Dual-Purpose Nuclear Power Plants for Military Installations

Preliminary studies conducted by the Facilities Engineering Support Agency indicate that the electrical power and recoverable waste heat from a 50-to 100-MW nuclear energy center could supply the future power and space conditioning requirements of a large military installation. The plant design under study is powered by a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) providing electrical energy and precooler effluent of sufficiently high temperature (200°C) for use in a pressurized water district heating network. The military installation was found to be an attractive candidate for utilization of waste heat and electrical power from a central plant because of its size, diversity of energy demand, and operational character. The HTGR system was shown to have an economic advantage over a comparable system using a pressurized water reactor. It is concluded that the nuclear total energy system is technically feasible and capable of serving the utility needs of military installations in the late 1980’s.