turbines to generate electricity.
Among them, steam can not only be used to generate electricity, but also has great uses in industrial production.
On May 27, after 3 months of pile foundation construction, the first tank of concrete was officially poured at the Tianwan Nuclear Power Steam Power Supply Project Energy Station, marking the country's first industrial-use nuclear power steam supply project - CNNC Tianwan Nuclear Power Steam The construction of the energy supply project has been fully kicked off.
The project is jointly carried out by Jiangsu Nuclear Power Co., Ltd. and the petrochemical base in Xuwei New District, Lianyungang City. The steam of CNNC Tianwan Nuclear Power Units 3 and 4 is used as the heat source, and the steam is transported to the Lianyungang Petrochemical Industrial Base for industrial production and utilization. It is expected to be put into operation by the end of 2023. steam supply.
After the project is completed, the annual steam supply will reach 4.8 million tons, which can reduce the burning of standard coal by 400,000 tons per year.
"High-temperature and high-pressure steam is an indispensable element of chemical production. At present, industrial steam in my country's chemical industry mainly comes from coal-fired power plants or self-provided coal-fired boilers. The use of nuclear energy for steam supply will effectively reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions." CNNC Jiangsu Liu Yongsheng, general manager of nuclear power maintenance and project leader, said.
Many people are concerned, how to ensure the safety of nuclear steam supply?
Liu Yongsheng introduced that the heated industrial steam is transported through an independent isolation circuit, which ensures the safety of nuclear steam supply from the design source.
In the whole process, there is only heat exchange, and there is no medium connection, which ensures the cleanness, safety and reliability of nuclear energy steam supply.
In addition, through measures such as pipeline prefabricated overhead steam insulation scheme, the temperature loss per kilometer can be controlled to be less than 2 °C and the pressure drop is less than 0.03 MPa (Mpa), which can effectively control the temperature and pressure loss during long-distance steam transmission, and meet the requirements of Lianyungang petrochemical industry. Base industrial steam demand.
Not only the petrochemical industry, but also industrial heat or steam is in wide demand.
For example, in the paper industry, steam is required for heating and dissolving some chemicals in paper production, and processes such as processing and molding are also inseparable from steam.
In the textile printing and dyeing industry, the steps of dyeing, drying, sizing, printing and dyeing are inseparable from the support and cooperation of steam.
In the rubber industry, steam is used in processes such as calendering, vulcanization, and drying of rubber.
In the pharmaceutical industry, a large amount of industrial steam and pure steam need to be used for high temperature sterilization of raw materials, instruments and equipment during pharmaceutical production, and processes such as drying, tableting, and granulation also require steam support.
In the non-ferrous metal industry, the manufacture of new energy lithium batteries also requires the use of steam to ensure the reaction temperature.
Just on July 15, the industrial heating project of Zhejiang Haiyan Nuclear Energy Heating Demonstration Project (Phase II) started smoothly. It is expected to be completed by the end of August this year, which can provide 24-hour thermal energy supply guarantee, and the annual industrial heating supply is about 288,000 GJ.
This move is equivalent to saving about 10,000 tons of standard coal and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by about 24,000 tons. It will achieve a win-win situation for industrial development and energy conservation and carbon reduction.
In the future, more and more industries will use the steam provided by nuclear energy.
Heating clean and warm for residents
Similar to the principle of providing steam for industry, nuclear energy also heats residents in winter.
The first stage of the Zhejiang Haiyan Nuclear Energy Heating Demonstration Project is the civil heating project.
In fact, last winter, two small cities in China, one in the south and one in the north, Haiyan, Zhejiang, and Haiyang, Shandong have already used nuclear energy for heating.
On November 9, 2021, Haiyang entered the heating season ahead of schedule, and residents in the old and new urban areas used nuclear energy for heating, with a heating area of 4.5 million square meters.
Relying on the clean heat provided by "Nuannu No. 1", Haiyang City bid farewell to the coal-fired heating history that lasted for many years and became the first zero-carbon heating city in the country.
As a national initiative, the nuclear energy heating project does not have ready-made experience to refer to, and every step of technological research is creating history.
Can "clean electricity" produce "clean heat"?
In order to accumulate experience and create a model, Shandong Nuclear Power has gathered a team of "big-class" experts such as China Nuclear Energy Industry Association, Tsinghua University, and the General Electric Power Planning and Design Institute to review the project feasibility study report. After intense inquiry, discussion, technical solutions Unanimously approved by experts.
On July 10, 2019, the first phase of the Haiyang Nuclear Energy Heating Project officially started. The project includes the construction of the first nuclear energy heat supply and heat exchange station and the laying of a 15-kilometer mains network, which was completed on September 30 of that year.
During the heating season from 2019 to 2020, a total of 7,757 households with a total of 700,000 square meters in Lingang, resort areas and nuclear power industrial parks in Haiyang City used nuclear energy heating. praised by users and all walks of life.
In 2020, Shandong Nuclear Power has started the research work on promoting large-scale long-distance heating.
On November 9, 2021, the warm current brought by the comprehensive utilization of nuclear energy was delivered to thousands of households in Haiyang City.
"Just after heating, the temperature at home reached 23 ℃." Cheng Jingzeng, a resident of Haiyang Jinyang Coast Garden Community, said.
With nuclear energy heating, the heating fee for residential buildings has also been reduced from the original 22 yuan/square meter to 21 yuan/square meter.
Then, on December 3, 2021, the first nuclear energy heating project in the south of the country, the first phase of the Zhejiang Haiyan Nuclear Energy Heating Demonstration Project, was officially put into operation, with a heating area of 460,000 square meters.
Nearly 4,000 households in the three communities of Haiyan Nuclear Power New Village, Nuclear Power Nanyuan, and Fengye New Village took the lead in "trying early adopters" and used zero-carbon, clean and efficient "nuclear heating".
This also means that the history of nuclear energy heating has begun in southern China, and from now on, it will no longer rely on "shaking" to survive the cold in winter.
As of April 2022, the demonstration project has completed the task of the first heating season, and will continue to safely and stably provide heating for nearly 4,000 households for 100 days. While the heating quality has been improved, the heating price has been reduced by about 1/3 compared to the past.
It is estimated that by the end of the "14th Five-Year Plan", after the project is fully completed and put into operation, it can meet the heating demand of about 4 million square meters in Haiyan. Compared with the electric heating method in the southern region, it can save 196 million kWh of electricity every year.
Nuclear heating is not only clean, it is also safe.
"Nuclear energy heating is to extract part of the steam from the nuclear power unit and heat it for multiple times through the heat exchange station. The whole process has only two steps: steam heating water and water heating water." Qinshan Nuclear Power Party Secretary and Chairman Huang Qian said that the nuclear power plant and users are closely related. There are multiple loops in isolation, and each loop only transfers heat, no water exchange, and no radioactive substances enter the heating pipeline. The hot water is only circulated in a closed circle in the community, and is isolated from the nuclear power plant layer by layer without any contact. .
According to Zou Zhengyu, general manager of Qinshan Nuclear Power, the nuclear energy heating project uses the residual thermal power of the units in Qinshan Nuclear Power Base in winter, without affecting the original power generation and safety performance of the units, to public facilities, residential quarters and industrial parks in Haiyan County Providing large-scale safe, zero-carbon and economical nuclear energy heating has truly achieved a win-win situation for local residents, local governments, nuclear power companies and ecological environmental protection.
Innovation is much more than that.
On the basis of more than 50 years of safe and stable operation of swimming pool-type research reactors, CNNC has independently developed a safe, economical, green and environmentally friendly reactor-type "Yanlong" swimming pool reactor for heating in northern cities.
Yu Kaizhi introduced that the "Yanlong" swimming pool stack has outstanding features such as high inherent safety, cleanliness and environmental protection, and strong adaptability to the pipe network.
A 400-megawatt "Yanlong" low-temperature heating reactor, with a heating building area of 20 million square meters, can cover 200,000 households.
At present, the "Yanlong" pool-type low temperature heating reactor demonstration project has been included in the "14th Five-Year Plan" of Jilin Province.
Experts said that in some areas where there are no nuclear power plants nearby, the pool-type low-temperature heating reactor is very suitable. It has a high safety factor, can meet the heating demand within a certain range, and can also solve the problem of air pollution caused by coal heating. .
Injecting nuclear energy into multi-domain applications
Not long ago, the world's first commercial reactor carbon-14 irradiation production targets were put into the No. 2 heavy water reactor unit of Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant No. 3, a subsidiary of China National Nuclear Corporation, and the commercial reactor began to produce carbon-14 isotopes. It is expected to be in 2024. The supply to the market began in 2009, and the output can meet the domestic demand.
This is another important breakthrough in the comprehensive utilization of nuclear energy.
What is carbon-14?
What can it be used for?
What does it have to do with our lives?
It turns out that carbon that exists in nature, such as common graphite, diamond, pencil lead, etc., is carbon-12.
In addition, it has isotopic "brothers", such as carbon-11, carbon-13, and carbon-14, which all have six protons in their nuclei, but different numbers of neutrons.
Carbon-12 is stable, and carbon-14 is radioactive.
"The use of carbon-14 radioactivity for labeling and detection can detect Helicobacter pylori and carry out pharmacokinetic research." Meng Zhiliang, senior engineer of Qinshan Nuclear Power of China National Nuclear Corporation, introduced that carbon-14 is often used as a marker and is widely used in agriculture. , chemistry, medicine, biology and other fields.
For example, carbon-14 is added to pesticides, and the residual amount of pesticides can be determined by detecting the content of carbon-14 on crops in the later stage.
Fan Shen, a senior engineer at CNNC Qinshan Nuclear Power, said that before, China had used small reactors for experimental research to produce carbon-14, but the output was small and the production was discontinuous, making it impossible to form a stable supply.
The use of commercial nuclear power units this time can maintain high-power and stable operation for a long time and continuously produce carbon-14.
"Take the diagnosis and tracking of Helicobacter pylori as an example, the current annual demand for Helicobacter pylori testing in my country exceeds 30 million, and the market cannot be underestimated." Yu Kaizhi said that the major breakthroughs made by CNNC in the production of medical isotopes, It will effectively solve and alleviate the domestic carbon-14 isotope supply problem, and make new contributions to establishing a stable and independent medical isotope supply guarantee system and improving people's health.
In addition to making full use of existing nuclear power units to carry out comprehensive utilization of nuclear energy, CNNC also actively develops advanced nuclear energy systems through technological innovation, and expands more new scenarios for comprehensive nuclear energy utilization.
For example, on July 13, 2021, China National Nuclear Corporation's Hainan Changjiang Multipurpose Modular Small Reactor Technology Demonstration Project officially started construction, becoming the world's first onshore commercial modular small reactor to start construction.
Yu Kaizhi introduced that the "Linglong No. 1" (ACP100) technology is a multi-functional modular small pressurized water reactor type independently developed by China National Nuclear Corporation for more than 10 years and has independent intellectual property rights. It is characterized by miniaturization, modularization and integration. It can be used as a clean distributed energy source, and can meet the application needs of seawater desalination, district heating, industrial heating (cooling) and other fields while supplying power.
In the opinion of Wang Shoujun, chairman of the Chinese Nuclear Society, nuclear energy not only has the characteristics of zero-carbon emission of renewable energy, but also continues the characteristics of uninterrupted and stable service of fossil energy. It fits the energy needs of bulk manufacturing processes and should give full play to large-scale pressurized water reactors. , high-temperature gas-cooled reactors, modular small reactors, low-temperature heating reactors, etc., and closely combine the comprehensive energy consumption needs of the user side to establish a set of power supply, residential heating, industrial steam supply, hydrogen production, seawater desalination, isotope production, etc. The multi-energy complementary and multi-energy co-supply regional comprehensive energy system will inject nuclear energy into China's green and low-carbon development in the future.