Nuclear power for sustainable development: Current status and future prospects

Interest in nuclear power has been revived as a result of volatile fossil fuel prices, concerns about the security of energy supplies, and global climate change. This paper describes the current status and future plans for expansion of nuclear power, the advances in nuclear reactor technology, and their impacts on the associated risks and performance of nuclear power. Advanced nuclear reactors have been designed to be simpler and safer, and to have lower costs than currently operating reactors. By addressing many of the public health and safety risks that plagued the industry since the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, these reactors may help break the current deadlock over nuclear power. In that case, nuclear power could make a significant contribution towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, significant issues persist, fueling reservations among the public and many decision makers. Nuclear safety, disposal of radioactive wastes, and proliferation of nuclear explosives need to be addressed in an effective and credible way if the necessary public support is to be obtained.     

Lessons of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident for Sustainable Energy Generation: Creation of the Safety Culture in Nuclear Power Plants Around the World

Abstract

The world's sustainable energy generation depends on safe and un-interrupted operations of its nuclear power plants. Nuclear power constitutes a major source of energy for many countries and its electricity generation share is around 16%. As such, global security and sustainability are hostages to nuclear safety. Without nuclear safety, in this era of proliferating nuclear weapons, global security will be a dream; and in a world with 58 still operating Soviet-designed nuclear power reactors, sustainability will only be a mirage. According to a Russian official, all the commercial nuclear reactors operating on Russian territory are nothing better than “bombs temporarily generating electricity.” The share of energy generation of these reactors in their respective countries is rather significant; and in the short run, their closure and replacement are neither realistic nor economically feasible. Human and organizational factors play a vital role in the safety of complex, large-scale technological systems. Fortunately, these days, this fact has been almost universally recognized, although not necessarily fully incorporated into the operation, by the nuclear industry around the world. In order to improve the safety problems of nuclear power, we need to improve the safety culture of this industry and proactively address human and organizational-related factors. To keep the nuclear genie bottled around the world, we need genuine international cooperation and coordination among equipment manufacturers, operating companies, operators' unions, regulatory agencies, international organizations, scientific and research communities, and affected governments.     

Japan''s nuclear energy policy: from firm commitment to difficult dilemma addressing growing stocks of plutonium, program delays, domestic opposition and international pressure

Since 1956, Japan has been on a path to reduce its dependence on foreign energy sources through the development of nuclear power. This paper examines the origins of this commitment, the changing social issues and the current dilemma Japan faces regarding the future of its nuclear energy policy and its efforts to overcome the domestic and international pressures to ensure safety and security.

Galvanized by international initiatives and further motivated by the oil crises in the 1970s, Japan's commitment to develop a closed nuclear fuel cycle, one which reprocesses fuel from thermal reactors for use in advanced fast breeder reactors, has remained resolute. However, program delays, international security concerns over the plutonium, a weapons-grade nuclear material and one of the products of reprocessing, and increasing public opposition to various components of the Atomic Energy Commissions’ Long-Term Program for Development and Utilization of Nuclear Energy, have put pressure on the government to resolve these issues.

The commitment to develop the technology on one hand is commendable however it has contributed to the dilemma the Japanese nuclear industry now faces: a growing stockpile of plutonium and no readily available means of reducing it. With growing public involvement, finding a straightforward technology solution is increasingly difficult.

In 1995, an accident at Monju, one of the first prototype fast breeder reactors in Japan, prompted the Commission to initiate the first Roundtable Conference. The purpose of the Conference was to open the policy making process in an effort to determine a “national consensus” on nuclear energy. Further accidents and on-going opposition further slowed the implementation of the Program, however, in the latest Program, released in 2000, the Commission attempts to address these issues while building in a new style of flexibility in order to allow for greater options in the future.     

Enhanced CANDU reactor with heat upgrade for combined power and hydrogen production

Nuclear energy is considered a key alternative to overcome the environmental issues caused by fossil fuels. It offers opportunities with an improved operating efficiency and safety for producing power, synthetic fuels, delivering process heat and for multigeneration applications. The high-temperature nuclear reactors, although possess great potential for integration with thermochemical water-splitting cycles for hydrogen production, are not yet commercially established. Current nuclear reactor designs providing heat at relatively low temperature can be utilized to produce hydrogen using thermochemical cycles if the temperature of their thermal heat is increased. In this paper, a hybrid chemical-mechanical heat pump system is proposed for upgrading the heat of the Enhanced CANDU (EC6) reactor design to the quality required for the copper-chlorine (Cu–Cl) hybrid thermochemical water splitting cycle operating at 550–600 °C. A modification to the heat pump is proposed to bring the heat to temperature higher than 650 °C with operating coefficient of performance estimated as 0.65.     

Progress and utilization of small nuclear reactors

In this study, we encompass different designs of small reactors, making a review since the beginning of the concept in the military and academic research, to the actual designs; and the prospective of this kind of reactors in the development of the nuclear industry. Small reactors were developed many years ago and have been in operation since 1950, but now, there is an increasing interest in developing small reactors for different applications or co-generation including a large variety of reactor designs with features ranging in coolant, cycle type, fuel, and energy applications; and enhancing features such as nuclear inherent safety, passive safety, and proliferation resistance. The modularity of some of these reactors makes them also a possible choice for nuclear development of some countries with units manufactured off-site and possible scaling into multimodular plants. Different lines of small reactors and current status are reviewed in this work.     

The Pebble Bed Modular Reactor: An obituary

The High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR) has exerted a peculiar attraction over nuclear engineers. Despite many unsuccessful attempts over half a century to develop it as a commercial power reactor, there is still a strong belief amongst many nuclear advocates that a highly successful HTGR technology will emerge. The most recent attempt to commercialize an HTGR design, the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR), was abandoned in 2010 after 12 years of effort and the expenditure of a large amount of South African public money. This article reviews this latest attempt to commercialize an HTGR design and attempts to identify which issues have led to its failure and what lessons can be learnt from this experience. It concludes that any further attempts to develop HTGRs using Pebble Bed technology should only be undertaken if there is a clear understanding of why earlier attempts have failed and a high level of confidence that earlier problems have been overcome. It argues that the PBMR project has exposed serious weaknesses in accountability mechanisms for the expenditure of South African public money.     

Steps toward passively safe, proliferation-resistant nuclear power

After about a 30-year hiatus of construction in the US but not in all involved countries, the designs for an improved water-cooled nuclear reactor will hopefully be developed by a consortium of nuclear reactor builders and users under an agreement with the US Department of Energy (DOE) and review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The construction of high-temperature, helium-cooled pebble-bed or prismatic reactors may herald the entry of new, safer, and less costly types of reactors to replace the water-cooled reactors of the past and current types. Nuclear breeder reactors hold the promise of limitless energy supplies without the use of fossil fuels or renewables at acceptable costs but this development program has been stalled periodically, especially in the US, when abundant low-cost uranium sources were added to the supply side.     

Eliciting public preference for nuclear energy against the backdrop of global warming

One of the most important issues related to sustainability is to reduce the use of fossil fuels due to the reduction in greenhouse gases (GHG) emission. Nuclear power results in low carbon emissions and is thus important to mitigating the adverse effects of global warming and climate change. However, the downside of nuclear power cannot be overlooked, and consequently nuclear power is a controversial issue in many countries around the world. Thus an important question concerns how people should support nuclear power. Do the climate and energy security benefits of nuclear power outweigh its risks and costs? Therefore, we use a modified double-bounded contingent valuation model to explore the attitudes and the willingness to pay (WTP) of a country in order to demonstrate its implications for policy. We confirm that supporters and opponents of nuclear power are balanced both in terms of their numbers and in terms of their WTP. The policy implication is that people do not support any dramatic increase or reduction in nuclear power, and that nuclear power should still be an important means of generating electricity in Taiwan. The current share of nuclear power in electricity generation of 20% should be maintained in the near future.     

Climate change,energy security,and risk—debating nuclear new build in Finland,France and the UK

Concerns about climate change and energy security have been major arguments used to justify the recent return of nuclear power as a serious electricity generation option in various parts of the world. This article examines the recent public discussion in Finland, France, and the UK – three countries currently in the process of constructing or planning new nuclear power stations. To place the public discussion on nuclear power within the relationship between policy discourses and contexts, the article addresses three interrelated themes: the justifications and discursive strategies employed by nuclear advocates and critics, the similarities and differences in debates between the three countries, and the interaction between the country-specific state orientations and the argumentation concerning nuclear power. Drawing from documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews, the article identifies and analyses key discursive strategies and their use in the context of the respective state orientations: ‘technology-and-industry-know-best’ in Finland, ‘government-knows-best’ in France, and ‘markets-know-best’ in the UK. The nuclear debates illustrate subtle ongoing transformations in these orientations, notably in the ways in which the relations between markets, the state, and civil society are portrayed in the nuclear debates.     

The Japanese energy sector: Current situation,and future paths

As the world’s third leading economy and a major importer of fuels, the choice of future energy paths and policies that Japan makes in the next few years will have a significant influence on the energy security of the world as a whole, and of the Northeast Asia region in particular. In this article we describe the current status of and recent trends in the Japanese energy sector, including energy demand and supply by fuel and by sector. We then discuss the current energy policy situation in Japan, focusing on policies related to climate change targets, renewable energy development and deployment, liberalization of energy markets, and the evolution of the Japanese nuclear power sector. The final section of the article presents the structure of the Japan LEAP (long-range energy alternatives planning software system) dataset, describes several alternative energy paths for Japan – with an emphasis on alternative paths for nuclear power development and GHG emission abatement – and touches upon key current issues of energy policy facing Japan, as reflected in the modeling inputs and results.     

Generation IV material issues

Abstract

Generation IV (GenIV) nuclear power concepts have become an active research topic all over the world during the last five to ten years. There are six concepts accepted for the GenIV international forum (GIF) with the common aim to promote both efficiency and safety of reactor technology. Moreover, the issues of uranium sources and the use of closed fuel cycles are included in the discussion and concepts. Thus, the new concepts will offer attractive features but at the same time bring new and demanding challenges for the materials technology due to increased operating temperatures and irradiation doses as well as more aggressive coolants and/or longer life time expectations than those for plant operated today. In the present paper, an overview of the material issues is given with special emphasis on one of the concepts, namely the supercritical light water reactor.     

China's approach to nuclear safety — From the perspective of policy and institutional system

Nuclear energy plays an important role in the energy sector in the world. It has achieved a rapid development during the past six decades and contributes to over 11% of the world's electricity supply. On the other side, nuclear accidents have triggered substantial debates with a growing public concern on nuclear facilities. Followed by the Fukushima nuclear accident, some developed countries decided to shut down the existing nuclear power plants or to abandon plans to build new ones. Given this background, accelerating the development of nuclear power on the basis of safety in China will make it a bellwether for other countries. China assigns the top priority to the nuclear safety in nuclear energy development and has maintained a good record in this field. The policy and institutional system provide the necessary guarantee for the nuclear energy development and safety management. Furthermore, China's approach to nuclear safety provides a benchmark for the safe development and utilization of nuclear power. This research draws an overall picture of the nuclear energy development and nuclear safety in China from the policy and institutional perspective.     

SMRs – overview,international developments,safety features and the GRS simulation chain

The Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit (GRS) gGmbH as the main technical support organization for the German Federal Government in nuclear safety has been dealing with small modular reactors (SMRs) for about one decade since SMRs are one interesting option for new builds in most countries worldwide which continue to use nuclear energy for commercial electricity production. Currently four different SMR designs are in operation, four in construction, one is licensed, and further 12 are in a licensing process. In this paper, definitions, history, and current developments of SMRs are presented. Subsequently, selected trends of SMR development such as factory fabrication and transport, compactness and modularity, core design, improved core cooling, exclusion of accidents, features for preventing and limiting the impact of severe accidents, economic viability, competitiveness and licensing are discussed. Modeling gaps of the GRS simulation chain programs with a view to applications in nuclear licensing procedures are identified and a strategy for closing these gaps is presented. Finally, selected work on the extension and improvement of the simulation chain and first generic test analyses are presented.     

公共安全与低碳经济双重约束下的核能发展模式及路径研究

核能以其清洁、安全、持续、高效为人类提供了17%的能源供给。我国正处于工业化进程的关键时期,发展核能既是经济高速发展和能源安全的需要,也是保护生态环境、履行国际义务的需要。为了最大限度地保证核能安全、高效运行,各国都从技术研发投入,核能监管法制化、运作市场化,社会责任评估和风险预警机制以及公众宣传等方面进行模式创新。我国核能发展正面临着公共安全和低碳经济的双重约束,必须坚持"在确保安全的基础上高效发展核电"的方针,变"适当发展"为"积极发展"。需要改革核能管理体制;加大人才培养和联合研发力度;采取积极的产业政策,按市场规律盘活现有资金;建立社会影响评价和风险准备金机制;采取更为严格的标准重新评估所有核电站厂址安全,借鉴国际先进管理经验制定核电站的安全管理政策;评价和进一步加强在役及在建核电站的安全预警系统;做好公众核知识科普宣传工作,提高公众参与核能发展决策的意识以及对核事故的应急响应能力。     

Spent nuclear fuel policies in historical perspective: An international comparison

The purpose of this article is to explain why the world's nuclear power countries differ from each other with respect to their spent nuclear fuel (SNF) policies. The emergence and evolution of three principal SNF approaches are analyzed: direct disposal, reprocessing and SNF export. Five broad explanatory factors are identified and discussed in relation to the observed differences in policy outcomes: military ambitions and non-proliferation, technological culture, political culture and civil society, geological conditions, and energy policy. SNF policy outcomes can generally be seen to result from a complex interaction between these broad factors, but it is also possible to discern a number of important patterns. To the extent that the five factors may undergo far-reaching changes in the future, the historical experience of how they have shaped SNF policies also give a hint of possible future directions in SNF policymaking around the world.     

Nuclear energy development in China: A study of opportunities and challenges

With rapid economic development, China faces a great challenge to meet its increasing energy demand. Currently, China's energy supply is dominated by coal consumption, while natural gas and oil are in relative short supply. At the same time, nuclear energy is a relatively clean energy without green-house gas emissions. Considering the growing cost of fossil energy and the limited resources in China, oil supply security, coal mining disasters, the domestic environment pressure, and global climate warming, nuclear energy is an inevitable strategic option.     

核安全文化在核设备制造厂培育的实践与探索

培育“核安全文化”意识是核设备制造厂成功制造出满足核安全法规和用户要求的先决条件.培育“核安全文化”意识的实践过程并对正确认识和培育“核安全文化”提出了新的观点,供有关核设备制造厂和相关人员参考.     

Lessons of nuclear power French ‘success’ and the breeder

In an earlier article the author has argued that the turbulent history of nuclear power in Britain and the USA stems from the technology itself, and has little to do with the very different institutional arrangements made for the new technology in the two countries. Nuclear plant has various features which make its planning extraordinarily difficult. Its long lead time, large unit size, capital intensity and dependence on complex infrastructure combine to ensure that mistakes are likely to be made in planning the technology and that what mistakes do occur are expensive. This article aims to expand on the earlier one in two ways; by looking at the apparent success of the French nuclear programme which seems to run counter to the thesis of the earlier article, and by trying to draw lessons from the earlier analysis for the breeder reactor.     

Choosing a standard reactor: International competition and domestic politics in Chinese nuclear policy

China has ambitious plans to expand its nuclear power capacity. One of the policy goals that high-level policymakers have desired is to base the nuclear program on a standardized reactor design. However, this has not materialized so far. By examining its nuclear reactor choices for individual projects, we argue that China’s policymaking process has been greatly influenced by international competition and domestic politics. Multiple international nuclear vendors are intent upon maintaining their respective niches in the expanding Chinese reactor market, and they have used various forms of economic and political pressure to achieve their objectives. On the other hand, China’s policymaking process is fragmented and the shifting power balances among powerful domestic actors do not allow a fixed path to be followed. Further, because of the high costs and potential profits involved, nuclear reactor choices in China have been driven not just by technical considerations but also by foreign and trade policy objectives. All of these make it unlikely that China will standardize the reactor type it constructs in the near future.     

多样化驱动系统设计特点和多样性分析

多样化驱动系统（DAS）作为安全级保护系统的后备,通过采用与安全级保护系统不同的信号输入直至执行机构原理,降低了ATWS事件的发生概率,缓解了事故后果。从DAS功能需求、功能实现和系统架构等方面进行了新一代核电项目DAS的设计特点说明和多样性分析,为其它类似项目的 DAS设计提供参考。