Study of Co-generation system in sever environment

Nomura, Norio; Haga, Kazuo; not registered

High-temperature transpotable liquid-metal-cooled fast reactors are also expected as an energy source in sever environments such as lunar base. Only electricity has been considered as the energy supply system to the lunar base, however, both use of electricity and heat power (co-generation system) may offer better effective use of energy than only the electrification system is considered. In this report, the advantage of co-generation system based on a transpotable reactor examined to a usage in a lunar base. Two energy system diagrams on heat and electricity flows have been compared from the view point of total weight. One is the case of all electrification. The other (co-generation system) is the case in which the exhaust heat from the nuclear reactor is actively utilized to reduce the demand of electricity. A heat transport technique using a chemical process as the heat media is adapted for the latter. In the chemical system, hydrogen and carbon monoxide are formed from methane and steam by adding nuclear heat. Then the gases are transported through a pipe and changes to the original materials generating heat at the consuming spot. As the result of present study, it is clarified that the co-generation system has a possibility to have an advantage over the case of all electrification in total weight of system when the energy demand increase to MWe level. Finally, future R&D items ware mentioned to reduce the weight of this co-generation system and to increase the effectively.