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New laws offer nuclear industry incentives for existing power plant uprates
This year, the U.S. nuclear industry received a much-needed economic boost that could help preserve operating nuclear power plants and incentivize upgrades that extend their lifespan and power output.
Signed into law in 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act offers production tax credits (PTCs) for existing nuclear power plants and either PTCs or investment tax credits (ITCs) for new carbon-free generation. These credits could make power uprates—increasing the maximum power level at which a commercial plant may operate—a much more appealing option for utilities.
William E. Kastenberg
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 37 | Number 1 | July 1969 | Pages 19-29
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE69-A20895
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A general formalism for the determination of stability criteria by the method of comparison functions is derived for nuclear reactors whose system dynamics are governed by a coupled set of space-dependent nonlinear differential equations. The results obtained are applicable to the nonlinear multigroup diffusion equations with temperature feedback. A stability criterion for the nontrivial equilibrium state is presented in a theorem. In addition, two corollaries are presented for the particular cases of negative feedback. The criteria so obtained represent a measure of the “dissipative” forces as estimated by the eigenvalues of the linearized problem vs a measure of the “disruptive” forces caused by the feedback. If the net effect is dissipative then the system is asymptotically stable in the sense of Lyapunov. Two examples are presented to illustrate the formalism and use of the criteria. In the second example, a stability criteria for two-group theory with linear temperature feedback is derived directly from the equations of motion by this method.