Ducom 200, a new hybrid gas nuclear approach

Full text: Nowadays nuclear energy is facing an increasingly tough competition with other energy sources in many countries. Particularly, in places where gas is available at low prices, combined cycle gas turbine plants (CCGT) appear as formidable competitors against nuclear power plants. The relative cost composition of electric power is different in gas and nuclear generation. In the nuclear industry, operation and maintenance (O and M) and fuel costs are relatively low, while construction costs represent the major component of investment. On the other hand for the CCGT, fuel costs are higher than capital costs. Therefore, the existing relation between the price of gas and the capital cost of nuclear plants mostly determines the economic competitiveness between both technologies, which varies between regions. Recently, a technical analysis was presented in order to complement the advantages of gas turbines and nuclear power plants, leading to a great reduction in energy generation costs. This work presents a new proposal of gas-nuclear synergism, especially focused on the necessities of developing countries. These countries are usually interested in low and medium power nuclear reactors, for energy production and desalinisation. The proposed system is called DUCOM 200, and it has some advantages similar to combined cycle gas turbines, but using present generation LWR Nuclear power plants