Nuclear power development

J. J. Taylor and E. E. Kintner, The Evolution of Self-Stabili yation in Nuclear Power Development 50 Years with NuclearFission, American Nuclear Society, La Grange, hi., 1989. 

Nuclear Pomr—Technical and Institutional Optionsfor the Future Report of National Academy Committee on Future Nuclear Power Development, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1992. 

The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 represented the interests of American scientists who wished to see nuclear energy developed for nonniilitai y purposes. It called for the establishment of a five-member civilian Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), which could deliver weapons to the military only on presidential order. But the militaiy tensions ot the early Cold War delayed civilian nuclear power development until 1948, at which time 80 percent of the AEC s budget went to militaiy ends. In 1951, U.S. civilian nuclear power development consisted of only a small experimental government (liquid metal) reactor in Idaho. 

Nuclear power developed unevenly across the globe. In 1987 the United States operated 110 of the... 

The 1970s were hard times for the nuclear industiy. The decade opened with the first Earth Day (April 22), which featured thousands of teaching events, many of them aimed at halting further nuclear power development, and ended with the accident at the Three-Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. In... 

There is now a marked pause in the construction and deployment of new nuclear power plants. Although some construction of reactors continues in Asia and Eastern Europe, a de facto moratorium exists in the United States and in most of Europe, while in Sweden and Gennany the governments plan to shut down operating plants before the end of their normal lifetimes. The inhibitions on nuclear power development stem in large measure from environmental concerns, particularly concerns relating to reactor accidents and nuclear wastes. 

When nuclear power advocates look for reasons to be hopeful, they find some justifiable optimism. The scientific community is widely supportive. When asked whether nuclear power development should proceed, 89 percent of all scientists and 95 percent of energy experts said yes. 16 The general public is also supportive, with various professional pollsters finding that 65 percent to 75 percent favor nuclear power.17 But turning this support into concrete actions is very difficult because the opposition is well organized, dedicated, and very vocal. 

The MHR-T refers to HTGR facilities representing one of the advanced areas of new-generation nuclear power development and having inherent safety feature. The technical concept is based on ... 

In the mid-2000s, the Iranian political relationship with the international community (and especially the United States) has become increasingly difficult. The Ahmedinejad regime has had regular verbal confrontations with OECD countries on issues ranging from nuclear power development to the existence of Israel. Should a reference to the UN Security Council, in relation to nuclear materials, lead to international sanctions being imposed on Iran, then most (if not all) substantial international investments in Iranian gas projects would become impossible. 

The experience from BN600 power generation shows BN600 to be reliable in control, safe and highly valuable for further commercial deployment of large fast reactor power plants at the current stage of nuclear power development. 

For the next few decades, saving of uranium resources by nuclear fuel breeding will not be of primary importance for countries with a significant nuclear power sector. This is caused by a number of factors, namely (a) accumulation of plutonium as a result of reprocessing of spent fuel of the operating NPPs (b) release of considerable amount of plutonium and enriched uranium owing to disarmament (c) decrease of uranium consumption in the military industry (d) slowing down of the rate of nuclear power development and (e) ready availability of fossil fuels (natural gas and oil). 

Some AGM participants pointed out that small reactor concepts which are currently developed are based on downsizing today s large reactor technology. They consider that die infrastructure necessary to support conventional nuclear power development is very expensive, and beyond the resources of most developing countries. A new innovative approach to system design is to be used to reduce the need for such an infrastructure. The efforts should be focused on the development of the reactor systems with joint consideration of the overall fuel cycle, waste issues proliferation, simplified operation, simplified and minimised system maintenance. Several organizations presented their preliminary studies on innovative small reactor concepts. 

When the last NS with the RI cooled by LBC was removed from the Navy, the specific phase of ship nuclear power development had been completed. The innovative nuclear power technology which could not be comparable with any other one in the world was demonstrated to our industiy. 

Reactor Plant Inspection Service UKAEA Risley Nuclear Power Development Laboratories Risley, Warrington, Cheshire... 

Since 1972 the Reactor Plant Inspection Service (RPIS) of the Risley Nuclear Power Development Laboratories has undertaken contractual inspection of Pressurised Water Reactor Pressure Vessels (RPV s) in Europe. At this time 11 major pre-service and in-service Inspections of RPV s have been made and two more are planned for 1985. In addition numerous other inspections, both conventional and specialist, of nuclear plant have been made in Europe and the United Kingdom. 

In accordance with the national program of nuclear power development, a complex of R D work is being carried out by the Russian design and scientific organisations on development of advanced power units of new generation with reactor plant WWER-lOOO/V-392. These units meet up-to-date national and international requirements for safety and economic efficiency of electric power production. Permission of the Gosatomnadzor RF has been issued for the construction of the forerunner unit of this design at Novovoronezh NPP site. 

Table 5 contains various strategies of Russian nuclear power development until 2010 and later. Practically all options of development until 2010 do not impose any problem with nuclear fuel. However, if the development of nuclear power is rather intensive until 2010 and this rate is maintained until 2030 (almost four times increase of NPP power level as compared to that of today), then the available fuel base will not be sufficient. 

Apparently, realization of this scenario of the nuclear power development in Russia after 2015 will require more extensive inculcation of fast reactors using their fundamental feature nuclear fuel breeding. 

Providing with fuel of different options of nuclear power development in Russia... 

All options of nuclear power development until 2010 are fully provided with the storehouse stocks of uranium. 

Humankind has already succeeded in the first stage of nuclear power development, i.e., electric power generation with fission reactors, especially with light water reactors (LWRs) obtaining excellent safety records. It has taken the latter half of the twentieth century since Dwight D. Eisenhower s speech Atoms for Peace. However, the issues concerning material conversion and treatment of nuclear waste have been left to this century. 

Nuclear power development was slowed down by discovery of new fossil fuel fields (mainly offshore deposits), appearance of new exploitation technologies, and introduction... 

After a long period of decline, renewed interest in nuclear power development is observed, which manifests itself so far in resumed efforts to step up construction of nuclear plants, mostly with the well-proven PWRs and BWRs. 

India has adopted a prime policy target of self reliance in nuclear power development, based on heavy water moderated reactors. Five units of the 220 MWe PHWR type are under construction and all are expected to be in operation by the year 1997. An additional four units of the same type and an extra four units of a scaled up 500 MWe type are planned. 

In the early years of nuclear power development, the cores of several research reactors in the US were deliberatedly damaged by experimental power excursions in order to study the behavior of the fission products under such conditions. To be sure, the characteristic data of these reactors, such as the nature of the nuclear fuel, the design of the safety installations, the construction of the buildings etc., showed great differences from that of modem power reactors so that the results are of only limited value for the assessment of severe accidents. However, certain qualitative impressions can be derived from these results, as can be seen from the summary paper of Smith (1981). 

ADAMOV, E.O., et al.. Self-consistent model of nuclear power development and fuel cycle, Atomnaia Energya, Vol. 86, No. 5 (1999) pp. 361-370 (in Russian). 

KIRYUSHIN, A.I., et al.. Operating experience and future development of fast sodium-cooled reactors, paper presented Conf. Prospect and problems of nuclear power development in Russian Federation and a number of ex-USSR states at XXI century threshold, 5-7 October 1990, St-Petersbuig, Russian Federation. 

VI-2] MITENKOV, F.M., PANOV, YU.K., POLUNICHEV, V.I., BELIAEV, V.M., The KLT-40S reactor system for the floating unit of the thermal power plant. The Strategy of Nuclear Power Development in Russia and Countries of the Asian-Pacific Basin (Paper presented at the scientific and technical conf, Moscow, 1998). [VI-3] MITENKOV, F.M., POLUNICHEV, V.I., Small nuclear heat and power co-generation stations and water desalination complexes on the basis of marine reactor plants, Nuclear Engineering and Design, Vol.173, Nos. 1-3, pp. 183-191 (1997). 

RUMYANTSEV, A., et al.. Comparison of the wide-scale nuclear power development concepts with expanded fuel breeding and without it from the viewpoint of minimizing the proliferation risk (Paper presented at Int. Workshop on Methodologies of Quantitative Assessment of Nuclear Fuel Cycle Proliferation Resistance, June 2003, Obninsk, Russia). 

Due to the current low costs of natural uranium and uranium enrichment, the use of uranium dioxide fuel with postponed reprocessing and spent fuel storage on the nuclear power plant site, are economically preferable for SVBR-75/100 at the moment. The duration of the benefits of this fuel cycle option depends on the available uranium resources and nuclear power deployment scale. In any case, the existing uranium resources are sufficient to achieve the realistic scenario of nuclear power development until the year 2050. The costs of natural gas could be expected to increase more intensively than the costs of natural uranium. This will ensure the NPP competitiveness even with a considerable increase in uranium prices, because the structure of electricity cost is different for NPPs and fossil-fuelled heat power plants. 

Past trend of nuclear power development and associated issues... 

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