How much electricity does a nuclear power plant produce

Q: How much energy does a nuclear power plant produce compared to coal?

Nuclear generates more than half of the countrys clean energy by using uranium instead of burning fossil fuels. Uranium is an abundant metal and is full of energy: One uranium fuel pellet creates as much energy as one ton of coal, 149 gallons of oil or 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas.

Q: Which nuclear power plant produces the most electricity?

Tokyo Electric Power Co.s (TEPCO) Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Japan is currently the worlds largest nuclear power plant, with a net capacity of 7,965MW.

What is nuclear energy?

Nuclear energy provides efficient and reliable electricity around the world. Today, more than 400 commercial reactors operate in more than 30 countries.

Table of Contents Show

Nuclear Energy Use and Potential
Energy and Environmental Impacts
Safety and Public Policy
How much does a nuclear power plant produce in a day?
How long does a nuclear power plant take to pay for itself?
How much energy does a nuclear power plant produce compared to coal?
Which nuclear power plant produces the most electricity?

The common definition for nuclear energy is the energy released by a chain reaction, especially by fission or fusion. Practically speaking, nuclear energy uses fuel made from mined and processed uranium to make steam and generate electricity.

Nuclear generation is the only source of electricity that can produce a constant supply of power – known as baseload power—reliably without emitting greenhouse gases.

Nuclear energy has one of the lowest environmental impacts on land and natural resources of any electricity source.

Nuclear Energy in the UAE

In the UAE, the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant, located in the Al Dhafra Region of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, is home to four reactors. Each reactor is designed to produce 1,400 megawatts (MW) of electricity with nearly zero carbon emissions.

Built to operate for 60 years or more, these reactors will provide efficient and reliable low-carbon electricity to the nation for generations to come. Once fully operational, the plant will prevent the release of more than 21 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year. This is equivalent to removing 3.2 million sedan cars from the UAE’s roads.

In 2016, ENEC established Nawah Energy Company, which is responsible for operating and maintaining the four reactors at Barakah. As the teams at both ENEC and Nawah prepare for the plant to transition from a construction project to an operating facility, they work to ensure that it meets the highest national and international standards of quality, and benefit from global operating experience.

How does it work?

A nuclear reactor produces electricity in much the same way other power plants do. The chain reaction produces the energy, which turns water into steam. The pressure of the steam turns a generator, which produces electricity.

The difference is in how the heat is created. Power plants that run on fossil fuels burn coal, oil or natural gas to generate heat. In a nuclear energy plant, heat is produced from splitting atoms – a process called nuclear fission.

Nuclear reactor creates heat that is used to make steam
The steam turns a turbine connected to an electromagnet, called a generator
The generator produces electricity

In a Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) – the type of reactor being built in the UAE – high pressure prevents water in the reactor vessel from boiling. The super-heated water is carried to a steam generator, which is made up of many small pipes. The heat in these pipes is used to turn a second, isolated, supply of water to steam, which is in turn used to drive the turbine. The water from the reactor is pumped back into the reactor vessel and reheated. The steam from the turbine is cooled in a condenser and the resulting water is sent back to the steam generator.

Uranium

Enriched uranium is the fuel for nuclear reactors. Uranium is an abundant, naturally radioactive element found in most rocks. As uranium breaks down or decays, it produces heat inside the Earth’s crust. A similar process generates heat inside a nuclear reactor.

Nuclear Fission

Fission is the process of splitting a nucleus in two.

Inside each uranium fuel pellet, there are millions of uranium nuclei. When these nuclei are split, a huge amount of energy is released. Some of this energy is from radiation, but the biggest source is kinetic energy. This is the energy that produces heat inside a reactor, which in turn is used to generate steam, and ultimately creates electricity.

Worldwide facts

For more than 60 years, nuclear energy has provided the world with reliable electricity. Today, more than 400 reactors are operating in more than 30 countries.

These plants generate around 10 percent of the world’s electricity without emitting greenhouse gases.

More nations are exploring the use of nuclear energy, particularly as electricity demand increases and concerns about climate change rise.

For more information, visit the following online resources:

International Atomic Energy Agency

World Nuclear Association (WNA)

World Association of Nuclear Operators

Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI)

Click here to download a printable version

Nuclear power plants generate electricity by using controlled nuclear fission chain reactions (i.e., splitting atoms) to heat water and produce steam to power turbines. Nuclear is often labeled a “clean” energy source because no greenhouse gases (GHGs) or other air emissions are released from the power plant. As the U.S. and other nations search for low-emission energy sources, the benefits of nuclear power must be weighed against the operational risks and the challenges of storing spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste.

Nuclear Energy Use and Potential

Nuclear energy provides about 19% of U.S. electricity, and this share has remained stable since around 1990. Nuclear power plants had a capacity factor of 92.7% in 2021.1
The first U.S. nuclear power plant began commercial operations in 1958.2 During the 1970s, more than 50 nuclear reactors went online.1 Presently, 28 states have at least one nuclear plant and 32 plants have two or more reactors.2
667 reactors have been built worldwide since the first was built in 1954 in Obninsk, Russia, though currently, there are only 440 in operation, 93 of which are in the U.S.3,4 As of May 2022, 55 reactors were under construction, including 2 in the U.S. and 18 in China.4
In 2020, the U.S. generated nearly a third of the world’s nuclear electricity. Countries generating the next largest amounts of electricity using nuclear were France, China, and Russia.5
Levelized cost of energy (LCOE) includes the lifetime costs of building, operating, maintaining, and fueling a power plant. Estimated LCOE for plants built in the near future are: combined cycle natural gas: 3.99 ¢/kWh; advanced nuclear: 8.17 ¢/kWh; and biomass: 9.02 ¢/kWh.6
Estimated LCOE for new nuclear plants built in the near future are about two times higher than estimates for solar, wind, and combined cycle natural gas plants.6
Final construction costs for U.S. nuclear plants have typically been 2 to 3 times higher than original estimates.7

U.S. Electricity Generation by Source1

Nuclear Fuel

Most nuclear reactors use “enriched” uranium, meaning the fuel has a higher concentration of uranium-235 (U-235) isotopes, which are easier to split to produce energy. When it is mined, uranium ore averages less than 1% U-235.8
The highest grade ore in the U.S. average less than 1% uranium, some Canadian ore is more than 15% uranium.9,10
1% of uranium available at reasonable cost is found in the U.S. The largest deposits are in Australia (28%), Kazakhstan (15%), Canada (9%), and Russia (8%).10U.S. nuclear plants purchased 21,183 mt of uranium in 2021. Fuel was imported mostly from Kazakhstan (35%), Canada (15%), Russia (14%) and Australia (14%).11
Globally, nuclear power reactors required 62,496 mt of uranium in 2022.4

Fission of Uranium-235 in a Nuclear Reactor

Largest Identified Uranium Resources10

Energy and Environmental Impacts

The nuclear fuel cycle is the entire process of producing, using, and disposing of uranium fuel. Powering a one-gigawatt nuclear plant for a year can require mining 20,000-400,000 mt of ore, processing it into 27.6 mt of uranium fuel, and disposing of 27.6 mt of highly radioactive spent fuel, of which 90% (by volume) is low-level waste, 7% is intermediate-level waste, and 3% is high-level waste.12,13 U.S. plants currently use “once-through” fuel cycles with no reprocessing.14,15

A uranium fuel pellet (~1/2 in. height and diameter) contains the energy equivalent of one ton of coal or 149 gallons of oil.16 Typical reactors hold 18 million pellets.17
Each kWh of nuclear electricity requires 0.1-0.3 kWh of life cycle energy inputs.18
Although nuclear electricity generation itself produces no GHG emissions, other fuel cycle activities do release emissions.19
The life cycle GHG intensity of nuclear power is estimated to be 34-60 gCO2e/kWh—far below baseload sources such as coal (1,001 gCO2e/kWh).19,20
Nuclear power plants consume 270-670 gallons of water/MWh, depending on operating efficiency and site conditions.21
Uranium is mostly extracted by open pit mining (16.1%), underground mining (20%) and in-situ leaching (ISL) (57.4%).10
For PWRs and BWRs most environmental impacts are caused by the extraction and production of fuel elements.23

Uranium Fuel Cycle12

Life Cycle GHG Emissions of Nuclear Power22

Nuclear Waste

The U.S. annually accumulates about 2,000 mt of spent fuel.24
During reactor operation, fission products and transuranics that absorb neutrons accumulate, requiring a third of the fuel to be replaced every 12-18 months. Spent fuel is 95% non-fissile U-238, 3% fission products, 1% fissile U-235, and 1% plutonium.12
Spent fuel is placed in a storage pool of circulating cooled water to absorb heat and block the high radioactivity of fission products.25
Many countries, though not the U.S., reprocess used nuclear fuel. The process reduces waste and extracts 25-30% more energy than non-reprocessed fuel.15
Many U.S. spent fuel pools are reaching capacity, necessitating the use of dry cask storage. Dry casks, large concrete and stainless steel containers, are designed to passively cool radioactive waste and withstand natural disasters or large impacts. In 2011, 27% of spent fuel was held in dry casks, after sufficient cooling in storage pools.26
Ten years after use, the surface of a spent fuel assembly releases 10,000 rem/hr of radiation (in comparison, a dose of 500 rem is lethal to humans if received all at once).14 Managing nuclear waste requires very long-term planning. U.S. EPA was required to set radiation exposure limits in permanent waste storage facilities over an unprecedented timeframe—one million years.27
The U.S. has no permanent storage site. Nevada’s Yucca Mountain was to hold 70,000 mt waste, but is no longer under consideration, mostly due to political pressure and opposition by Nevadans.28,29
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act required the U.S. federal government to begin taking control of spent nuclear fuel in 1998. When this did not occur, the government became liable for the costs associated with storage at reactor sites.30

Spent Commercial Nuclear Fuel, Metric Tons37

Safety and Public Policy

In 1986, a series of explosions occurred at the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine. Pieces of the reactor were ejected high into the atmosphere. The loss of water in the reactor allowed the fuel to heat to the point of core meltdown. 134 workers and emergency responders were diagnosed with acute radiation syndrome and 28 died within weeks.31
Radiation releases were highest in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia, lower in other parts of Europe. About 350,000 people were evacuated and/or permanently resettled, and a 1,000 square mile Chernobyl Exclusion Zone has been established to restrict public access. The number of long-term cancers and deaths are unknown, with most fatality estimates in the low thousands.31
On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake occurred near Fukushima, Japan. The resulting tsunami damaged the reactor cooling system, leading to 3 meltdowns and hydrogen explosions. No deaths or radiation sickness have been directly linked to the accident.32
Radiation releases were lower than from Chernobyl, and mostly deposited in the Pacific Ocean. About 150,000 people were evacuated. The long-term cancers and deaths are unknown, with most fatality estimates in the hundreds to very low thousands.32
The U.S. Price-Anderson Act limits the liability of nuclear plant owners if a radioactive release occurs to $450 million for individual plants and $13.5 billion across all plants.33
Incentives for new nuclear plants include insurance against regulatory delays, a production tax credit of 1.8¢/kWh of electricity generated and $10.9 billion for federal loan guarantees.34,35
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal allocated $6 billion for the Civilian Nuclear Credit program to prevent premature retirement of existing nuclear plants.36

Natural and Man-Made Exposures to Radiation38

Cite As

Center for Sustainable Systems, University of Michigan. 2021. "Nuclear Energy Factsheet." Pub. No. CSS11-15.

References

U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) (2021) Monthly Energy Review May 2021.
U.S. EIA (2021) “Nuclear Explained: U.S. Nuclear Industry.”
Carbon Brief (2016) “Mapped: The world’s nuclear power plants.”
World Nuclear Association (WNA) (2021) World Nuclear Power Reactors & Uranium Requirements.
U.S. EIA (2021) International Energy Statistics.
U.S. EIA (2022) “Levelized Cost and Levelized Avoided Cost of New Generation Resources in the Annual Energy Outlook 2022.”
Eash-Gates, P., et al. (2020) "Sources of Cost Overrun in Nuclear Power Plant Construction Call for a New Approach to Engineering Design." Joule, 4: 2348-2373
U.S. NRC (2020) “Uranium Enrichment.”
U.S. Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) & International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) (2012) Uranium 2011: Resources, Production, and Demand.
U.S. NEA & IAEA (2020) Uranium 2020: Resources, Production, and Demand.
U.S. EIA (2022) 2021 Uranium Marketing Annual Report.
WNA (2021) “Nuclear Fuel Cycle Overview.”
WNA (2021) “Radioactive Waste Management.”
U.S. NRC (2019) “Backgrounder on Radioactive Waste.”
WNA (2020) “Processing of Used Nuclear Fuel.”
Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) (2020) “Nuclear Fuel.”
WNA (2022) “Nuclear Power Reactors.”
Lenzen, M. (2008) “Life cycle energy and greenhouse gas emissions of nuclear energy: A review.” Energy Conversion and Management, 49: 2178-2199.
Norgate, T., et al. (2014) “The impact of uranium ore grade on the greenhouse gas footprint of nuclear power.” Journal of Cleaner Production, 84:360-367.
Whitaker, M., et al. (2012) “Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Coal-Fired Electricity Generation.” Journal of Industrial Ecology, 16: S53-S72.
Macknick, J., et al. (2011) A Review of Operational Water Consumption and Withdrawal Factors for Electricity Generating Technologies. U.S. DOE, National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Sovacool, B. (2008) “Valuing the greenhouse gas emissions from nuclear power: A critical survey.” Energy Policy, 36: 2940-2953.
Gibon, T., et al. (2017) "Life cycle assessment demonstrates environmental co-benefits and trade-offs of low-carbon electricity supply options." Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews, 76: 1283-1290
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) (2020) “5 Fast Facts about Spent Nuclear Fuel.”
U.S. NRC (2020) “Spent Fuel Storage in Pools and Dry Casks: Key Points and Questions & Answers.”
Werner, J. (2012) U.S. Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage. Congressional Research Service.
U.S EPA (2020) “Public Health and Environmental Radiation Protection Standards for Yucca Mountain, Nevada (40 CFR Part 197)”
U.S. DOE (2008) Analysis of the Total System Life Cycle Cost of the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Program, Fiscal Year 2007.
Los Angeles Times (2019) “Americans are paying more than ever to store deadly nuclear waste.”
U.S. DOE (2013) Strategy for the Management and Disposal of Used Nuclear Fuel and High Level Radioactive Waste.
WNA (2021) Chernobyl Accident 1986.
WNA (2021) Fukushima Daiichi Accident.
U.S. NRC (2019) Nuclear Insurance and Disaster Relief.
Holt, M. (2014) Nuclear Energy Policy. Congressional Research Service.
U.S. DOE (2021) “Advanced Nuclear Energy Projects Loan Guarantees.”
U.S. DOE (2021) DOE Fact Sheet: The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal Will Deliver For American Workers, Families and Usher in the Clean Energy Future
NEI (2021) “Used Fuel Storage and Nuclear Waste Fund Payments by State.”
U.S. EPA (2018) “Radiation Sources and Doses.”

How much does a nuclear power plant produce in a day?

For example, if the R.E. Ginna reactor operates at 582 MW capacity for 24 hours, it will generate 13,968 megawatthours (MWh). If the reactor generated that amount of electricity for 365 days, it would generate 5,098,320 MWh. However, most power plants do not operate at full capacity every hour of every day of the year.

How long does a nuclear power plant take to pay for itself?

"One of the big problems with nuclear power is the enormous upfront cost. These reactors are extremely expensive to build. While the returns may be very great, they're also very slow. It can sometimes take decades to recoup initial costs.

How much energy does a nuclear power plant produce compared to coal?

Nuclear generates more than half of the country's clean energy by using uranium instead of burning fossil fuels. Uranium is an abundant metal and is full of energy: One uranium fuel pellet creates as much energy as one ton of coal, 149 gallons of oil or 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas.

Which nuclear power plant produces the most electricity?

Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s (TEPCO) Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Japan is currently the world's largest nuclear power plant, with a net capacity of 7,965MW.