THE SOVIET ATOMIC POWER PROGRAM: LARGE OR SMALL,

Abstract

At the Twentieth Party Congress in January, 1956, a directive was given to 'build atomic power plants with a total capacity of 2,000,000 kw to 2,500,000 kw in 1956-1960.' When this order was published, observers in the West naturally questioned whether 'total' referred to the rated thermal or electrical capacity of the atomic power stations. The United States and British programs have been publicized in terms of how much electricity (or useful power) will be produced rather than what the total heat capacity of the power reactors might be. The latter figure would be more than three times the electrical rating, depending on the thermodynamic efficiency of the system. The dangers inherent in utilizing this ambiguous Soviet data are discussed.

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 01, 1957
Accession Number
AD0606374

Entities

People

  • Arnold Kramish

Organizations

  • RAND Corporation

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Capacitance
  • Congress
  • Directives
  • Efficiency
  • Electrical Impedance
  • Electrical Properties
  • Electricity
  • Heat Capacity
  • Military Publications
  • Nuclear Power Plants
  • Observers
  • United States

Readers

  • Energy Conservation and Renewable Energy Engineering.
  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.
  • Quantum spin resonance or Electron Paramagnetic Resonance spectroscopy.