The massive use of fossil fuel has caused huge carbon emission and serious air pollution in China. Now all kinds of alternative energy technology are developing rapidly to solve such problem in China. Electricity produced by non-fossil fuel energy is continued to increase sharply in China. But it’s hard for regular alternative energy, such as wind power, solar power, hydroelectricity power, nuclear power and so on, to easily provide process heat for industry, especially high temperature steam.
High temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR, sometimes also called HTR) is a kind of nuclear reactor, which are demonstrated very high efficiencies, safety and availability features by American and German power plant. HTR differs from water nuclear reactors by offering a high thermal efficiency for electricity generation and a high level of passive safety features. Now HTR-PM project is built in Shidao Bay of China. Moreover, HTR is the only nuclear reactor, which can provide high temperature steam comparing with other water nuclear reactors. So HTR can provide a versatile cogeneration solution for industry.
In this paper, a case was studied, how to provide heat for a refinery and petro-chemical plant with HTR. Firstly, the energy need of a typical large chemical plant in china was investigated. Steam supply diagram of an oil refinery plant, which produced 10 million tons oil products and 1 million tons ethylene in China, was calculated. Secondly, technical feasibility of energy providing by HTR cogeneration plant was discussed. Extraction steam from HTR system was designed for the chemical plant. It would meet the requirement of steam supply for chemical plant and would replace the captive power plant, where coal was burning. The balance of steam, enthalpy and temperature was calculated. At last, economic evaluation for such cogeneration plants was carried out. The steam supply cost from captive coal power plant and HTR cogeneration plant was compared. Some economical conclusion was made from the discussion.