Location: IR - Iran (Islamic Republic of)
This dataset represents the production of high voltage electricity at a grid-connected nuclear pressure water reactor (PWR) in Iran in 2012.
It is a copy of the dataset 'electricity production, nuclear, pressure water reactor, CH, 1995-2002', i.e. of a dataset with data for a Swiss nuclear PWR. The basic source for all exchanges is therefore the ecoinvent report 'Kernenergie' (see Modelling and Administrative).
The average burnup 53 MWd/kg heavy metal of finally discharged fuel elements from the 2000/2002 fuel cycles has been assumed representative for the lifetime of the modeled plant (the burnup has increased from the initial about 33 MWd/kg heavy metal and may increase to 55 MWd/kg heavy metal in the future). The average burnup corresponds to an average enrichment of 4.2% U235 for fresh uranium fuel elements. Over the lifetime of the plant it can be assumed that 8% of the energy will be produced by MOX fuel elements. Of total fuel elements 92% are assumed to be from fresh U (thus burdened by the full upstream chain), and 8% MOX (burdened by reprocessing). For the calculation of the total net electricity delivered in 40 years lifetime, the sum of the actual production till 2002 and the prospective (8000 GWh/a) till end of life using is considered; this gives 3.11E11 kWh; the inverse gives the utilisation factor for the infrastructure. Partial information on material requirements during operation for 1991/1992 are available, which are integrated with relevant information for the modeled boiling water reactor. The diesel requirements for the yearly test of diesel emergency generators are accounted for. Radioactive emission species to air and water are weighted averages of the emissions of the nuclear power plants Gösgen and Beznau I+II from 1995 to 2002. Alpha aerosols emission to air have been described with 'aerosols, unspecified'. Considered radioactive waste streams are: spent fuel to reprocessing (40%) and conditioning (60%); operational low active waste for conditioning in the intermediate repository; and, contaminated waste from dismantling.
[This dataset is meant to replace the following datasets:]
Undefined unit processes (UPRs) are the unlinked, multi-product activity datasets that form the basis for all of the system models available in the ecoinvent database. This is the way the datasets are obtained and entered into the database by the data providers. These activity datasets are useful for investigating the environmental impacts of a specific activity (gate-to-gate), without regard to its upstream or downstream impacts.