RE:China from + -50GW early 2020 to 70GW by 2025 --> Impact?Hello Napalm,
Actually, your calculations are conservative, as well as those of Bambrough's. In a 1 GW PWR, the initial loading of uranium fuel is approximately three times that of steady state. In steady state, during the refueling cycle, approximately 1/4 of the fuel load is swapped out with fresh fuel every 12-18 months. The remainder is rearranged to a location in the core better suited to its remaining level of enrichment. This is because a common fuel assembly contain energy for approximately
4 years of operation at full power.
Therefore about one quarter of the core is removed every 12-18 months to spent fuel pool (i.e. about 40 fuel assemblies out of 157), while the remainder is rearranged to a location in the core better suited to its remaining level of enrichment
Your calculations were based on a steady state scenario, and do not factor in the initial fuel loading. If we have 20 newly constructed reactors from 2020 to 2025, roughly five per year, then each year will require an extra 3x 400K pounds, or 1.2M pounds. This alone requires 6M pounds/ yr for the initial fuel loading. If you add in the swapping of 1/4 of the total fuel load every 12-18, this simply adds to the total over the five years.