essay on nuclear power plant

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• School Education /

Essay on Nuclear Energy in 500+ words for School Students 

• Updated on  
• Dec 30, 2023

Essay on Nuclear Energy: Nuclear energy has been fascinating and controversial since the beginning. Using atomic power to generate electricity holds the promise of huge energy supplies but we cannot overlook the concerns about safety, environmental impact, and the increase in potential weapon increase. 

The blog will help you to explore various aspects of energy seeking its history, advantages, disadvantages, and role in addressing the global energy challenge. 

Table of Contents

• 1 History Overview
• 2 Nuclear Technology 
• 3 Advantages of Nuclear Energy
• 4 Disadvantages of Nuclear Energy
• 5 Safety Measures and Regulations of Nuclear Energy
• 6 Concerns of Nuclear Proliferation
• 7 Future Prospects and Innovations of Nuclear Energy
• 8 FAQs 

Also Read: Find List of Nuclear Power Plants In India

History Overview

The roots of nuclear energy have their roots back to the early 20th century when innovative discoveries in physics laid the foundation for understanding atomic structure. In the year 1938, Otto Hahn, a German chemist and Fritz Stassman, a German physical chemist discovered nuclear fission, the splitting of atomic nuclei. This discovery opened the way for utilising the immense energy released during the process of fission. 

Also Read: What are the Different Types of Energy?

Nuclear Technology 

Nuclear power plants use controlled fission to produce heat. The heat generated is further used to produce steam, by turning the turbines connected to generators that produce electricity. This process takes place in two types of reactors: Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) and Boiling Water Reactors (BWR). PWRs use pressurised water to transfer heat. Whereas, BWRs allow water to boil, which produces steam directly. 

Also Read: Nuclear Engineering Course: Universities and Careers

Advantages of Nuclear Energy

Let us learn about the positive aspects of nuclear energy in the following:

1. High Energy Density

Nuclear energy possesses an unparalleled energy density which means that a small amount of nuclear fuel can produce a substantial amount of electricity. This high energy density efficiency makes nuclear power reliable and powerful.

2. Low Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Unlike other traditional fossil fuels, nuclear power generation produces minimum greenhouse gas emissions during electricity generation. The low greenhouse gas emissions feature positions nuclear energy as a potential solution to weakening climate change.

3. Base Load Power

Nuclear power plants provide consistent, baseload power, continuously operating at a stable output level. This makes nuclear energy reliable for meeting the constant demand for electricity, complementing intermittent renewable sources of energy like wind and solar. 

Also Read: How to Become a Nuclear Engineer in India?

Disadvantages of Nuclear Energy

After learning the pros of nuclear energy, now let’s switch to the cons of nuclear energy.

1. Radioactive Waste

One of the most important challenges that is associated with nuclear energy is the management and disposal of radioactive waste. Nuclear power gives rise to spent fuel and other radioactive byproducts that require secure, long-term storage solutions.

2. Nuclear Accidents

The two catastrophic accidents at Chornobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011 underlined the potential risks of nuclear power. These nuclear accidents can lead to severe environmental contamination, human casualties, and long-lasting negative perceptions of the technology. 

3. High Initial Costs

The construction of nuclear power plants includes substantial upfront costs. Moreover, stringent safety measures contribute to the overall expenses, which makes nuclear energy economically challenging compared to some renewable alternatives. 

Also Read: What is the IAEA Full Form?

Safety Measures and Regulations of Nuclear Energy

After recognizing the potential risks associated with nuclear energy, strict safety measures and regulations have been implemented worldwide. These safety measures include reactor design improvements, emergency preparedness, and ongoing monitoring of the plant operations. Regulatory bodies, such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in the United States, play an important role in overseeing and enforcing safety standards. 

Also Read: What is the Full Form of AEC?

Concerns of Nuclear Proliferation

The dual-use nature of nuclear technology raises concerns about the spread of nuclear weapons. The same nuclear technology used for the peaceful generation of electricity can be diverted for military purposes. International efforts, including the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), aim to help the proliferation of nuclear weapons and promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy. 

Also Read: Dr. Homi J. Bhabha’s Education, Inventions & Discoveries

Also Read: How to Prepare for UPSC in 6 Months?

Future Prospects and Innovations of Nuclear Energy

The ongoing research and development into advanced reactor technologies are part of nuclear energy. Concepts like small modular reactors (SMRs) and Generation IV reactors aim to address safety, efficiency, and waste management concerns. Moreover, the exploration of nuclear fusion as a clean and virtually limitless energy source represents an innovation for future energy solutions. 

Nuclear energy stands at the crossroads of possibility and peril, offering the possibility of addressing the world´s growing energy needs while posing important challenges. Striking a balance between utilising the benefits of nuclear power and alleviating its risks requires ongoing technological innovation, powerful safety measures, and international cooperation. 

As we drive the complexities of perspective challenges of nuclear energy, the role of nuclear energy in the global energy mix remains a subject of ongoing debate and exploration. 

Also Read: Essay on Science and Technology for Students: 100, 200, 350 Words

Ans. Nuclear energy is the energy released during nuclear reactions. Its importance lies in generating electricity, medical applications, and powering spacecraft.

Ans. Nuclear energy is exploited from the nucleus of atoms through processes like fission or fusion. It is a powerful and controversial energy source with applications in power generation and various technologies. 

Ans. The five benefits of nuclear energy include: 1. Less greenhouse gas emissions 2. High energy density 3. Continuos power generation  4. Relatively low fuel consumption 5. Potential for reducing dependence on fossil fuels

Ans. Three important facts about nuclear energy: a. Nuclear fission releases a significant amount of energy. b. Nuclear power plants use controlled fission reactions to generate electricity. c. Nuclear fusion, combining atomic nuclei, is a potential future energy source.

Ans. Nuclear energy is considered best due to its low carbon footprint, high energy output, and potential to address energy needs. However, concerns about safety, radioactive waste, and proliferation risk are challenges that need careful consideration.

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Deepika Joshi

Deepika Joshi is an experienced content writer with educational and informative content expertise. She has hands-on experience in Education, Study Abroad and EdTech SaaS. Her strengths lie in conducting thorough research and analysis to provide accurate and up-to-date information to readers. She enjoys staying updated on new skills and knowledge, particularly in the education domain. In her free time, she loves to read articles, and blogs related to her field to expand her expertise further. In her personal life, she loves creative writing and aspires to connect with innovative people who have fresh ideas to offer.

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Nuclear Power in a Clean Energy System

About this report.

With nuclear power facing an uncertain future in many countries, the world risks a steep decline in its use in advanced economies that could result in billions of tonnes of additional carbon emissions. Some countries have opted out of nuclear power in light of concerns about safety and other issues. Many others, however, still see a role for nuclear in their energy transitions but are not doing enough to meet their goals.

The publication of the IEA's first report addressing nuclear power in nearly two decades brings this important topic back into the global energy debate.

Key findings

Nuclear power is the second-largest source of low-carbon electricity today.

Nuclear power is the second-largest source of low-carbon electricity today, with 452 operating reactors providing 2700 TWh of electricity in 2018, or 10% of global electricity supply.

In advanced economies, nuclear has long been the largest source of low-carbon electricity, providing 18% of supply in 2018. Yet nuclear is quickly losing ground. While 11.2 GW of new nuclear capacity was connected to power grids globally in 2018 – the highest total since 1990 – these additions were concentrated in China and Russia.

Global low-carbon power generation by source, 2018

Cumulative co2 emissions avoided by global nuclear power in selected countries, 1971-2018, an aging nuclear fleet.

In the absense of further lifetime extensions and new projects could result in an additional 4 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions, underlining the importance of the nuclear fleet to low-carbon energy transitions around the globe. In emerging and developing economies, particularly China, the nuclear fleet will provide low-carbon electricity for decades to come.

However the nuclear fleet in advanced economies is 35 years old on average and many plants are nearing the end of their designed lifetimes. Given their age, plants are beginning to close, with 25% of existing nuclear capacity in advanced economies expected to be shut down by 2025.

It is considerably cheaper to extend the life of a reactor than build a new plant, and costs of extensions are competitive with other clean energy options, including new solar PV and wind projects. Nevertheless they still represent a substantial capital investment. The estimated cost of extending the operational life of 1 GW of nuclear capacity for at least 10 years ranges from $500 million to just over $1 billion depending on the condition of the site.

However difficult market conditions are a barrier to lifetime extension investments. An extended period of low wholesale electricity prices in most advanced economies has sharply reduced or eliminated margins for many technologies, putting nuclear at risk of shutting down early if additional investments are needed. As such, the feasibility of extensions depends largely on domestic market conditions.

Age profile of nuclear power capacity in selected regions, 2019

United states, levelised cost of electricity in the united states, 2040, european union, levelised cost of electricity in the european union, 2040, levelised cost of electricity in japan, 2040, the nuclear fade case, nuclear capacity operating in selected advanced economies in the nuclear fade case, 2018-2040, wind and solar pv generation by scenario 2019-2040, policy recommendations.

In this context, countries that intend to retain the option of nuclear power should consider the following actions:

• Keep the option open:  Authorise lifetime extensions of existing nuclear plants for as long as safely possible. 
• Value dispatchability:  Design the electricity market in a way that properly values the system services needed to maintain electricity security, including capacity availability and frequency control services. Make sure that the providers of these services, including nuclear power plants, are compensated in a competitive and non-discriminatory manner.
• Value non-market benefits:  Establish a level playing field for nuclear power with other low-carbon energy sources in recognition of its environmental and energy security benefits and remunerate it accordingly.
• Update safety regulations:  Where necessary, update safety regulations in order to ensure the continued safe operation of nuclear plants. Where technically possible, this should include allowing flexible operation of nuclear power plants to supply ancillary services.
• Create a favourable financing framework:  Create risk management and financing frameworks that facilitate the mobilisation of capital for new and existing plants at an acceptable cost taking the risk profile and long time-horizons of nuclear projects into consideration.
• Support new construction:  Ensure that licensing processes do not lead to project delays and cost increases that are not justified by safety requirements.
• Support innovative new reactor designs:  Accelerate innovation in new reactor designs with lower capital costs and shorter lead times and technologies that improve the operating flexibility of nuclear power plants to facilitate the integration of growing wind and solar capacity into the electricity system.
• Maintain human capital:  Protect and develop the human capital and project management capabilities in nuclear engineering.

Executive summary

Nuclear power can play an important role in clean energy transitions.

Nuclear power today makes a significant contribution to electricity generation, providing 10% of global electricity supply in 2018.  In advanced economies 1 , nuclear power accounts for 18% of generation and is the largest low-carbon source of electricity. However, its share of global electricity supply has been declining in recent years. That has been driven by advanced economies, where nuclear fleets are ageing, additions of new capacity have dwindled to a trickle, and some plants built in the 1970s and 1980s have been retired. This has slowed the transition towards a clean electricity system. Despite the impressive growth of solar and wind power, the overall share of clean energy sources in total electricity supply in 2018, at 36%, was the same as it was 20 years earlier because of the decline in nuclear. Halting that slide will be vital to stepping up the pace of the decarbonisation of electricity supply.

A range of technologies, including nuclear power, will be needed for clean energy transitions around the world.  Global energy is increasingly based around electricity. That means the key to making energy systems clean is to turn the electricity sector from the largest producer of CO 2 emissions into a low-carbon source that reduces fossil fuel emissions in areas like transport, heating and industry. While renewables are expected to continue to lead, nuclear power can also play an important part along with fossil fuels using carbon capture, utilisation and storage. Countries envisaging a future role for nuclear account for the bulk of global energy demand and CO 2 emissions. But to achieve a trajectory consistent with sustainability targets – including international climate goals – the expansion of clean electricity would need to be three times faster than at present. It would require 85% of global electricity to come from clean sources by 2040, compared with just 36% today. Along with massive investments in efficiency and renewables, the trajectory would need an 80% increase in global nuclear power production by 2040.

Nuclear power plants contribute to electricity security in multiple ways.  Nuclear plants help to keep power grids stable. To a certain extent, they can adjust their operations to follow demand and supply shifts. As the share of variable renewables like wind and solar photovoltaics (PV) rises, the need for such services will increase. Nuclear plants can help to limit the impacts from seasonal fluctuations in output from renewables and bolster energy security by reducing dependence on imported fuels.

Lifetime extensions of nuclear power plants are crucial to getting the energy transition back on track

Policy and regulatory decisions remain critical to the fate of ageing reactors in advanced economies.  The average age of their nuclear fleets is 35 years. The European Union and the United States have the largest active nuclear fleets (over 100 gigawatts each), and they are also among the oldest: the average reactor is 35 years old in the European Union and 39 years old in the United States. The original design lifetime for operations was 40 years in most cases. Around one quarter of the current nuclear capacity in advanced economies is set to be shut down by 2025 – mainly because of policies to reduce nuclear’s role. The fate of the remaining capacity depends on decisions about lifetime extensions in the coming years. In the United States, for example, some 90 reactors have 60-year operating licenses, yet several have already been retired early and many more are at risk. In Europe, Japan and other advanced economies, extensions of plants’ lifetimes also face uncertain prospects.

Economic factors are also at play.  Lifetime extensions are considerably cheaper than new construction and are generally cost-competitive with other electricity generation technologies, including new wind and solar projects. However, they still need significant investment to replace and refurbish key components that enable plants to continue operating safely. Low wholesale electricity and carbon prices, together with new regulations on the use of water for cooling reactors, are making some plants in the United States financially unviable. In addition, markets and regulatory systems often penalise nuclear power by not pricing in its value as a clean energy source and its contribution to electricity security. As a result, most nuclear power plants in advanced economies are at risk of closing prematurely.

The hurdles to investment in new nuclear projects in advanced economies are daunting

What happens with plans to build new nuclear plants will significantly affect the chances of achieving clean energy transitions.  Preventing premature decommissioning and enabling longer extensions would reduce the need to ramp up renewables. But without new construction, nuclear power can only provide temporary support for the shift to cleaner energy systems. The biggest barrier to new nuclear construction is mobilising investment.  Plans to build new nuclear plants face concerns about competitiveness with other power generation technologies and the very large size of nuclear projects that require billions of dollars in upfront investment. Those doubts are especially strong in countries that have introduced competitive wholesale markets.

A number of challenges specific to the nature of nuclear power technology may prevent investment from going ahead.  The main obstacles relate to the sheer scale of investment and long lead times; the risk of construction problems, delays and cost overruns; and the possibility of future changes in policy or the electricity system itself. There have been long delays in completing advanced reactors that are still being built in Finland, France and the United States. They have turned out to cost far more than originally expected and dampened investor interest in new projects. For example, Korea has a much better record of completing construction of new projects on time and on budget, although the country plans to reduce its reliance on nuclear power.

Without nuclear investment, achieving a sustainable energy system will be much harder

A collapse in investment in existing and new nuclear plants in advanced economies would have implications for emissions, costs and energy security.  In the case where no further investments are made in advanced economies to extend the operating lifetime of existing nuclear power plants or to develop new projects, nuclear power capacity in those countries would decline by around two-thirds by 2040. Under the current policy ambitions of governments, while renewable investment would continue to grow, gas and, to a lesser extent, coal would play significant roles in replacing nuclear. This would further increase the importance of gas for countries’ electricity security. Cumulative CO 2 emissions would rise by 4 billion tonnes by 2040, adding to the already considerable difficulties of reaching emissions targets. Investment needs would increase by almost USD 340 billion as new power generation capacity and supporting grid infrastructure is built to offset retiring nuclear plants.

Achieving the clean energy transition with less nuclear power is possible but would require an extraordinary effort.  Policy makers and regulators would have to find ways to create the conditions to spur the necessary investment in other clean energy technologies. Advanced economies would face a sizeable shortfall of low-carbon electricity. Wind and solar PV would be the main sources called upon to replace nuclear, and their pace of growth would need to accelerate at an unprecedented rate. Over the past 20 years, wind and solar PV capacity has increased by about 580 GW in advanced economies. But in the next 20 years, nearly five times that much would need to be built to offset nuclear’s decline. For wind and solar PV to achieve that growth, various non-market barriers would need to be overcome such as public and social acceptance of the projects themselves and the associated expansion in network infrastructure. Nuclear power, meanwhile, can contribute to easing the technical difficulties of integrating renewables and lowering the cost of transforming the electricity system.

With nuclear power fading away, electricity systems become less flexible.  Options to offset this include new gas-fired power plants, increased storage (such as pumped storage, batteries or chemical technologies like hydrogen) and demand-side actions (in which consumers are encouraged to shift or lower their consumption in real time in response to price signals). Increasing interconnection with neighbouring systems would also provide additional flexibility, but its effectiveness diminishes when all systems in a region have very high shares of wind and solar PV.

Offsetting less nuclear power with more renewables would cost more

Taking nuclear out of the equation results in higher electricity prices for consumers.  A sharp decline in nuclear in advanced economies would mean a substantial increase in investment needs for other forms of power generation and the electricity network. Around USD 1.6 trillion in additional investment would be required in the electricity sector in advanced economies from 2018 to 2040. Despite recent declines in wind and solar costs, adding new renewable capacity requires considerably more capital investment than extending the lifetimes of existing nuclear reactors. The need to extend the transmission grid to connect new plants and upgrade existing lines to handle the extra power output also increases costs. The additional investment required in advanced economies would not be offset by savings in operational costs, as fuel costs for nuclear power are low, and operation and maintenance make up a minor portion of total electricity supply costs. Without widespread lifetime extensions or new projects, electricity supply costs would be close to USD 80 billion higher per year on average for advanced economies as a whole.

Strong policy support is needed to secure investment in existing and new nuclear plants

Countries that have kept the option of using nuclear power need to reform their policies to ensure competition on a level playing field.  They also need to address barriers to investment in lifetime extensions and new capacity. The focus should be on designing electricity markets in a way that values the clean energy and energy security attributes of low-carbon technologies, including nuclear power.

Securing investment in new nuclear plants would require more intrusive policy intervention given the very high cost of projects and unfavourable recent experiences in some countries.  Investment policies need to overcome financing barriers through a combination of long-term contracts, price guarantees and direct state investment.

Interest is rising in advanced nuclear technologies that suit private investment such as small modular reactors (SMRs).  This technology is still at the development stage. There is a case for governments to promote it through funding for research and development, public-private partnerships for venture capital and early deployment grants. Standardisation of reactor designs would be crucial to benefit from economies of scale in the manufacturing of SMRs.

Continued activity in the operation and development of nuclear technology is required to maintain skills and expertise.  The relatively slow pace of nuclear deployment in advanced economies in recent years means there is a risk of losing human capital and technical know-how. Maintaining human skills and industrial expertise should be a priority for countries that aim to continue relying on nuclear power.

The following recommendations are directed at countries that intend to retain the option of nuclear power. The IEA makes no recommendations to countries that have chosen not to use nuclear power in their clean energy transition and respects their choice to do so.

• Keep the option open:  Authorise lifetime extensions of existing nuclear plants for as long as safely possible.
• Value non-market benefits:  Establish a level playing field for nuclear power with other low carbon energy sources in recognition of its environmental and energy security benefits and remunerate it accordingly.
• Create an attractive financing framework:  Set up risk management and financing frameworks that can help mobilise capital for new and existing plants at an acceptable cost, taking the risk profile and long time horizons of nuclear projects into consideration.
• Support new construction:  Ensure that licensing processes do not lead to project delays and cost increases that are not justified by safety requirements. Support standardisation and enable learning-by-doing across the industry.
• Support innovative new reactor designs:  Accelerate innovation in new reactor designs, such as small modular reactors (SMRs), with lower capital costs and shorter lead times and technologies that improve the operating flexibility of nuclear power plants to facilitate the integration of growing wind and solar capacity into the electricity system.

Advanced economies consist of Australia, Canada, Chile, the 28 members of the European Union, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey and the United States.

Reference 1

Cite report.

IEA (2019), Nuclear Power in a Clean Energy System , IEA, Paris https://www.iea.org/reports/nuclear-power-in-a-clean-energy-system, Licence: CC BY 4.0

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• ENVIRONMENT

What is nuclear energy and is it a viable resource?

Nuclear energy's future as an electricity source may depend on scientists' ability to make it cheaper and safer.

Nuclear power is generated by splitting atoms to release the energy held at the core, or nucleus, of those atoms. This process, nuclear fission, generates heat that is directed to a cooling agent—usually water. The resulting steam spins a turbine connected to a generator, producing electricity.

About 450 nuclear reactors provide about 11 percent of the world's electricity. The countries generating the most nuclear power are, in order, the United States, France, China, Russia, and South Korea.

The most common fuel for nuclear power is uranium, an abundant metal found throughout the world. Mined uranium is processed into U-235, an enriched version used as fuel in nuclear reactors because its atoms can be split apart easily.

In a nuclear reactor, neutrons—subatomic particles that have no electric charge—collide with atoms, causing them to split. That collision—called nuclear fission—releases more neutrons that react with more atoms, creating a chain reaction. A byproduct of nuclear reactions, plutonium , can also be used as nuclear fuel.

Types of nuclear reactors

In the U.S. most nuclear reactors are either boiling water reactors , in which the water is heated to the boiling point to release steam, or pressurized water reactors , in which the pressurized water does not boil but funnels heat to a secondary water supply for steam generation. Other types of nuclear power reactors include gas-cooled reactors, which use carbon dioxide as the cooling agent and are used in the U.K., and fast neutron reactors, which are cooled by liquid sodium.

Nuclear energy history

The idea of nuclear power began in the 1930s , when physicist Enrico Fermi first showed that neutrons could split atoms. Fermi led a team that in 1942 achieved the first nuclear chain reaction, under a stadium at the University of Chicago. This was followed by a series of milestones in the 1950s: the first electricity produced from atomic energy at Idaho's Experimental Breeder Reactor I in 1951; the first nuclear power plant in the city of Obninsk in the former Soviet Union in 1954; and the first commercial nuclear power plant in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, in 1957. ( Take our quizzes about nuclear power and see how much you've learned: for Part I, go here ; for Part II, go here .)

Nuclear power, climate change, and future designs

Nuclear power isn't considered renewable energy , given its dependence on a mined, finite resource, but because operating reactors do not emit any of the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming , proponents say it should be considered a climate change solution . National Geographic emerging explorer Leslie Dewan, for example, wants to resurrect the molten salt reactor , which uses liquid uranium dissolved in molten salt as fuel, arguing it could be safer and less costly than reactors in use today.

Others are working on small modular reactors that could be portable and easier to build. Innovations like those are aimed at saving an industry in crisis as current nuclear plants continue to age and new ones fail to compete on price with natural gas and renewable sources such as wind and solar.

The holy grail for the future of nuclear power involves nuclear fusion, which generates energy when two light nuclei smash together to form a single, heavier nucleus. Fusion could deliver more energy more safely and with far less harmful radioactive waste than fission, but just a small number of people— including a 14-year-old from Arkansas —have managed to build working nuclear fusion reactors. Organizations such as ITER in France and Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics are working on commercially viable versions, which so far remain elusive.

Nuclear power risks

When arguing against nuclear power, opponents point to the problems of long-lived nuclear waste and the specter of rare but devastating nuclear accidents such as those at Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima Daiichi in 2011 . The deadly Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine happened when flawed reactor design and human error caused a power surge and explosion at one of the reactors. Large amounts of radioactivity were released into the air, and hundreds of thousands of people were forced from their homes . Today, the area surrounding the plant—known as the Exclusion Zone—is open to tourists but inhabited only by the various wildlife species, such as gray wolves , that have since taken over .

In the case of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi, the aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami caused the plant's catastrophic failures. Several years on, the surrounding towns struggle to recover, evacuees remain afraid to return , and public mistrust has dogged the recovery effort, despite government assurances that most areas are safe.

Other accidents, such as the partial meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island in 1979, linger as terrifying examples of nuclear power's radioactive risks. The Fukushima disaster in particular raised questions about safety of power plants in seismic zones, such as Armenia's Metsamor power station.

Other issues related to nuclear power include where and how to store the spent fuel, or nuclear waste, which remains dangerously radioactive for thousands of years. Nuclear power plants, many of which are located on or near coasts because of the proximity to water for cooling, also face rising sea levels and the risk of more extreme storms due to climate change.

Related Topics

• NUCLEAR ENERGY
• NUCLEAR WEAPONS
• TOXIC WASTE
• RENEWABLE ENERGY

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The 3,122-megawatt Civaux Nuclear Power Plant in France, which opened in 1997. GUILLAUME SOUVANT / AFP / Getty Images

Why Nuclear Power Must Be Part of the Energy Solution

By Richard Rhodes • July 19, 2018

Many environmentalists have opposed nuclear power, citing its dangers and the difficulty of disposing of its radioactive waste. But a Pulitzer Prize-winning author argues that nuclear is safer than most energy sources and is needed if the world hopes to radically decrease its carbon emissions. 

In the late 16th century, when the increasing cost of firewood forced ordinary Londoners to switch reluctantly to coal, Elizabethan preachers railed against a fuel they believed to be, literally, the Devil’s excrement. Coal was black, after all, dirty, found in layers underground — down toward Hell at the center of the earth — and smelled strongly of sulfur when it burned. Switching to coal, in houses that usually lacked chimneys, was difficult enough; the clergy’s outspoken condemnation, while certainly justified environmentally, further complicated and delayed the timely resolution of an urgent problem in energy supply.

For too many environmentalists concerned with global warming, nuclear energy is today’s Devil’s excrement. They condemn it for its production and use of radioactive fuels and for the supposed problem of disposing of its waste. In my judgment, their condemnation of this efficient, low-carbon source of baseload energy is misplaced. Far from being the Devil’s excrement, nuclear power can be, and should be, one major component of our rescue from a hotter, more meteorologically destructive world.

Like all energy sources, nuclear power has advantages and disadvantages. What are nuclear power’s benefits? First and foremost, since it produces energy via nuclear fission rather than chemical burning, it generates baseload electricity with no output of carbon, the villainous element of global warming. Switching from coal to natural gas is a step toward decarbonizing, since burning natural gas produces about half the carbon dioxide of burning coal. But switching from coal to nuclear power is radically decarbonizing, since nuclear power plants release greenhouse gases only from the ancillary use of fossil fuels during their construction, mining, fuel processing, maintenance, and decommissioning — about as much as solar power does, which is about 4 to 5 percent as much as a natural gas-fired power plant.

Nuclear power releases less radiation into the environment than any other major energy source.

Second, nuclear power plants operate at much higher capacity factors than renewable energy sources or fossil fuels. Capacity factor is a measure of what percentage of the time a power plant actually produces energy. It’s a problem for all intermittent energy sources. The sun doesn’t always shine, nor the wind always blow, nor water always fall through the turbines of a dam.

In the United States in 2016, nuclear power plants, which generated almost 20 percent of U.S. electricity, had an average capacity factor of 92.3 percent , meaning they operated at full power on 336 out of 365 days per year. (The other 29 days they were taken off the grid for maintenance.) In contrast , U.S. hydroelectric systems delivered power 38.2 percent of the time (138 days per year), wind turbines 34.5 percent of the time (127 days per year) and solar electricity arrays only 25.1 percent of the time (92 days per year). Even plants powered with coal or natural gas only generate electricity about half the time for reasons such as fuel costs and seasonal and nocturnal variations in demand. Nuclear is a clear winner on reliability.

Third, nuclear power releases less radiation into the environment than any other major energy source. This statement will seem paradoxical to many readers, since it’s not commonly known that non-nuclear energy sources release any radiation into the environment. They do. The worst offender is coal, a mineral of the earth’s crust that contains a substantial volume of the radioactive elements uranium and thorium. Burning coal gasifies its organic materials, concentrating its mineral components into the remaining waste, called fly ash. So much coal is burned in the world and so much fly ash produced that coal is actually the major source of radioactive releases into the environment. 

Anti-nuclear activists protest the construction of a nuclear power station in Seabrook, New Hampshire in 1977.  AP Photo

In the early 1950s, when the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission believed high-grade uranium ores to be in short supply domestically, it considered extracting uranium for nuclear weapons from the abundant U.S. supply of fly ash from coal burning. In 2007, China began exploring such extraction, drawing on a pile of some 5.3 million metric tons of brown-coal fly ash at Xiaolongtang in Yunnan. The Chinese ash averages about 0.4 pounds of triuranium octoxide (U3O8), a uranium compound, per metric ton. Hungary and South Africa are also exploring uranium extraction from coal fly ash. 

What are nuclear’s downsides? In the public’s perception, there are two, both related to radiation: the risk of accidents, and the question of disposal of nuclear waste.

There have been three large-scale accidents involving nuclear power reactors since the onset of commercial nuclear power in the mid-1950s: Three-Mile Island in Pennsylvania, Chernobyl in Ukraine, and Fukushima in Japan.

Studies indicate even the worst possible accident at a nuclear plant is less destructive than other major industrial accidents.

The partial meltdown of the Three-Mile Island reactor in March 1979, while a disaster for the owners of the Pennsylvania plant, released only a minimal quantity of radiation to the surrounding population. According to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission :

“The approximately 2 million people around TMI-2 during the accident are estimated to have received an average radiation dose of only about 1 millirem above the usual background dose. To put this into context, exposure from a chest X-ray is about 6 millirem and the area’s natural radioactive background dose is about 100-125 millirem per year… In spite of serious damage to the reactor, the actual release had negligible effects on the physical health of individuals or the environment.”

The explosion and subsequent burnout of a large graphite-moderated, water-cooled reactor at Chernobyl in 1986 was easily the worst nuclear accident in history. Twenty-nine disaster relief workers died of acute radiation exposure in the immediate aftermath of the accident. In the subsequent three decades, UNSCEAR — the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, composed of senior scientists from 27 member states — has observed and reported at regular intervals on the health effects of the Chernobyl accident. It has identified no long-term health consequences to populations exposed to Chernobyl fallout except for thyroid cancers in residents of Belarus, Ukraine and western Russia who were children or adolescents at the time of the accident, who drank milk contaminated with 131iodine, and who were not evacuated. By 2008, UNSCEAR had attributed some 6,500 excess cases of thyroid cancer in the Chernobyl region to the accident, with 15 deaths.  The occurrence of these cancers increased dramatically from 1991 to 1995, which researchers attributed mostly to radiation exposure. No increase occurred in adults.

The Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, located near Avila Beach, California, will be decommissioned starting in 2024. Pacific Gas and Electric

“The average effective doses” of radiation from Chernobyl, UNSCEAR also concluded , “due to both external and internal exposures, received by members of the general public during 1986-2005 [were] about 30 mSv for the evacuees, 1 mSv for the residents of the former Soviet Union, and 0.3 mSv for the populations of the rest of Europe.”  A sievert is a measure of radiation exposure, a millisievert is one-one-thousandth of a sievert. A full-body CT scan delivers about 10-30 mSv. A U.S. resident receives an average background radiation dose, exclusive of radon, of about 1 mSv per year.

The statistics of Chernobyl irradiations cited here are so low that they must seem intentionally minimized to those who followed the extensive media coverage of the accident and its aftermath. Yet they are the peer-reviewed products of extensive investigation by an international scientific agency of the United Nations. They indicate that even the worst possible accident at a nuclear power plant — the complete meltdown and burnup of its radioactive fuel — was yet far less destructive than other major industrial accidents across the past century. To name only two: Bhopal, in India, where at least 3,800 people died immediately and many thousands more were sickened when 40 tons of methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a pesticide plant; and Henan Province, in China, where at least 26,000 people drowned following the failure of a major hydroelectric dam in a typhoon. “Measured as early deaths per electricity units produced by the Chernobyl facility (9 years of operation, total electricity production of 36 GWe-years, 31 early deaths) yields 0.86 death/GWe-year),” concludes Zbigniew Jaworowski, a physician and former UNSCEAR chairman active during the Chernobyl accident. “This rate is lower than the average fatalities from [accidents involving] a majority of other energy sources. For example, the Chernobyl rate is nine times lower than the death rate from liquefied gas… and 47 times lower than from hydroelectric stations.” 

Nuclear waste disposal, although a continuing political problem, is not any longer a technological problem.

The accident in Japan at Fukushima Daiichi in March 2011 followed a major earthquake and tsunami. The tsunami flooded out the power supply and cooling systems of three power reactors, causing them to melt down and explode, breaching their confinement. Although 154,000 Japanese citizens were evacuated from a 12-mile exclusion zone around the power station, radiation exposure beyond the station grounds was limited. According to the report submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency in June 2011:

“No harmful health effects were found in 195,345 residents living in the vicinity of the plant who were screened by the end of May 2011. All the 1,080 children tested for thyroid gland exposure showed results within safe limits. By December, government health checks of some 1,700 residents who were evacuated from three municipalities showed that two-thirds received an external radiation dose within the normal international limit of 1 mSv/year, 98 percent were below 5 mSv/year, and 10 people were exposed to more than 10 mSv… [There] was no major public exposure, let alone deaths from radiation.” 

Nuclear waste disposal, although a continuing political problem in the U.S., is not any longer a technological problem. Most U.S. spent fuel, more than 90 percent of which could be recycled to extend nuclear power production by hundreds of years, is stored at present safely in impenetrable concrete-and-steel dry casks on the grounds of operating reactors, its radiation slowly declining. 

An activist in March 2017 demanding closure of the Fessenheim Nuclear Power Plant in France. Authorities announced in April that they will close the facility by 2020. SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP / Getty Images

The U.S. Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, New Mexico currently stores low-level and transuranic military waste and could store commercial nuclear waste in a 2-kilometer thick bed of crystalline salt, the remains of an ancient sea. The salt formation extends from southern New Mexico all the way northeast to southwestern Kansas. It could easily accommodate the entire world’s nuclear waste for the next thousand years.

Finland is even further advanced in carving out a permanent repository in granite bedrock 400 meters under Olkiluoto, an island in the Baltic Sea off the nation’s west coast. It expects to begin permanent waste storage in 2023.

A final complaint against nuclear power is that it costs too much. Whether or not nuclear power costs too much will ultimately be a matter for markets to decide, but there is no question that a full accounting of the external costs of different energy systems would find nuclear cheaper than coal or natural gas. 

Nuclear power is not the only answer to the world-scale threat of global warming. Renewables have their place; so, at least for leveling the flow of electricity when renewables vary, does natural gas. But nuclear deserves better than the anti-nuclear prejudices and fears that have plagued it. It isn’t the 21st century’s version of the Devil’s excrement. It’s a valuable, even an irreplaceable, part of the solution to the greatest energy threat in the history of humankind.

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Nuclear power and climate change: Decarbonization

With the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015, almost all Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreed to prepare nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to control GHG emissions and limit the increase of global mean surface temperature by the end of the century to below 2°C relative to pre-industrial levels. Since then, increasing scientific understanding of the significant risks associated with warming of 2°C, along with increasing societal concern, have established the need for more urgent and ambitious action to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, by limiting warming to 1.5°C.

To reach this goal, carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions from electricity generation must fall to nearly zero by the middle of this century, even as electricity needs worldwide continue to grow and expand in end-uses such as transportation, heating and industrial energy use.

Nuclear power is a low-carbon source of energy. In 2018, nuclear power produced about 10 percent of the world’s electricity. Together with the expanding renewable energy sources and fuel switching from coal to gas, higher nuclear power production contributed to the levelling of global CO 2 emissions at 33 gigatonnes in 2019 1/ . Clearly, nuclear power – as a dispatchable low carbon source of electricity – can play a key role in the transition to a clean energy future.

As part of the capacity building process for energy system analysis and planning , the IAEA provides assistance to Member States for the evaluation of the role of nuclear energy in national climate change mitigation strategies through the Technical Cooperation programme and Coordinated Research Projects . For this purpose, a comprehensive set of IAEA tools and methodologies are available to Member States.

__________ 1/ Articles on global CO 2 emissions in 2019

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Nuclear Energy

Explore global data on nuclear energy production and the safety of nuclear technologies..

As the world attempts to transition its energy systems away from fossil fuels towards low-carbon energy sources, we have a range of energy options: renewable energy technologies such as hydropower, wind, and solar, as well as nuclear power. Nuclear energy and renewable technologies typically emit very little CO 2 per unit of energy production and are also much better than fossil fuels at limiting local air pollution.

However, while some countries invest heavily in increasing their nuclear energy supply, others are shutting down their plants. Therefore, nuclear energy's role in the energy system is very specific to each country.

How much of our energy comes from nuclear power? How is its role changing over time? In this article, we look at levels and changes in nuclear energy generation worldwide and its safety record in comparison to other sources of energy.

Nuclear energy generation

Global generation of nuclear energy.

Nuclear energy – alongside hydropower – is one of our oldest low-carbon energy technologies.

Nuclear power generation has existed since the 1960s but saw massive growth globally in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. The interactive chart shows how global nuclear generation has changed over the past half-century.

Following fast growth during the 1970s to 1990s, global generation has slowed significantly. In fact, we see a sharp dip in nuclear output following the Fukushima tsunami in Japan in 2011 [we look at the impacts of this disaster later in this article] , as countries took plants offline due to safety concerns.

But we also see that production has once again increased in recent years.

Nuclear energy generation by country

The global trend in nuclear energy generation masks the large differences in its role at the country level.

Some countries get no energy from nuclear — or aim to eliminate it completely — while others get most of their power from it.

This interactive chart shows the amount of nuclear energy generated by country. France, the USA, China, Russia, and South Korea all produce relatively large amounts of nuclear power.

Nuclear in the energy and electricity mix

What share of primary energy comes from nuclear.

We previously considered nuclear output in terms of energy units — how much each country produces in terawatt-hours. However, to understand how large a role nuclear plays in the energy system, we need to consider total energy consumption.

This interactive chart shows the share of primary energy that comes from nuclear sources.

Note that this data is based on primary energy calculated by the 'substitution method', which attempts to correct for the inefficiencies in fossil fuel production. It does this by converting non-fossil fuel sources to their 'input equivalents': the amount of primary energy that would be required to produce the same amount of energy if it came from fossil fuels. Here, we describe this adjustment in more detail.

In 2019, just over 4% of global primary energy came from nuclear power.

Note that this is based on nuclear energy's share in the energy mix. Energy consumption represents the sum of electricity, transport, and heating. We look at the electricity mix below.

What share of electricity comes from nuclear?

In the section above, we examined the role of nuclear power in the total energy mix, which includes electricity, transport, and heating. Electricity is only one component of energy consumption.

Since transport and heating tend to be harder to decarbonize – they are more reliant on oil and gas – nuclear and renewables tend to have a higher share in the electricity mix versus the total energy mix.

This interactive chart shows the share of electricity that comes from nuclear sources.

Globally, around 10% of our electricity comes from nuclear power. However, some countries, such as Belgium, France, and Ukraine, rely heavily on it.

Safety of nuclear energy

Energy has been critical to the human progress we’ve seen over the last few centuries. As the United Nations rightly says , “Energy is central to nearly every major challenge and opportunity the world faces today.”

But while energy brings us massive benefits, it’s not without its downsides. Energy production can negatively impact human health and the environment in three ways.

The first is air pollution : millions of people die prematurely every year as a result of air pollution . Fossil fuels and the burning of biomass – wood, dung, and charcoal – are responsible for most of those deaths.

The second is accidents . This includes accidents that happen in the mining and extraction of fuels — coal, uranium, rare metals, oil, and gas — as well as accidents that occur in transporting raw materials and infrastructure, constructing power plants, or maintaining them.

The third is greenhouse gas emissions : fossil fuels are the main source of greenhouse gases, the primary driver of climate change. In 2020, 91% of global CO 2 emissions came from fossil fuels and industry. 1

No energy source is completely safe. All have short-term impacts on human health, either through air pollution or accidents, and they all have long-term impacts by contributing to climate change.

But, their contribution to each differs enormously. Fossil fuels are both the dirtiest and most dangerous in the short term and emit the most greenhouse gases per unit of energy. Thankfully, this means there are no trade-offs here: low-carbon energy sources are also the safest. From the perspective of both human health and climate change, it matters less whether we transition to nuclear power or renewable energy and more that we stop relying on fossil fuels.

Nuclear and renewables are far, far safer than fossil fuels

Before we consider the long-term impacts of climate change, let’s look at how each source stacks up in terms of short-term health risks.

To make these comparisons fair, we can’t just look at the total deaths from each source: fossil fuels still dominate our global electricity mix, so we would expect that they would kill more people.

Instead, we compare them based on the estimated number of deaths they cause per unit of electricity . This is measured in terawatt-hours. One terawatt-hour is about the same as the annual electricity consumption of 150,000 citizens in the European Union. 2

This includes deaths from air pollution and accidents in the supply chain. 3

Let’s look at this comparison in the chart. Fossil fuels and biomass kill many more people than nuclear and modern renewables per unit of electricity. Coal is, by far, the dirtiest.

Even then, these estimates for fossil fuels are likely to be very conservative. They are based on power plants in Europe, which have good pollution controls, and older models of the health impacts of air pollution. As I discuss in more detail at the end of this article, global death rates from fossil fuels based on the most recent research on air pollution are likely to be even higher.

Our perceptions of the safety of nuclear energy are strongly influenced by two accidents: Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986 and Fukushima in Japan in 2011. These were tragic events. However, compared to the millions that die from fossil fuels every year , the final death tolls were very low. To calculate the death rates used here, I assume a death toll of 433 from Chernobyl and 2,314 from Fukushima. 4 If you are interested in this, I look at how many died in each accident in detail in a related article .

The other source heavily influenced by a few large-scale accidents is hydropower. Its death rate since 1965 is 1.3 deaths per TWh. This rate is almost completely dominated by one event: the Banqiao Dam Failure in China in 1975, which killed approximately 171,000 people. Otherwise, hydropower was very safe, with a death rate of just 0.04 deaths per TWh — comparable to nuclear, solar, and wind.

Finally, we have solar and wind. The death rates from both of these sources are low but not zero. A small number of people die in accidents in supply chains – ranging from helicopter collisions with turbines, fires during the installation of turbines or panels, and drownings on offshore wind sites.

People often focus on the marginal differences at the bottom of the chart – between nuclear, solar, and wind. This comparison is misguided: the uncertainties around these values mean they are likely to overlap.

The key insight is that they are all much safer than fossil fuels.

Nuclear energy, for example, results in 99.9% fewer deaths than brown coal, 99.8% fewer than coal, 99.7% fewer than oil, and 97.6% fewer than gas. Wind and solar are just as safe.

Putting death rates from energy in perspective

Looking at deaths per terawatt-hour can seem abstract. Let’s try to put it in perspective.

Let’s consider how many deaths each source would cause for an average town of 150,000 people in the European Union, which – as I’ve said before – consumes one terawatt-hour of electricity per year. Let’s call this town ‘Euroville’.

If Euroville were completely powered by coal, we’d expect at least 25 people to die prematurely every year from it.  Most of these people would die from air pollution.

This is how a coal-powered Euroville would compare with towns powered entirely by each energy source:

• Coal: 25 people would die prematurely every year;
• Oil: 18 people would die prematurely every year;
• Gas: 3 people would die prematurely every year;
• Hydropower: In an average year, 1 person would die;
• Wind: In an average year, nobody would die. A death rate of 0.04 deaths per terawatt-hour means every 25 years, a single person would die;
• Nuclear: In an average year, nobody would die – only every 33 years would someone die.
• Solar: In an average year, nobody would die – only every 50 years would someone die.

The safest energy sources are also the cleanest

The good news is that there is no trade-off between the safest sources of energy in the short term and the least damaging for the climate in the long term. As the chart below shows, they are one and the same.

In the chart on the left-hand side, we have the same comparison of death rates from accidents and air pollution that we just looked at. On the right, we have the amount of greenhouse gases emitted per unit of electricity production.

These are not just the emissions from the burning of fuels but also the mining, transportation, and maintenance over a power plant’s lifetime. 5

Coal, again, is the dirtiest fuel. It emits much more greenhouse gases than other sources – more than a hundred times more than nuclear.

Oil and gas are also much worse than nuclear and renewables but to a lesser extent than coal.

Unfortunately, the global electricity mix is still dominated by fossil fuels: coal, oil, and gas account for around 60% . If we want to stop climate change, we have a great opportunity: we can transition away from them to nuclear and renewables and reduce deaths from accidents and air pollution as a side effect. 6

This transition will not only protect future generations but also have huge health benefits for the current one.

Methodology and notes

Global average death rates from fossil fuels are likely to be even higher than reported in the chart above.

The death rates from coal, oil, and gas that we use in these comparisons are sourced from the paper of Anil Markandya and Paul Wilkinson (2007) in the medical journal The Lancet . To date, these are the best, peer-reviewed references I could find on these sources. These rates are based on electricity production in Europe.

However, there are three key reasons why I think that these death rates are likely to be very conservative, and the global average death rates could be substantially higher.

• European fossil fuel plants have strict pollution controls . Power plants in Europe tend to produce less pollution than the global average and much less than plants in many low-to-middle-income countries. This means that the pollution generated per unit of electricity will likely be higher in other parts of the world.
• In other countries, more people will live closer to power plants and, therefore, be exposed to more pollution . If two countries produce the same amount of coal power and both have the same pollution controls, the country where power plants are closer to urban centers and cities will have a higher death toll per TWh. This is because more people will be exposed to higher levels of pollution. Power plants in countries such as China tend to be closer to cities in many countries than in Europe, so we would expect the death rate to be higher than the European figures found by Markandya and Wilkinson (2007). 7
• More recent research on air pollution suggests the health impacts are more severe than earlier research suggested . The analysis by Markandya and Wilkinson was published in 2007. Since then, our understanding of the health impacts of air pollution has increased significantly. More recent research suggests the health impacts are more severe. My colleague, Max Roser, shows this evolution of the research on air pollution deaths in his review of the literature here . Another reason to suspect that the global average rates are much higher is the following: if we take the death rates from Markandya and Wilkinson (2007) and multiply them by global electricity production, the resulting estimates of total global deaths from fossil fuel electricity are much lower than the most recent research. If I multiply the Markandya and Wilkinson (2007) death rates for coal, oil, and gas by their respective global electricity outputs in 2021, I get a total death toll of 280,000 people . 8 This is much lower than the estimates from more recent research. For example, Leliveld et al. (2018) estimate that 3.6 million die from fossil fuels yearly. 9 Vohra et al. (2021) even estimate more than double this figure: 8.7 million. 10 Not all of these deaths from fossil fuel air pollution are due to electricity production. But we can estimate how many deaths do. In a recent paper, Leliveld and his colleagues estimated the breakdown of air pollution deaths by sector. They estimate that 12% of all air pollution deaths (from fossil fuel and other sources) come from electricity production. 11

By my calculations, we would expect that 1.1 million to 2.55 million people die from fossil fuels used for electricity production each year. 12 The estimates we get from Markandya and Wilkinson (2007) death rates undercount by a factor of 4 to 9. This would suggest that actual death rates from fossil fuels could be 4 to 9 times higher. That would give a global average death rate from coal of 93 to 224 deaths per TWh . Unfortunately, we do not have more up-to-date death rates for coal, oil, and gas to reference here, but improved estimates are sorely needed. The current death rates shown are likely to be underestimated.

We need a timely global database on accidents in energy supply chains

The figures we reference on nuclear, solar, and wind accidents are based on the most comprehensive figures we have to date. However, they are imperfect; no timely dataset tracking these accidents exists. This is a key gap in our understanding of the safety of energy sources – and how their safety changes over time.

To estimate death rates from renewable energy technologies, Sovacool et al. (2016) compiled a database of energy-related accidents across academic databases and news reports. They define an accident as “an unintentional incident or event at an energy facility that led to either one death (or more) or at least $50,000 in property damage,” consistent with definitions in the research literature.

This raises several questions about which incidents should and shouldn’t be attributed to a given energy technology. For example, this database included deaths related to an incident in which water from a water tank ruptured during a construction test at a solar factory. It’s not clear whether these supply chain deaths should or shouldn’t be attributed to solar technologies.

Therefore, the comparability of these incidents across the different energy technologies is difficult to assess with high certainty. Another issue with this analysis by Sovacool et al. (2016) is that its database search was limited to English or non-English reports that had been translated. Therefore, some of these comparisons could be slightly over- or underestimated. It is, however, unlikely that the position of these technologies would change significantly – renewable and nuclear technologies would consistently come out with a much lower death rate than fossil fuels. Consistent data collection and tracking of incidents across all energy technologies would greatly improve these comparisons.

We need improved estimates of the health impacts of the mining of minerals and materials for all energy sources

The figures presented in this research that I rely on do not include any health impacts from radiation exposure from mining metals and minerals used in supply chains.

While we might think that this would only impact nuclear energy, analyses suggest that the carcinogenic toxicity of other sources – including solar, wind, hydropower, coal, and gas are all significantly higher across their supply chains. 13

These figures only measure workers' potential exposure to toxic elements. They do not estimate potential death rates, so we do not include them in our referenced figures above.

However, including these figures would not change the relative results overall. Fossil fuels – coal, in particular – have a higher carcinogenic toxicity than both nuclear and renewables. Hence, the relative difference between them would actually increase rather than decrease. The key insight would still be the same: fossil fuels are much worse for human health, and both nuclear and modern renewables are similarly safe alternatives.

However, estimates of the health burden of rare minerals in energy supply chains are still an important gap to fill so that we can learn about their impact and ultimately reduce these risks moving forward.

What was the death toll from Chernobyl and Fukushima?

Nuclear energy is an important source of low-carbon energy. But, there is strong public opposition to it, often because of concerns around safety.

These concerns are often sparked by memories of two nuclear accidents: the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986 and Fukushima in Japan in 2011. 14

These two events were by far the largest nuclear accidents in history, the only disasters to receive a level 7 (the maximum classification) on the International Nuclear Event Scale.

How many people died in these nuclear disasters, and what can we learn from them?

How many died from the nuclear accident in Chernobyl?

In April 1986, the core of one of the four reactors at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine melted down and exploded. It was the worst nuclear disaster in human history.

There are several categories of deaths linked to the disaster – for some, we have a good idea of how many died; for others, we have a range of plausible deaths.

Direct deaths from the accident

30 people died during or very soon after the incident.

Two plant workers died almost immediately in the explosion from the reactor. Overall, 134 emergency workers, plant operators, and firemen were exposed to levels of radiation high enough to suffer from acute radiation syndrome (ARS). 28 of these 134 workers died in the weeks that followed, which takes the total to 30. 15

Later deaths of workers and firemen

A point of dispute is whether any more of the 134 workers with ARS died as a result of radiation exposure. In 2008, several decades after the incident, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) published a large synthesis of the latest scientific evidence. 15 It reported that a further 19 ARS survivors had died by 2006 . However, many of these deaths were not related to any condition caused by radiation exposure. Seven were related to diseases not related to cancers, including tuberculosis, liver disease, and stroke; six were from heart attacks, one from a trauma incident, and five died from cancers. 16 It’s difficult to say how many of these deaths could be attributed to the Chernobyl accident – it’s not implausible it played a role in at least some of them, especially the five cancer deaths.

Thyroid cancer deaths in children through contaminated milk

Most of the population was not exposed to levels of radiation that would put them at risk of negative health impacts. However, the slow response to the disaster meant that some individuals were exposed to the short-lived radionuclide Iodine-131 ( 131 I) through milk contamination. Radioactive fallout settled on pasture grass across the region; this contaminated milk supplies and leafy vegetables that were consumed in the days immediately after the incident.

This exposure to 131 I has not been linked to increased cancer risk in the adult population, but several studies have shown an increased incidence of thyroid cancer in those who were children and adolescents around this time. Figuring out how many cases of thyroid cancer in this young population were caused by the accident is not straightforward. This is because there was a large increase in screening efforts in the aftermath of the disaster. It’s not uncommon for thyroid cancer cases to go undetected – and have no negative impact on an individual’s life. Increased screening, particularly in child populations, would result in finding many cases of cancer that would normally go undetected.

In 2018, UNSCEAR published its latest findings on thyroid cancers attributed to the Chernobyl disaster. Over the period from 1991 to 2015, there were 19,233 cases of thyroid cancer in patients who were younger than 18 at the time of the disaster across Ukraine, Belarus, and exposed regions of Russia. UNSCEAR concluded that around one-quarter of these cases could be linked to radiation exposure. That would mean 4,808 thyroid cancer cases. 17

By 2005, it was reported that 15 of these thyroid cancer cases had been fatal . 18 However, it was likely that this figure would increase: at least some of those still living with thyroid cancer will eventually die from it.

Therefore, giving a definitive number is impossible, but we can look at survival rates and outcomes to get an estimate. Thankfully, the prognosis for thyroid cancer in children is very good. Many patients that have undergone treatment have seen either partial or complete remission. 19 Large-scale studies report a 20-year survival rate of 92% for thyroid cancer. 20 Others show an even better prognosis, with a survival rate of 98% after 40 years. 21

If we combine standard survival rates with our number of radiation-induced cancer cases – 4,808 cases – we might estimate that the number of deaths could be in the range of 96 to 385 . This comes from the assumption of a survival rate of 92% to 98% (or, to flip it, a mortality rate of 2% to 8%). 22 This figure comes with significant uncertainty.

Deaths in the general population

Finally, there has been significant concern about cancer risks to the wider population across Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and other parts of Europe. This topic remains controversial. Some reports in the early 2000s estimated much higher death tolls, ranging from 16,000 to 60,000. 23 In its 2005 report, the WHO estimated a potential death toll of 4,000. 24 These estimates were based on the assumption that many people were exposed to elevated levels of radioactivity and that radioactivity increases cancer risk, even at very low levels of exposure (the so-called ‘ linear no-threshold model ’ of radiation exposure).

More recent studies suggest that these estimates were too high. In 2008, the UNSCEAR concluded that radioactive exposure to the general public was very low and that it does not expect adverse health impacts in the countries affected by Chernobyl or the rest of Europe. 25 In 2018, it published a follow-up report, which came to the same conclusion.

If the health impacts of radiation were directly and linearly related to the level of exposure, we would expect to find that cancer rates were highest in regions closest to the Chernobyl site and would decline with distance from the plant. However, studies do not find this. Cancer rates in Ukraine, for example, were not higher in locations closer to the site 26 This suggests that there is a lower limit to the level at which radiation exposure has negative health impacts. And that most people were not exposed to doses higher than this.

Combined death toll from Chernobyl

To summarize the previous paragraphs:

• 2 workers died in the blast.
• 28 workers and firemen died in the weeks that followed from acute radiation syndrome (ARS).
• 19 ARS survivors had died later by 2006 ; most were from causes not related to radiation, but it’s not possible to rule all of them out (especially five that were cancer-related).
• 15 people died from thyroid cancer due to milk contamination . These deaths were among children who were exposed to 131 I from milk and food in the days after the disaster. This could increase to between 96 and 384 deaths; however, this figure is highly uncertain.
• There is currently no evidence of adverse health impacts on the general population in affected countries or wider Europe .

Combined, the confirmed death toll from Chernobyl is less than 100. We still do not know the true death toll of the disaster. My best approximation is that the true death toll is in the range of 300 to 500, based on the available evidence. 27

How many died from the nuclear accident in Fukushima?

In March 2011, an accident occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. This accident was caused by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami – the most powerful earthquake recorded in Japan’s history.

Despite being such a large event, only one death has been attributed to the disaster. This includes both the direct impact of the accident itself and the radiation exposure that followed. However, it’s estimated that several thousand died indirectly from the stress and disruption of evacuation.

Direct and cancer deaths from the accident

No one died directly from the disaster. However, 40 to 50 people were injured as a result of physical injury from the blast or radiation burns.

In 2018, the Japanese government reported that one worker has since died from lung cancer as a result of radiation exposure from the event.

Over the last decade, many studies have assessed whether there has been any increased cancer risk for local populations. There appears to be no increased cancer risk or other radiation-related health impacts .

In 2016, the World Health Organization noted that there was a very low risk of increased cancer deaths in Japan. 28 Several reports from the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation came to the same conclusion: they report that any increase in radiation exposure for local populations was very low, and they do not expect any increase in radiation-related health impacts. 29

Deaths from evacuation

A more difficult question is how many people died indirectly through the response and evacuation of locals from the area around Fukushima. Within a few weeks of the accident, more than 160,000 people had moved away, either from official evacuation efforts or voluntarily from fear of further radioactive releases. Many were forced to stay in overcrowded gyms, schools, and public facilities for several months until more permanent emergency housing became available.

The year after the 2011 disaster, the Japanese government estimated that 573 people had died indirectly as a result of the physical and mental stress of evacuation. 30 Since then, more rigorous assessments of increased mortality have been done, and this figure was revised to 2,313 deaths in September 2020.

These indirect deaths were attributed to the overall physical and mental stress of evacuation, being moved out of care settings, and disruption to healthcare facilities.

It’s important to remember that the region was also trying to deal with the aftermath of an earthquake and tsunami. This makes it difficult to completely separate the indirect deaths related to the nuclear disaster disruptions from those of the tsunami itself.

Combined, the confirmed death toll from Fukushima is therefore 2,314.

What can we learn from these nuclear disasters?

The context and response to these disasters were very different, and this is reflected in what killed people in the aftermath.

Many more people directly died from Chernobyl than from Fukushima. There are several reasons for this.

The first was reactor design . The nuclear reactors at Chernobyl were poorly designed to deal with this meltdown scenario. Its fatal RBMK reactor had no containment structure, allowing radioactive material to spill into the atmosphere. Fukushima’s reactors did have steel-and-concrete containment structures, although it’s likely that at least one of these was also breached.

Crucially, the cooling systems of both plants worked very differently; at Chernobyl, the loss of cooling water as steam actually served to accelerate reactivity levels in the reactor core, creating a positive feedback loop toward the fatal explosion. The opposite is true of Fukushima, where the reactivity reduced as temperatures rose, effectively operating as a self-shutdown measure.

The second factor was the government's response . In the case of Fukushima, the Japanese government responded quickly to the crisis, with evacuation efforts extending rapidly from a 3-kilometer (km) to a 10-km to a 20-km radius while the incident at the site continued to unfold. In contrast, the response in the former Soviet Union was one of denial and secrecy.

It’s reported that in the days that followed the Chernobyl disaster, residents in surrounding areas were uninformed of the radioactive material in the air around them. In fact, it took at least three days for the Soviet Union to admit an accident had taken place, and did so after radioactive sensors at a Swedish plant were triggered by dispersing radionuclides. As we saw above, it’s estimated that approximately 4,808 thyroid cancer cases in children and adolescents could be linked to radiation exposure from contaminated milk and foods. This could have been prevented by an earlier response.

Finally, while an early response from the Japanese government may have prevented a significant number of deaths, many have questioned whether the scale of the evacuation effort – where more than 160,000 people were displaced – was necessary. 31 As we see from the figures above, evacuation stress and disruption are estimated to have contributed to several thousand early deaths. Only one death has been linked to the impact of radiation. We don’t know what the possible death toll would have been without any evacuation. That’s why a no-evacuation strategy if a future accident was to occur, seems unlikely. However, many have called for governments to develop early assessments and protocols of radiation risks, the scale of evacuation needed, and infrastructure to ensure that the disruption to displaced people is kept to a minimum. 32

Nuclear is one of the safest energy sources

No energy source comes with zero negative impact. We often consider nuclear energy more dangerous than other sources because these low-frequency but highly visible events come to mind.

However, when we compare the death rates from nuclear energy to other sources, we see that it’s one of the safest. The numbers that have died from nuclear accidents are very small in comparison to the millions that die from air pollution from fossil fuels every year . As the linked post shows, the death rate from nuclear power is roughly comparable to that of most renewable energy technologies.

Since nuclear is also a key source of low-carbon energy, it can play a key role in a sustainable energy mix alongside renewables.

​​Pierre Friedlingstein, Matthew W. Jones, Michael O'Sullivan, Robbie M. Andrew, Dorothee, C. E. Bakker, Judith Hauck, Corinne Le Quéré, Glen P. Peters, Wouter Peters, Julia Pongratz, Stephen Sitch, Josep G. Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Rob B. Jackson, Simone R. Alin, Peter Anthoni, Nicholas R. Bates, Meike Becker, Nicolas Bellouin, Laurent Bopp, Thi Tuyet Trang Chau, Frédéric Chevallier, Louise P. Chini, Margot Cronin, Kim I. Currie, Bertrand Decharme, Laique M. Djeutchouang, Xinyu Dou, Wiley Evans, Richard A. Feely, Liang Feng, Thomas Gasser, Dennis Gilfillan, Thanos Gkritzalis, Giacomo Grassi, Luke Gregor, Nicolas Gruber, Özgür Gürses, Ian Harris, Richard A. Houghton, George C. Hurtt, Yosuke Iida, Tatiana Ilyina, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Atul Jain, Steve D. Jones, Etsushi Kato, Daniel Kennedy, Kees Klein Goldewijk, Jürgen Knauer, Jan Ivar Korsbakken, Arne Körtzinger, Peter Landschützer, Siv K. Lauvset, Nathalie Lefèvre, Sebastian Lienert, Junjie Liu, Gregg Marland, Patrick C. McGuire, Joe R. Melton, David R. Munro, Julia E.M.S Nabel Shin-Ichiro Nakaoka, Yosuke Niwa, Tsuneo Ono, Denis Pierrot, Benjamin Poulter, Gregor Rehder, Laure Resplandy, Eddy Robertson, Christian Rödenbeck, Thais M Rosan, Jörg Schwinger, Clemens Schwingshackl, Roland Séférian, Adrienne J. Sutton, Colm Sweeney, Toste Tanhua, Pieter P Tans, Hanqin Tian, Bronte Tilbrook, Francesco Tubiello, Guido van der Werf, Nicolas Vuichard, Chisato Wada Rik Wanninkhof, Andrew J. Watson, David Willis, Andrew J. Wiltshire, Wenping Yuan, Chao Yue, Xu Yue, Sönke Zaehle, Jiye Zeng. Global Carbon Budget 2021, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 2021.

Per capita electricity consumption in the EU-27 in 2021 was around 6,400 kWh.

1 terawatt-hour is equal to 1,000,000,000 kilowatt-hours. So, we get this figure by dividing 1,000,000,000 by 6,400 ≈ 150,000 people.

The following sources were used to calculate these death rates.

Fossil fuels and biomass = these figures are taken directly from Markandya, A., & Wilkinson, P. (2007). Electricity generation and health . The Lancet , 370(9591), 979-990.

Nuclear = I have calculated these figures based on the assumption of 433 deaths from Chernobyl and 2314 from Fukushima. These figures are based on the most recent estimates from UNSCEAR and the Government of Japan. In a related article , I detail where these figures come from.

I have calculated death rates by dividing this figure by the cumulative global electricity production from nuclear from 1965 to 2021, which is 96,876 TWh.

Hydropower = The paper by Sovacool et al. (2016) provides a death rate for hydropower from 1990 to 2013. However, this period excludes some very large hydropower accidents that occurred before 1990. I have therefore calculated a death rate for hydropower from 1965 to 2021 based on the list of hydropower accidents provided by Sovacool et al. (2016), which extends back to the 1950s. Since this database ends in 2013, I have also included the Saddle Dam accident in Laos in 2018, which killed 71 people.

The total number of deaths from hydropower accidents from 1965 to 2021 was approximately 176,000. 171,000 of these deaths were from the Banqian Dam Failure in China in 1975.

I have calculated death rates by dividing this figure by cumulative global electricity production from hydropower from 1965 to 2021, which is 138,175 TWh.

Solar and wind = these figures are taken directly from Sovacool, B. K., Andersen, R., Sorensen, S., Sorensen, K., Tienda, V., Vainorius, A., … & Bjørn-Thygesen, F. (2016). Balancing safety with sustainability: assessing the risk of accidents for modern low-carbon energy systems . Journal of Cleaner Production , 112, 3952-3965. In this analysis, the authors compiled a database of as many energy-related accidents as possible based on an extensive search of academic databases and news reports and derived death rates for each source over the period from 1990 to 2013. Since this database has not been extended since then, it’s not possible to provide post-2013 death rates.

UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available online .

Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. General Assembly Official Records, Sixty-eighth session, Supplement No. 46. New York: United Nations, Sixtieth session, May 27–31, 2013.

The main figures used in this analysis come from the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Lifecycle Assessment of Electricity Generation Options , published in 2022.

These figures are similar to those published by the IPCC and other energy organizations.

Schlömer S., T. Bruckner, L. Fulton, E. Hertwich, A. McKinnon, D. Perczyk, J. Roy, R. Schaeffer, R. Sims, P. Smith, and R. Wiser, 2014: Annex III: Technology-specific cost and performance parameters. In: Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Edenhofer, O., R. Pichs-Madruga, Y. Sokona, E. Farahani, S. Kadner, K. Seyboth, A. Adler, I. Baum, S. Brunner, P. Eickemeier, B. Kriemann, J. Savolainen, S. Schlömer, C. von Stechow, T. Zwickel and J.C. Minx (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.

The figures for some technologies — such as solar — vary significantly depending on where they’re manufactured (and the country's electricity mix). Estimates range from around 23 grams CO 2 per kWh to 82 grams.

The carbon intensity of these technologies' production is likely to improve over time. The Carbon Brief provides a clear discussion of the significance of more recent lifecycle analyses in detail here .

Since oil is not conventionally used for electricity production, it is not included in the IPCC’s reported figures per kilowatt-hour. Figures for oil have, therefore, been taken from Turconi et al. (2013). It reports emissions in kilograms of CO2eq per megawatt-hour. Emissions factors for all other technologies are consistent with IPCC results. The range it gives for oil is 530–900: I have taken the midpoint estimate (715 kgCO2eq/MWh, or 715 gCO2eq/kWh).

Turconi, R., Boldrin, A., & Astrup, T. (2013). Life cycle assessment (LCA) of electricity generation technologies: Overview, comparability and limitations . Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews , 28, 555-565.

Burgherr, P., & Hirschberg, S. (2014). Comparative risk assessment of severe accidents in the energy sector . Energy Policy, 74, S45-S56.

McCombie, C., & Jefferson, M. (2016). Renewable and nuclear electricity: Comparison of environmental impacts. Energy Policy, 96, 758-769.

Hirschberg, S., Bauer, C., Burgherr, P., Cazzoli, E., Heck, T., Spada, M., & Treyer, K. (2016). Health effects of technologies for power generation: Contributions from normal operation, severe accidents and terrorist threat . Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 145, 373-387.

Luderer, G., Pehl, M., Arvesen, A., Gibon, T., Bodirsky, B. L., de Boer, H. S., … & Mima, S. (2019). Environmental co-benefits and adverse side-effects of alternative power sector decarbonization strategies . Nature Communications, 10(1), 1-13.

Hertwich, E. G., Gibon, T., Bouman, E. A., Arvesen, A., Suh, S., Heath, G. A., … & Shi, L. (2015). Integrated life-cycle assessment of electricity-supply scenarios confirms global environmental benefit of low-carbon technologies . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(20), 6277-6282.

Xie, L., Huang, Y., & Qin, P. (2018). Spatial distribution of coal-fired power plants in China. Environment and Development Economics, 23(4), 495-515.

Coal: 24.62 deaths per TWh * 10,042 TWh = 247,000 deaths; Oil: 18.43 deaths per TWh * 852 TWh = 16,000 deaths; Gas: 2.82 deaths per TWh * 6,098 TWh = 17,000 deaths. This sums to a total of 280,000 people.

Lelieveld, J., Klingmüller, K., Pozzer, A., Burnett, R. T., Haines, A., & Ramanathan, V. (2019). Effects of fossil fuel and total anthropogenic emission removal on public health and climate . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(15), 7192-7197.

Vohra, K., Vodonos, A., Schwartz, J., Marais, E. A., Sulprizio, M. P., & Mickley, L. J. (2021). Global mortality from outdoor fine particle pollution generated by fossil fuel combustion: Results from GEOS-Chem . Environmental Research, 195, 110754.

Chowdhury, S., Pozzer, A., Haines, A., Klingmueller, K., Münzel, T., Paasonen, P., ... & Lelieveld, J. (2022). Global health burden of ambient PM2.5 and the contribution of anthropogenic black carbon and organic aerosols . Environment International, 159, 107020.

Leliveld et al. (2019) estimate that 8.8 million people die from all sources of air pollution each year. If we multiply this figure by 12%, we get 1.1 million people. Vohra et al. (2021) estimate that the death toll is 2.4 times higher than Leliveld et al. (2019). This would give a figure of 2.55 million deaths [1.1 million * 2.4]

UNECE (2021). Lifecycle Assessment of Electricity Generation Options . United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.

The third incident that often comes to mind was the Three Mile Island accident in the US in 1979. On the seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale, this was rated as a level five event (“Accident with Wider Consequences”).

No one died directly from this incident, and follow-up epidemiological studies have not found a clear link between the incident and long-term health impacts.

Hatch, M. C., Beyea, J., Nieves, J. W., & Susser, M. (1990). Cancer near the Three Mile Island nuclear plant: radiation emissions . American Journal of Epidemiology , 132(3), 397-412.

Hatch, M. C., Wallenstein, S., Beyea, J., Nieves, J. W., & Susser, M. (1991). Cancer rates after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident and proximity of residence to the plant . American Journal of Public Healt h, 81(6), 719-724.

The UNSCEAR (2008) report lists the causes of death in each survivor in Table D4 of the appendix.

25% of 19,233 is 4808 cases.

This figure was included in the UNSCEAR’s 2008 report. I found no updated figure for fatalities in its 2018 report.

Reiners, C. (2011). Clinical experiences with radiation-induced thyroid cancer after Chernobyl. Genes, 2(2), 374-383.

Hogan, A. R., Zhuge, Y., Perez, E. A., Koniaris, L. G., Lew, J. I., & Sola, J. E. (2009). Pediatric thyroid carcinoma: incidence and outcomes in 1753 patients. Journal of Surgical Research, 156(1), 167-172.

Hay, I. D., Gonzalez-Losada, T., Reinalda, M. S., Honetschlager, J. A., Richards, M. L., & Thompson, G. B. (2010). Long-term outcome in 215 children and adolescents with papillary thyroid cancer treated during 1940 through 2008. World Journal of Surgery , 34(6), 1192-1202.

2% of 4808 is 96, and 8% is 385.

Cardis et al. (2006). Estimates of the cancer burden in Europe from radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident. International Journal of Cancer. Available online .

Fairlie and Sumner (2006). An independent scientific evaluation of health and environmental effects 20 years after the nuclear disaster providing critical analysis of a recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). Available online .

IAEA, WHO (2005/06). Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts .

As it details in its report: “The vast majority of the population were exposed to low levels of radiation comparable, at most, to a few times the annual natural background radiation levels and need not live in fear of serious health consequences. This is true for the populations of the three countries most affected by the Chernobyl accident, Belarus, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine, and even more so for the populations of other European countries.”

“To date, there has been no persuasive evidence of any other health effect in the general population that can be attributed to radiation exposure”

Leung, K. M., Shabat, G., Lu, P., Fields, A. C., Lukashenko, A., Davids, J. S., & Melnitchouk, N. (2019). Trends in solid tumor incidence in Ukraine 30 years after chernobyl . Journal of Global Oncology , 5 , 1-10.

When we report on the safety of energy sources – in this article – I take the upper number of 433 deaths to be conservative.

World Health Organization (2016). FAQs: Fukushima Five Years On. Available online .

To quote UNSCEAR directly: “The doses to the general public, both those incurred during the first year and estimated for their lifetimes, are generally low or very low. No discernible increased incidence of radiation-related health effects are expected among exposed members of the public or their descendants.”

Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. General Assembly Official Records , Sixty-eighth session, Supplement No. 46. New York: United Nations, Sixtieth session, May 27–31, 2013.

The Yomiuri Shimbun, 573 deaths ‘related to nuclear crisis’, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 5 February 2012, https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20120204190315/http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120204003191.htm.

Hayakawa, M. (2016). Increase in disaster-related deaths: risks and social impacts of evacuation . Annals of the ICRP, 45(2_suppl), 123-128.

Normile (2021). Nuclear medicine: After 10 years advising survivors of the Fukushima disaster about radiation, Masaharu Tsubokura thinks the evacuations posed a far bigger health risk . Science .

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• v.45(Suppl 1); 2016 Jan

Nuclear power in the 21st century: Challenges and possibilities

Akos horvath.

MTA Centre for Energy Research, KFKI Campus, P.O.B. 49, Budapest 114, 1525 Hungary

Elisabeth Rachlew

Department of Physics, Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden

The current situation and possible future developments for nuclear power—including fission and fusion processes—is presented. The fission nuclear power continues to be an essential part of the low-carbon electricity generation in the world for decades to come. There are breakthrough possibilities in the development of new generation nuclear reactors where the life-time of the nuclear waste can be reduced to some hundreds of years instead of the present time-scales of hundred thousand of years. Research on the fourth generation reactors is needed for the realisation of this development. For the fast nuclear reactors, a substantial research and development effort is required in many fields—from material sciences to safety demonstration—to attain the envisaged goals. Fusion provides a long-term vision for an efficient energy production. The fusion option for a nuclear reactor for efficient production of electricity has been set out in a focussed European programme including the international project of ITER after which a fusion electricity DEMO reactor is envisaged.

Introduction

All countries have a common interest in securing sustainable, low-cost energy supplies with minimal impact on the environment; therefore, many consider nuclear energy as part of their energy mix in fulfilling policy objectives. The discussion of the role of nuclear energy is especially topical for industrialised countries wishing to reduce carbon emissions below the current levels. The latest report from IPCC WGIII ( 2014 ) (see Box 1 for explanations of all acronyms in the article) says: “Nuclear energy is a mature low-GHG emission source of base load power, but its share of global electricity has been declining since 1993. Nuclear energy could make an increasing contribution to low-carbon energy supply, but a variety of barriers and risks exist ”.

Demand for electricity is likely to increase significantly in the future, as current fossil fuel uses are being substituted by processes using electricity. For example, the transport sector is likely to rely increasingly on electricity, whether in the form of fully electric or hybrid vehicles, either using battery power or synthetic hydrocarbon fuels. Here, nuclear power can also contribute, via generation of either electricity or process heat for the production of hydrogen or other fuels.

In Europe, in particular, the public opinion about safety and regulations with nuclear power has introduced much critical discussions about the continuation of nuclear power, and Germany has introduced the “Energiewende” with the goal to close all their nuclear power by 2022. The contribution of nuclear power to the electricity production in the different countries in Europe differs widely with some countries having zero contribution (e.g. Italy, Lithuania) and some with the major part comprising nuclear power (e.g. France, Hungary, Belgium, Slovakia, Sweden).

Current status

The use of nuclear energy for commercial electricity production began in the mid-1950s. In 2013, the world’s 392 GW of installed nuclear capacity accounted for 11 % of electricity generation produced by around 440 nuclear power plants situated in 30 countries (Fig.  1 ). This share has declined gradually since 1996, when it reached almost 18 %, as the rate of new nuclear additions (and generation) has been outpaced by the expansion of other technologies. After hydropower, nuclear is the world’s second-largest source of low-carbon electricity generation (IEA 2014 1 ).

Total number of operating nuclear reactors worldwide. The total number of reactors also include six in Taiwan (source: IAEA 2015) ( https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/focus/nuclear-power )

The Country Nuclear Power Profiles (CNPP 2 ) compiles background information on the status and development of nuclear power programmes in member states. The CNPP’s main objectives are to consolidate information about the nuclear power infrastructures in participating countries, and to present factors related to the effective planning, decision-making and implementation of nuclear power programmes that together lead to safe and economical operations of nuclear power plants.

Within the European Union, 27 % of electricity production (13 % of primary energy) is obtained from 132 nuclear power plants in January 2015 (Fig.  1 ). Across the world, 65 new reactors are under construction, mainly in Asia (China, South Korea, India), and also in Russia, Slovakia, France and Finland. Many other new reactors are in the planning stage, including for example, 12 in the UK.

Apart from one first Generation “Magnox” reactor still operating in the UK, the remainder of the operating fleet is of the second or third Generation type (Fig.  2 ). The predominant technology is the Light Water Reactor (LWR) developed originally in the United States by Westinghouse and then exploited massively by France and others in the 1970s as a response to the 1973 oil crisis. The UK followed a different path and pursued the Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR). Some countries (France, UK, Russia, Japan) built demonstration scale fast neutron reactors in the 1960s and 70s, but the only commercial reactor of this type currently operating is in Russia.

Nuclear reactor generations from the pioneering age to the next decade (reproduced with permission from Ricotti 2013 )

Future evolution

The fourth Generation reactors, offering the potential of much higher energy recovery and reduced volumes of radioactive waste, are under study in the framework of the “Generation IV International Forum” (GIF) 3 and the “International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles” (INPRO). The European Commission in 2010 launched the European Sustainable Nuclear Industrial Initiative (ESNII), which will support three Generation IV fast reactor projects as part of the EU’s plan to promote low-carbon energy technologies. Other initiatives supporting biomass, wind, solar, electricity grids and carbon sequestration are in parallel. ESNII will take forward: the Astrid sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) proposed by France, the Allegro gas-cooled fast reactor (GFR) supported by central and eastern Europe and the MYRRHA lead- cooled fast reactor (LFR) technology pilot proposed by Belgium.

The generation of nuclear energy from uranium produces not only electricity but also spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste (HLW) as a by-product. For this HLW, a technical and socially acceptable solution is necessary. The time scale needed for the radiotoxicity of the spent fuel to drop to the level of natural uranium is very long (i.e. of the order of 200 000–300 000 years). The preferred solution for disposing of spent fuel or the HLW resulting from classical reprocessing is deep geological storage. Whilst there are no such geological repositories operating yet in the world, Sweden, Finland and France are on track to have such facilities ready by 2025 (Kautsky et al. 2013 ). In this context it should also be mentioned that it is only for a minor fraction of the HLW that recycling and transmutation is required since adequate separation techniques of the fuel can be recycled and again fed through the LWR system.

The “Strategic Energy Technology Plan” (SET-Plan) identifies fission energy as one of the contributors to the 2050 objectives of a low-carbon energy mix, relying on the Generation-3 reactors, closed fuel cycle and the start of implementation of Generation IV reactors making nuclear energy more sustainable. The EU Energy Roadmap 2050 provides decarbonisation scenarios with different assumptions from the nuclear perspective: two scenarios contemplate a nuclear phase-out by 2050, whilst three others consider that 15–20 % of electricity will be produced by nuclear energy. If by 2050 a generation capacity of 20 % nuclear electricity (140 GWe) is to be secured, 100–120 nuclear power units will have to be built between now and 2050, the precise number depending on the power rating (Garbil and Goethem 2013 ).

Despite the regional differences in the development plans, the main questions are of common interest to all countries, and require solutions in order to maintain nuclear power in the power mix of contributing to sustainable economic growth. The questions include (i) maintaining safe operation of the nuclear plants, (ii) securing the fuel supplies, (iii) a strategy for the management of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel.

Safety and non-proliferation risks are managed in accordance with the international rules issued both by IAEA and EURATOM in the EU. The nuclear countries have signed the corresponding agreements and the majority of them have created the necessary legal and regulatory structure (Nuclear Safety Authority). As regards radioactive wastes, particularly high-level wastes (HLW) and spent fuel (SF) most of the countries have long-term policies. The establishment of new nuclear units and the associated nuclear technology developments offer new perspectives, which may need reconsideration of fuel cycle policies and more active regional and global co-operation.

Open and closed fuel cycle

In the frame of the open fuel cycle, the spent fuel will be taken to final disposal without recycling. Deep geological repositories are the only available option for isolating the highly radioactive materials for a very long time from the biosphere. Long-term (80–100 years) near soil intermediate storages are realised in e.g. France and the Netherlands which will allow for permanent access and inspection. The main advantage of the open fuel cycle is its simplicity. The spent fuel assemblies are first stored in interim storage for several years or decades, then they will be placed in special containers and moved into deep underground storage facilities. The technology for producing such containers and for excavation of the underground system of tunnels exists today (Hózer et al. 2010 ; Kautsky et al. 2013 ).

The European Academies Science Advisory Board recently released the report on “Management of spent nuclear fuel and its waste” (EASAC 2014 ). The report discusses the challenges associated with different strategies to manage spent nuclear fuel, in respect of both open cycles and steps towards closing the nuclear fuel cycle. It integrates the conclusions on the issues raised on sustainability, safety, non-proliferation and security, economics, public involvement and on the decision-making process. Recently Vandenbosch et al. ( 2015 ) critically discussed the issue of confidence in the indefinite storage of nuclear waste. One complication of the nuclear waste storage problem is that the minor actinides represent a high activity (see Fig.  3 ) and pose non-proliferation issues to be handled safely in a civil used plant. This might be a difficult challenge if the storage is to be operated economically together with the fuel fabrication.

Radiotoxicity of radioactive waste

The open (or ‘once through’) cycle only uses part of the energy stored in the fuel, whilst effectively wasting substantial amounts of energy that could be recovered through recycling. The conventional closed fuel cycle strategy uses the reprocessing of the spent fuel following interim storage. The main components which can be further utilised (U and Pu) are recycled to fuel manufacturing (MOX (Mixed Oxide) fuel fabrication), whilst the smaller volume of residual waste in appropriately conditioned form—e.g. vitrified and encapsulated—is disposed of in deep geological repositories.

The advanced closed fuel cycle strategy is similar to the conventional one, but within this strategy the minor actinides are also removed during reprocessing. The separated isotopes are transmuted in combination with power generation and only the net reprocessing wastes and those conditioned wastes generated during transmutation will be, following appropriate encapsulation, disposed of in deep geological repositories. The main factor that determines the overall storage capacity of a long-term repository is the heat content of nuclear waste, not its volume. During the anticipated repository time, the specific heat generated during the decay of the stored HLW must always stay below a dedicated value prescribed by the storage concept and the geological host information. The waste that results from reprocessing spent fuel from thermal reactors has a lower heat content (after a period of cooling) than does the spent fuel itself. Thus, it can be stored more densely.

A modern light water reactor of 1 GWe capacity will typically discharge about 20–25 tonnes of irradiated fuel per year of operation. About 93–94 % of the mass of typical uranium oxide irradiated fuel comprises uranium (mostly 238 U), with about 4–5 % fission products and ~1 % plutonium. About 0.1–0.2 % of the mass comprises minor actinides (neptunium, americium and curium). These latter elements accumulate in nuclear fuel because of neutron capture, and they contribute significantly to decay heat loading and neutron output, as well as to the overall radiotoxic hazard of spent fuel. Although the total minor actinide mass is relatively small—20 to 25 kg per year from a 1 GWe LWR—it has a disproportionate impact on spent fuel disposal because of its long radioactive decay times (OECD Nuclear Energy Agency 2013 ).

Generation IV development

To address the issue of sustainability of nuclear energy, in particular the use of natural resources, fast neutron reactors (FNRs) must be developed, since they can typically multiply by over a factor 50 the energy production from a given amount of uranium fuel compared to current reactors. FNRs, just as today’s fleet, will be primarily dedicated to the generation of fossil-free base-load electricity. In the FNR the fuel conversion ratio (FCR) is optimised. Through hardening the spectrum a fast reactor can be designed to burn minor actinides giving a FCR larger than unity which allows breeding of fissile materials. FNRs have been operated in the past (especially the Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor in Europe), but today’s safety, operational and competitiveness standards require the design of a new generation of fast reactors. Important research and development is currently being coordinated at the international level through initiatives such as GIF.

In 2002, six reactor technologies were selected which GIF believe represent the future of nuclear energy. These were selected from the many various approaches being studied on the basis of being clean, safe and cost-effective means of meeting increased energy demands on a sustainable basis. Furthermore, they are considered being resistant to diversion of materials for weapons proliferation and secure from terrorist attacks. The continued research and development will focus on the chosen six reactor approaches. Most of the six systems employ a closed fuel cycle to maximise the resource base and minimise high-level wastes to be sent to a repository. Three of the six are fast neutron reactors (FNR) and one can be built as a fast reactor, one is described as epithermal, and only two operate with slow neutrons like today’s plants. Only one is cooled by light water, two are helium-cooled and the others have lead–bismuth, sodium or fluoride salt coolant. The latter three operate at low pressure, with significant safety advantage. The last has the uranium fuel dissolved in the circulating coolant. Temperatures range from 510 to 1000 °C, compared with less than 330 °C for today’s light water reactors, and this means that four of them can be used for thermochemical hydrogen production.

The sizes range from 150 to 1500 MWe, with the lead-cooled one optionally available as a 50–150 MWe “battery” with long core life (15–20 years without refuelling) as replaceable cassette or entire reactor module. This is designed for distributed generation or desalination. At least four of the systems have significant operating experience already in most respects of their design, which provides a good basis for further research and development and is likely to mean that they can be in commercial operation well before 2030. However, when addressing non-proliferation concerns it is significant that fast neutron reactors are not conventional fast breeders, i.e. they do not have a blanket assembly where plutonium-239 is produced. Instead, plutonium production happens to take place in the core, where burn-up is high and the proportion of plutonium isotopes other than Pu-239 remains high. In addition, new reprocessing technologies will enable the fuel to be recycled without separating the plutonium.

In January 2014, a new GIF Technology Roadmap Update was published. 4 It confirmed the choice of the six systems and focused on the most relevant developments of them so as to define the research and development goals for the next decade. It suggested that the Generation IV technologies most likely to be deployed first are the SFR, the lead-cooled fast reactor (LFR) and the very high temperature reactor technologies. The molten salt reactor and the GFR were shown as furthest from demonstration phase.

Europe, through sustainable nuclear energy technology platform (SNETP) and ESNII, has defined its own strategy and priorities for FNRs with the goal to demonstrate Generation IV reactor technologies that can close the nuclear fuel cycle, provide long-term waste management solutions and expand the applications of nuclear fission beyond electricity production to hydrogen production, industrial heat and desalination; The SFR as a proven concept, as well as the LFR as a short-medium term alternative and the GFR as a longer-term alternative technology. The French Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique (CEA) has chosen the development of the SFR technology. Astrid (Advanced Sodium Technological Reactor for Industrial Demonstration) is based on about 45 reactor-years of operational experience in France and will be rated 250 to 600 MWe. It is expected to be built at Marcoule from 2017, with the unit being connected to the grid in 2022.

Other countries like Belgium, Italy, Sweden and Romania are focussing their research and development effort on the LFR whereas Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia are investing in the research and development on GFR building upon the work initiated in France on GFR as an alternative technology to SFR. Allegro GFR is to be built in eastern Europe, and is more innovative. It is rated at 100 MWt and would lead to a larger industrial demonstration unit called GoFastR. The Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia are making a joint proposal to host the project, with French CEA support. Allegro is expected to begin construction in 2018 operate from 2025. The industrial demonstrator would follow it.

In mid-2013, four nuclear research institutes and engineering companies from central Europe’s Visegrád Group of Nations (V4) agreed to establish a centre for joint research, development and innovation in Generation IV nuclear reactors (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) which is focused on gas-cooled fast reactors such as Allegro.

The MYRRHA (Multi-purpose hYbrid Research Reactor for High-tech Applications) 5 project proposed in Belgium by SCK•CEN could be an Experimental Technological Pilot Plant (ETPP) for the LFR technology. Later, it could become a European fast neutron technology pilot plant for lead and a multi-purpose research reactor. The unit is rated at 100 thermal MW and has started construction at SCK-CEN’s Mol site in 2014 planned to begin operation in 2023. A reduced-power model of Myrrha called Guinevere started up at Mol in March 2010. ESNII also includes an LFR technology demonstrator known as Alfred, also about 100 MWt, seen as a prelude to an industrial demonstration unit of about 600 MWe. Construction on Alfred could begin in 2017 and the unit could start operating in 2025.

Research and development topics to meet the top-level criteria established within the GIF forum in the context of simultaneously matching economics as well as stricter safety criteria set-up by the WENRA FNR demand substantial improvements with respect to the following issues:

• Primary system design simplification,
• Improved materials,
• Innovative heat exchangers and power conversion systems,
• Advanced instrumentation, in-service inspection systems,
• Enhanced safety,

and those for fuel cycle issues pertain to:

• Partitioning and transmutation,
• Innovative fuels (including minor actinide-bearing) and core performance,
• Advanced separation both via aqueous processes supplementing the PUREX process as well as pyroprocessing, which is mandatory for the reprocessing of the high MA-containing fuels,
• Develop a final depository.

Beyond the research and development, the demonstration projects mentioned above are planned in the frame of the SET-Plan ESNII for sustainable fission. In addition, supporting research infrastructures, irradiation facilities, experimental loops and fuel fabrication facilities, will need to be constructed.

Regarding transmutation, the accelerator-driven transmutation systems (ADS) technology must be compared to FNR technology from the point of view of feasibility, transmutation efficiency and cost efficiency. It is the objective of the MYRRHA project to be an experimental demonstrator of ADS technology. From the economical point of view, the ADS industrial solution should be assessed in terms of its contribution to closing the fuel cycle. One point of utmost importance for the ADS is its ability for burning larger amounts of minor actinides (the typical maximum in a critical FNR is about 2 %).

The concept of partitioning and transmutation (P&T) has three main goals: reduce the radiological hazard associated with spent fuel by reducing the inventory of minor actinides, reduce the time interval required to reach the radiotoxicity of natural uranium and reduce the heat load of the HLW packages to be stored in the geological disposal hence reducing the foot print of the geological disposal.

Advanced management of HLW through P&T consists in advanced separation of the minor actinides (americium, curium and neptunium) and some fission products with a long half-life present in the nuclear waste and their transmutation in dedicated burners to reduce the radiological and heat loads on the geological disposal. The time scale needed for the radiotoxicity of the waste to drop to the level of natural uranium will be reduced from a ‘geological’ value (300 000 years) to a value that is comparable to that of human activities (few hundreds of years) (OECD/NEA 2006 ; OECD 2012 ; PATEROS 2008 6 ). Transmutation of the minor actinides is achieved through fission reactions and therefore fast neutrons are preferred in dedicated burners.

At the European level, four building blocks strategy for Partitioning and Transmutation have been identified. Each block poses a serious challenge in terms of research & development to be done in order to reach industrial scale deployment. These blocks are:

• Demonstration of advanced reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel from LWRs, separating Uranium, Plutonium and Minor Actinides;
• Demonstration of the capability to fabricate at semi-industrial level dedicated transmuter fuel heavily loaded in minor actinides;
• Design and construct one or more dedicated transmuters;
• Fabrication of new transmuter fuel together with demonstration of advanced reprocessing of transmuter fuel.

MYRRHA will support this Roadmap by playing the role of an ADS prototype (at reasonable power level) and as a flexible irradiation facility providing fast neutrons for the qualification of materials and fuel for an industrial transmuter. MYRRHA will be not only capable of irradiating samples of such inert matrix fuels but also of housing fuel pins or even a limited number of fuel assemblies heavily loaded with MAs for irradiation and qualification purposes.

Options for nuclear fusion beyond 2050

Nuclear fusion research, on the basis of magnetic confinement, considered in this report, has been actively pursued in Europe from the mid-60s. Fusion research has the goal to achieve a clean and sustainable energy source for many generations to come. In parallel with basic high-temperature plasma research, the fusion technology programme is pursued as well as the economy of a future fusion reactor (Ward et al. 2005 ; Ward 2009 ; Bradshaw et al. 2011 ). The goal-oriented fusion research should be driven with an increased effort to be able to give the long searched answer to the open question, “will fusion energy be able to cover a major part of mankind’s electricity demand?”. ITER, the first fusion reactor to be built in France by the seven collaborating partners (Europe, USA, Russia, Japan, Korea, China, India) is hoped to answer most of the open physics and many of the remaining technology/material questions. ITER is expected to start operation of the first plasma around 2020 and D-T operation 2027.

The European fusion research has been successful through the organisation of EURATOM to which most countries in Europe belong (the fission programme is also included in EURATOM). EUROfusion, the European Consortium for the Development of Fusion Energy, manages European fusion research activities on behalf of EURATOM. The organisation of the research has resulted in a well-focused common fusion research programme. The members of the EUROfusion 7 consortium are 29 national fusion laboratories. EUROfusion funds all fusion research activities in accordance with the “EFDA Fusion electricity. Roadmap to the realisation of fusion energy” (EFDA 2012 , Fusion electricity). The Roadmap outlines the most efficient way to realise fusion electricity. It is the result of an analysis of the European Fusion Programme undertaken by all Research Units within EUROfusion’s predecessor agreement, the European Fusion Development Agreement, EFDA.

The most successful confinement concepts are toroidal ones like tokamaks and helical systems like stellarators (Wagner 2012 , 2013 ). To avoid drift losses, two magnetic field components are necessary for confinement and stability—the toroidal and the poloidal field component. Due to their superposition, the magnetic field winds helically around a system of nested toroids. In both cases, tokamak and stellarator, the toroidal field is produced by external coils; the poloidal field arises from a strong toroidal plasma current in tokamaks. In case of helical systems all necessary fields are produced externally by coils which have to be superconductive when steady-state operation is intended. Europe is constructing the most ambitious stellarator, Wendelstein 7-X in Germany. It is a fully optimised system with promising features. W7-X goes into operation in 2015. 8

Fusion research has now reached plasma parameters needed for a fusion reactor, even if not all parameters are reached simultaneously in a single plasma discharge (see Fig.  4 ). Plotted is the triple product n•τ E• T i composed of the density n, the confinement time τ E and the ion temperature T i . For ignition of a deuterium–tritium plasma, when the internal α-particle heating from the DT-reaction takes over and allows the external heating to be switched off, the triple product has to be about >6 × 10 21  m −3  s keV). The record parameters given as of today are shown together with the fusion experiment of its achievement in Fig.  4 . The achieved parameters and the missing factors to the ultimate goal of a fusion reactor are summarised below:

• Temperature: 40 keV achieved (JT-60U, Japan); the goal is surpassed by a factor of two
• Density n surpassed by factor 5 (C-mod,USA; LHD,Japan)
• Energy confinement time: a factor of 4 is missing (JET, Europe)
• Fusion triple product (see Fig.  4 : a factor of 6 is missing (JET, Europe)
• The first scientific goal is achieved: Q (fusion power/external heating power) ~1 (0,65) (JET, Europe)
• D-T operation without problems (TFTR (USA), JET, small tritium quantities have been used, however)
• Maximal fusion power for short pulse: 16 MW (JET)
• Divertor development (ASDEX, ASDEX-Upgrade, Germany)
• Design for the first experimental reactor complete (ITER, see below)
• The optimisation of stellarators (W7-AS, W7-X, Germany)

Progress in fusion parameters. Derived in 1955, the Lawson criterion specifies the conditions that must be met for fusion to produce a net energy output (1 keV × 12 million K). From this, a fusion “triple product” can be derived, which is defined as the product of the plasma ion density, ion temperature and energy confinement time. This product must be greater than about 6 × 10 21  keV m −3  s for a deuterium–tritium plasma to ignite. Due to the radioactivity associated with tritium, today’s research tokamaks generally operate with deuterium only ( solid dots ). The large tokamaks JET(EU) and TFTR(US), however, have used a deuterium–tritium mix ( open dots ). The rate of increase in tokamak performance has outstripped that of Moore’s law for the miniaturisation of silicon chips (Pitts et al. 2006 ). Many international projects (their names are given by acronyms in the figure) have contributed to the development of fusion plasma parameters and the progress in fusion research which serves as the basis for the ITER design

After 50 years of fusion research there is no evidence for a fundamental obstacle in the basic physics. But still many problems have to be overcome as detailed below:

Critical issues in fusion plasma physics based on magnetic confinement

• confine a plasma magnetically with 1000 m 3 volume,
• maintain the plasma stable at 2–4 bar pressure,
• achieve 15 MA current running in a fluid (in case of tokamaks, avoid instabilities leading to disruptions),
• find methods to maintain the plasma current in steady-state,
• tame plasma turbulence to get the necessary confinement time,
• develop an exhaust system (divertor) to control power and particle exhaust, specifically to remove the α-particle heat deposited into the plasma and to control He as the fusion ash.

Critical issues in fusion plasma technology

• build a system with 200 MKelvin in the plasma core and 4 Kelvin about 2 m away,
• build magnetic system at 6 Tesla (max field 12 Tesla) with 50 GJ energy,
• develop heating systems to heat the plasma to the fusion temperature and current drive systems to maintain steady-state conditions for the tokamak,
• handle neutron-fluxes of 2 MW/m 2 leading to 100 dpa in the surrounding material,
• develop low activation materials,
• develop tritium breeding technologies,
• provide high availability of a complex system using an appropriate remote handling system,
• develop the complete physics and engineering basis for system licensing.

The goals of ITER

The major goals of ITER (see Fig.  5 ) in physics are to confine a D-T plasma with α-particle self-heating dominating all other forms of plasma heating, to produce about ~500 MW of fusion power at a gain Q  = fusion power/external heating power, of about 10, to explore plasma stability in the presence of energetic α-particles, and to demonstrate ash-exhaust and burn control.

Schematic layout of the ITER reactor experiment (from www.iter.org )

In the field of technology, ITER will demonstrate fundamental aspects of fusion as the self-heating of the plasma by alpha-particles, show the essentials to a fusion reactor in an integrated system, give the first test a breeding blanket and assess the technology and its efficiency, breed tritium from lithium utilising the D-T fusion neutron, develop scenarios and materials with low T-inventories. Thus ITER will provide strong indications for vital research and development efforts necessary in the view of a demonstration reactor (DEMO). ITER will be based on conventional steel as structural material. Its inner wall will be covered with beryllium to surround the plasma with low-Z metal with low inventory properties. The divertor will be mostly from tungsten to sustain the high α-particle heat fluxes directed onto target plates situated inside a divertor chamber. An important step in fusion reactor development is the achievement of licensing of the complete system.

The rewards from fusion research and the realisation of a fusion reactor can be described in the following points:

• fusion has a tremendous potential thanks to the availability of deuterium and lithium as primary fuels. But as a recommendation, the fusion development has to be accelerated,

Fusion time strategy towards the fusion reactor on the net (EFDA 2012 , Fusion electricity. A roadmap to the realisation of fusion energy)

In addition, there is the fusion technology programme and its material branch, which ultimately need a neutron source to study the interaction with 14 MeV neutrons. For this purpose, a spallation source IFMIF is presently under design. As a recommendation, ways have to be found to accelerate the fusion development. In general, with ITER, IFMIF and the DEMO, the programme will move away from plasma science more towards technology orientation. After the ITER physics and technology programme—if successful—fusion can be placed into national energy supply strategies. With fusion, future generations can have access to a clean, safe and (at least expected of today) economic power source.

The fission nuclear power continues to be an essential part of the low-carbon electricity generation in the world for decades to come. There are breakthrough possibilities in the development of new generation nuclear reactors where the life-time of the nuclear waste can be reduced to some hundreds of years instead of the present time-scales of hundred thousand of years. Research on the fourth generation reactors is needed for the realisation of this development. For the fast nuclear reactors a substantial research and development effort is required in many fields—from material sciences to safety demonstration—to attain the envisaged goals. Fusion provides a long-term vision for an efficient energy production. The fusion option for a nuclear reactor for efficient production of electricity should be vigorously pursued on the international arena as well as within the European energy roadmap to reach a decision point which allows to critically assess this energy option.

Box 1 Explanations of abbreviations used in this article

Biographies

is Professor in Energy Research and Director of MTA Center for Energy Research, Budapest, Hungary. His research interests are in the development of new fission reactors, new structural materials, high temperature irradiation resistance, mechanical deformation.

is Professor of Applied Atomic and Molecular Physics at Royal Institute of Technology, (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden. Her research interests are in basic atomic and molecular processes studied with synchrotron radiation, development of diagnostic techniques for analysing the performance of fusion experiments in particular development of photon spectroscopic diagnostics.

1 http://www.iea.org/ .

2 https://cnpp.iaea.org/pages/index.htm .

3 GenIV International forum: ( http://www.gen-4.org/index.html ).

4 https://www.gen-4.org/gif/jcms/c_60729/technology-roadmap-update-2013 .

5 http://myrrha.sckcen.be/ .

6 www.sckcen.be/pateros/ .

7 https://www.euro-fusion.org/ .

8 https://www.ipp.mpg.de/ippcms/de/pr/forschung/w7x/index.html .

Contributor Information

Akos Horvath, Email: [email protected] .

Elisabeth Rachlew, Email: es.htk@kre .

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The Benefits Of Nuclear Power

It won’t solve our energy problems, but our energy problems can’t be solved without it.

The following essay is excerpted from the foreword to Keeping the Lights on at America's Nuclear Power Plants , a new book from the Hoover Institution’s Shultz-Stephenson Task Force on Energy Policy. This work is part of the task force’s Reinventing Nuclear Power research series.

Nuclear power alone will not solve our energy problems. But we do not think they can be solved without it. This is the crux of our concerns and why we are offering this book. It describes the challenges nuclear power is facing today and what might be done about them.

One of us, between other jobs, built nuclear plants for a living; between other jobs, the other helped make them safer. In many respects, this is a personal topic for us both. But here are some facts:

We know that our country’s dominance in civilian nuclear power has been a key part of America’s ability to set norms and rules not just for power plants in less stable places around the world but also for the control of nuclear weapon proliferation. We know that it’s an important technology-intensive export industry too: America invented the technology, and the United States today remains the world’s largest nuclear power generator, with nearly a quarter of global plants (more if you count the hundred power reactors aboard our navy ships at sea). Domestically, we know that nuclear power gives us reliable electricity supply at scale, supplying one-fifth of all of our power production and that nearly two- thirds of our country’s pollution and carbon-dioxide-free energy comes from these facilities.

There are known risks and real costs to nuclear too, of course, but on balance we believe that the benefits for the country come out well ahead. Historically, much of the national nuclear enterprise has rested on the backs of the US federal government (and military) as well as on the ratepayers of the electric utilities who own or operate these facilities. The question today is if—and how—those same players will be able to shoulder that responsibility in the future.

When we first started looking into the nuclear question as part of our energy work at the Hoover Institution a few years ago through the Shultz-Stephenson Task Force on Energy Policy, we had our eyes toward the future: What were the prospects and roadblocks for a new generation of small, modular nuclear reactors? How about the licensing framework for advanced, next-generation plant designs? Could a new entrepreneurial portfolio approach help break through the nuclear fusion barrier? We wanted to know what it would take to “reinvent nuclear power.” Soon enough, though, it became clear that it would not be enough to reinvent the future of nuclear power; if we don’t want to make the commitment to finance and run the mature and already depreciated light water nuclear reactors of today effectively, we won’t have the option to make that choice tomorrow.

Nothing in energy happens in isolation, so nuclear power should be viewed in its larger context. In fact, we are in a new energy position in America today.

First, security. New supplies of oil and gas have come online throughout the country. This not only has reduced our imports but also given us the flexibility in our production that makes price fixing cartels such as OPEC weak.

Prices are falling too, not just in the well known oil and gas sectors, the result again of American ingenuity and relentless commercialization efforts in fracking and horizontal drilling, but in new energy technologies as well. Research and development in areas such as wind and solar or electric vehicles are driving down those costs faster than the scientists expected, though there is still substantial room to go. We also have made huge strides since the 1970s Arab oil crises in the more efficient—or thoughtful—use of energy and are in a much better position energy-wise financially and competitively because of it.

Meanwhile there is the environment. The good news is that we’ve already made a lot of progress. As anyone who experienced Los Angeles smog in the 1960s and 1970s can attest, the Clean Air Act has been huge for the air we breathe. On carbon dioxide emissions, the progress is mixed, but the influx of cheap natural gas, energy efficiency, and a growing menu of clean energy technologies suggest promise.

Our takeaway from all of this is that for perhaps the first time in modern history, we find ourselves with breathing room on the energy front. We are no longer simply struggling to keep the lights on or to keep from going broke while doing so. What will we then choose to do with that breathing room?

To put a finer point on it: America needs to ask itself if it’s acceptable to lose its nuclear power capability by the midpoint of this century. If so, then, plant by plant, our current road may take us there. Some would be happy with that result. Those that would not should understand that changing course is likely to require deliberate actions.

What would we be giving up if we forgot nuclear power?

An environmentalist might note that we’d be losing a technology that does not pollute the air or water. Radioactivity is a cultural and emotional concern for many people, but nuclear power produces a relatively small amount of such waste—at a predictable rate, with known characteristics, and with $30 billion in disposal costs already paid for. Perhaps surprisingly, nuclear power production actually releases one hundred times less radiation into the surrounding environment than does coal power. Overall, with a long track record, the rate of human injury caused by nuclear power production is the lowest of any power generation technology, including renewable resources.

Jobs are increasingly discussed in energy, as they have long been in other business policy. Nuclear power plants each employ about six hundred people, about ten times more than an equivalent natural gas plant. Many nuclear workers are midcareer military veterans with few other outlets for their specialized skills—one US nuclear utility reported last year that a third of all new hires at nuclear facilities were veterans, Often intentionally located in rural areas, nuclear plants are major economic inputs to sixty small towns and cities across America. The nuclear power technology and manufacturing supply chain is a global export business for domestic businesses—not just for multinationals but also closely held nuclear-rated component suppliers, forgers, and contractors.

Someone concerned with security can appreciate that the fuel for nuclear power plants can be provided entirely from friendly suppliers, with low price volatility, and long-term supplies stored on-site and not subject to weather disruptions. Existing nuclear power plants use mature technologies with a long experience of domestic expertise in operations, oversight, and regulation. More broadly, a well-functioning domestic civil nuclear “ecosystem” is intertwined with our space and military nuclear capabilities, such as the reactors that power our aircraft carriers and submarines.

Finally, we shouldn’t discount that nuclear power plants are today being built at an unprecedented rate by developing countries in Asia and the Middle East, driven by power demands for their growing industries and increasingly wealthy populations. Those new plants are as likely to be built and supplied by international competitors as they are our own domestic businesses and their employees. The United States has so far held a dominant position in preserving global safety and proliferation norms owing to the strength of our domestic nuclear capabilities. Looking forward, new nuclear power technologies are available that could improve plants’ performance and the affordability of the power they generate. But tomorrow’s nuclear technologies directly depend on a continuation of today’s nuclear workforce and know-how.

In today’s American energy system, our biggest challenges are now human, not machine. Nuclear power illustrates this: while these generators have sat producing a steady stream of electrons, year by year, the country and markets have shifted around them. As long as we keep the gas pedal down on energy research and development—which is important for the long term—our country’s universities and research labs will ensure that new technologies keep coming down the pipeline as fast as we can use them. Often what is holding us back now is a lack of strategy and the willingness to make the political and bureaucratic changes necessary to carry one out. Technology and markets are moving faster than governments.

Nuclear power operators after Chernobyl and Three Mile Island were famously described as being “hostages of each other.” Any mistake made by one would reflect on all of the others. In many ways, this was an opportunity that became the basis for the American operators’ effective program of industry self-regulation. Today that phrase may have a new meaning. In recent years, the country’s energy industry has become unfortunately politicized, with many of the same sorts of identity- and values-based appeals that have come to dominate our political campaigns.

Technologies or techniques are singled out for tribal attack or support, limited by a zero-sum mindset. In truth, the energy system is not something that can be won. Instead, it’s more like gardening: something that you have to keep working at and tending to. Fans of gas or nuclear, electric cars or oil exports, fracking or rooftop solar—in the end, all are linked by common markets and governments. Each shot red in anger ricochets through the system, sometimes with unexpected consequences. This is why, for example, we support a revenue-neutral carbon tax combined with a rollback of other technology-specific mandates, taxes, and subsidies that would go a long way toward leveling the playing field. Ultimately, a balanced and responsive approach that acknowledges the real trade-offs between affordability, reliability, social impacts, environmental performance, and global objectives is the best strategy for reaching—and maintaining over time—any one of those energy goals. Our energy system has more jobs than one.

So while we find ourselves with breathing room today, we know that the path ahead is filled with uncertainty. The unforeseen developments that have delivered us to this point today could once again carry us to an unexpected situation tomorrow. Renewable resource costs have fallen faster than expected—can that pace be maintained as systems pass from plug-and-play at the margins to unexplored territory on the widespread integration or even centrality of intermittent generation? Natural gas has seen a boon throughout the country—how comfortable are we in betting the future on its continued low cost ubiquity? Coal has always been available alongside nuclear on the grid as a reliable base-load backstop—can we take for granted that it will survive a new regulatory environment through a series of technological miracles? Taking control of the grid through the large-scale storage of power would revolutionize our relationship with electricity and should be relentlessly pursued—but what if our technology can not deliver by the time we need it?

We are optimists about our country’s energy future. We are also realists. This book is about the nuclear situation today. But it is a mistake to compare the known challenges of the present with the pristine potential of the new. If one was to describe a new power-generating technology with almost no pollution, practically limitless fuel supplies, reliable operations, scalable, and statistically far safer than existing alternatives, it would understandably sound like a miracle. Our energy needs would be solved. No wonder the early America advocates of nuclear fission were so excited. Experienced reality is always more complicated, of course. We should bring to bear this country’s best minds and technologies to navigate that process responsibly. We have been through a roller coaster on energy in this country that is not likely to stop. New challenges will emerge, as will new opportunities.

It is far too early to take nuclear off the table. 

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The top pros and cons of nuclear energy

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As with any energy source, renewable or non-renewable, there are pros and cons to using nuclear energy. We'll review some of these top benefits and drawbacks to keep in mind when comparing nuclear to other energy sources.

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Top pros and cons of nuclear energy

Despite the limited development of nuclear power plants recently, nuclear energy still supplies about 20 percent of U.S. electricity. As with any energy source, it comes with various advantages and disadvantages. Here are just a few top ones to keep in mind:

Pros and cons of nuclear power

On the pros side, nuclear energy is a carbon-free electricity source (with other environmental benefits as well!). It needs a relatively small land area to operate and is a great energy source for reliable baseload power for the electric grid. On the cons side, nuclear is technically a non-renewable energy source, nuclear plants have a high up-front cost associated with them, and nuclear waste and the operation of nuclear plants pose some environmental and health challenges.

Below, we'll explore these pros and cons in further detail.

Advantages of nuclear energy

Here are four advantages of nuclear energy:

Carbon-free electricity

Small land footprint, high power output, reliable energy source.

While traditional fossil fuel generation sources pump massive amounts of carbon dioxide (the primary cause of global climate change) into the atmosphere, nuclear energy plants do not produce carbon dioxide, or any air pollution, during operation. That's not to say that they don't pollute at all, though - mining, refining, and preparing uranium use energy, and nuclear waste pose a completely separate environmental problem. We'll discuss nuclear waste's role in all this later on.

Nuclear energy plants take up far less physical space than other common clean energy facilities (particularly wind and solar power). According to the Department of Energy, a typical nuclear facility producing 1,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity takes up about one square mile of space. Comparatively, a wind farm producing the same amount of energy takes 360x more land area, and a large-scale solar farm uses 75x more space. That's 431 wind turbines or 3.125 million (!!!) solar panels. Check out this graphic from the Department of Energy for more fun comparisons of energy sources, like how many Corvettes are needed to produce the same amount of energy as one nuclear reactor.

Nuclear power plants produce high energy levels compared to most power sources (especially renewables), making them a great provider of baseload electricity. "Baseload electricity" simply means the minimum level of energy demand on the grid over some time, say a week. Nuclear has the potential to be this high-output baseload source, and we're headed that way - since 1990, nuclear power plants have generated 20% of the US's electricity. Additionally, nuclear is a prime candidate for replacing current baseload electricity sources that contribute significantly to air pollution, such as large coal plants.

Lastly, nuclear energy is a reliable renewable energy source based on its constant production and accessibility. Nuclear power plants produce their maximum power output more often (93% of the time) than any other energy source, and because of this round-the-clock stability, makes nuclear energy an ideal source of reliable baseload electricity for the grid.

Disadvantages of nuclear energy

Here are four disadvantages of nuclear energy:

Uranium is technically non-renewable

Very high upfront costs

Nuclear waste

Malfunctions can be catastrophic, uranium is non-renewable.

Although nuclear energy is a "clean" source of power, it is technically not renewable. Current nuclear technology relies on uranium ore for fuel, which exists in limited amounts in the earth's crust. The longer we rely on nuclear power (and uranium ore in particular), the more depleted the earth's uranium resources will become, which will drive up the cost of extracting it and the negative environmental impacts of mining and processing the uranium.

High upfront costs

Operating a nuclear energy plant is a relatively low-cost endeavor, but building it in the first place is very expensive. Nuclear reactors are complex devices that require many levels of safety built around them, which drives up the cost of new nuclear plants. 

And now, to the thorny issue of nuclear waste – we could write hundreds of articles about the science of nuclear waste, its political implications, cost/benefit analyses, and more regarding this particular subject. The key takeaway from that would be this: nuclear waste is a complicated issue, and we won't claim to be anything near experts . Nuclear waste is radioactive, making it an environmental and health catastrophe waiting to happen. These reasons are exactly why governments spend tons of money to safely package and dispose of used-up nuclear fuel. At the end of the day, yes, nuclear waste is a dangerous by-product of nuclear power plants, and it takes extreme care and advanced technology to handle it properly.

A nuclear meltdown occurs when the heat created by a nuclear reactor exceeds the amount of heat being transferred out by the cooling systems; this causes the system to exceed its melting point. If this happens, hot radioactive vapors can escape, which can cause nuclear plants to melt down fully and combust, releasing harmful radioactive materials into the environment. This is an extremely unlikely worst-case scenario, and nuclear plants are equipped with numerous safety measures to prevent meltdowns.

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ENVS 202 Nuclear Power

Just another university of oregon sites site.

We strove to answer the the question: While nuclear power plants are significantly cleaner and more environmentally friendly than coal or natural gas plants, are they worth the time, money, and energy to build even as they are not sustainable?

This was a very difficult question to answer, as there are so many different variables involved. To start off with, there are some facts that must be addressed:

1.) The use of coal and natural gas power plants  directly  contributes to climate change, as well as adverse health affects due to pollutants.

2.) The population of the United States is growing rapidly, and will continue to do so (source). As the population increases, the energy demand in the country will also increase.

3.) Americans use more electricity per capita than any other nation in the world (source).

4.) Nuclear power already provides nearly a fifth of the energy demands in the United States.

With those points clearly outlined, now we can begin to look at the various factors of nuclear power, and how they may be perceived as net positives or negatives.

Nuclear Power plants have the potential for both positive and negative impacts on the environment:

Positive Environmental Impact:

Nuclear power plants do not emit any particulate or gaseous pollution. This makes them far cleaner in the short term than either coal or natural gas power plants. Coal and gas plants produce carbon dioxide and methane, which act as greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere, actively trapping heat and contributing to global climate change. Since nuclear power plants do not emit this kind of pollution, they are a definite improvement in this area.

Nuclear power plants are also capable of producing huge quantities of electricity, further reducing the need for additional coal or gas power plants. Since nuclear plants can produce so much energy, far fewer are needed in order to meet demands than are coal or gas plants. Thus, the more nuclear power plants in the country, the lesser the need for coal or gas plants that contribute to climate change.

Negative Environmental Impact:

How radioactive waste from the Hanford site pollutes the Columbia river and its inhabitants.

As exemplified in Chernobyl, Ukraine, Fukushima, Japan, and Three  Mile Island, Pennsylvania; Nuclear disasters have massive environmental impacts. Although some may argue that they are few and far between, it is vital to understand the enormous global consequences of even just one disaster. After the Fukushima Diiachi disaster, radiation reached all the way to the North American coast in just 10 days.  Radiation came by both sea and air, and at least one salmon in British Columbia  was found with low levels of Cesium-134, an isotope released from the disaster.

However, even at sites that did not have meltdowns, there are issues. In south central Washington state, along the Columbia river sits a 586 square mile expanse that is home to the most contaminated site in the western hemisphere: the Hanford Nuclear Site (hanfordchallenge.org).  This site is known to have leaked over 1 million gallons of radioactive waste. While many would like to forget this disaster in our backyard, the Hanford site is so far up the Columbia river that it pollutes the river for several hundred miles until it is released into the Pacific Ocean.

Earlier in May, a tunnel containing radioactive waste collapsed, potentially leaking more radioactive waste into the environment we live in. It is now being declared an emergency situation (NPR).  Hanford is an excellent example of even a decommissioned  nuclear power plant becoming an environmental disaster.

Not worried about the environment? No problem!

There are plenty of human health hazards to be concerned about as well: For example, in an article published June 6th, 2017 by The Japan Times, seven more residents who were 18 years or younger at the time of the 2011 disaster at Fukushima, were just diagnosed with thyroid cancer, a cancer correlated with radiation exposure in children and young adults. This brings the number of Fukushima prefecture residents suffering from Thyroid cancer to 152 people (japantimes). There will never be any positive health benefits from Nuclear Power.

While there is no doubt that new Nuclear Power plants will bring jobs and economic growth to a region, the costs of building and maintaining new plants are so prohibitively expensive, that potential investors are shying away. Of the four planned new plants in the United States, two have already been canceled. It it likely that the other two will be abandoned as well due to alternative opportunities for investors. Some plants around the country (like Three Mile Island) are already in danger of closing just due to market pressures.

The renewable and green energy markets are expanding so rapidly, that new investors are more likely to choose them over nuclear power. Not only do renewables offer energy at with a much better Return on Investment (ROI), but they also offer great PR opportunities for energy companies. In the United States right now, solar, wind, and now wave power are growing so quickly, that it just does not make economic sense to build any new plants. If we as a country invest and subsidize renewable and green energy, the number jobs that would be created by new nuclear plants would be eclipsed by the available jobs working to create the production and installation methods for renewables.

Final Words:

Although there are some significant advantages to Nuclear Power over Coal and Natural Gas, those advantages disappear when compared to renewable energy technologies, and the potential for environmental disaster is huge, and long lasting.

It is of our firm belief, that there is no reason to continue building new Nuclear Power plants, and that investment should be made into wind, solar, hydro, wave, and other renewable and green energy resources, that will not harm the planet.

SOURCES (including images):

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/05/09/527605496/emergency-declared-at-nuclear-contaminated-site-in-washington-state

http://totalrehash.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/img_5915a79807e38.jpeghttp://totalrehash.com/for-west-coast-nuclear-hanford-threat-dwarfs-fukushima/

http://www.snopes.com/radioactive-salmon-fukushima/

http://www.hanfordchallenge.org

https://www.cancer.gov/types/thyroid/hp/thyroid-treatment-pdq

https://southeastenergy.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/tell-congress-we-want-renewable-solutions-not-nuclear-problems/

Seven more Fukushima residents diagnosed with thyroid cancer

Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future (1992)

Chapter: 5 conclusions and recommendations, conclusions and recommendations.

The Committee was requested to analyze the technological and institutional alternatives to retain an option for future U.S. nuclear power deployment.

A premise of the Senate report directing this study is “that nuclear fission remains an important option for meeting our electric energy requirements and maintaining a balanced national energy policy.” The Committee was not asked to examine this premise, and it did not do so. The Committee consisted of members with widely ranging views on the desirability of nuclear power. Nevertheless, all members approached the Committee's charge from the perspective of what would be necessary if we are to retain nuclear power as an option for meeting U.S. electric energy requirements, without attempting to achieve consensus on whether or not it should be retained. The Committee's conclusions and recommendations should be read in this context.

The Committee's review and analyses have been presented in previous chapters. Here the Committee consolidates the conclusions and recommendations found in the previous chapters and adds some additional conclusions and recommendations based upon some of the previous statements. The Committee also includes some conclusions and recommendations that are not explicitly based upon the earlier chapters but stem from the considerable experience of the Committee members.

Most of the following discussion contains conclusions. There also are a few recommendations. Where the recommendations appear they are identified as such by bold italicized type.

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

In 1989, nuclear plants produced about 19 percent of the United States ' electricity, 77 percent of France's electricity, 26 percent of Japan's electricity, and 33 percent of West Germany's electricity. However, expansion of commercial nuclear energy has virtually halted in the United States. In other countries, too, growth of nuclear generation has slowed or stopped. The reasons in the United States include reduced growth in demand for electricity, high costs, regulatory uncertainty, and public opinion. In the United States, concern for safety, the economics of nuclear power, and waste disposal issues adversely affect the general acceptance of nuclear power.

Electricity Demand

Estimated growth in summer peak demand for electricity in the United States has fallen from the 1974 projection of more than 7 percent per year to a relatively steady level of about 2 percent per year. Plant orders based on the projections resulted in cancellations, extended construction schedules, and excess capacity during much of the 1970s and 1980s. The excess capacity has diminished in the past five years, and ten year projections (at approximately 2 percent per year) suggest a need for new capacity in the 1990s and beyond. To meet near-term anticipated demand, bidding by non-utility generators and energy efficiency providers is establishing a trend for utilities acquiring a substantial portion of this new generating capacity from others. Reliance on non-utility generators does not now favor large scale baseload technologies.

Nuclear power plants emit neither precursors to acid rain nor gases that contribute to global warming, like carbon dioxide. Both of these environmental issues are currently of great concern. New regulations to address these issues will lead to increases in the costs of electricity produced by combustion of coal, one of nuclear power's main competitors. Increased costs for coal-generated electricity will also benefit alternate energy sources that do not emit these pollutants.

Major deterrents for new U.S. nuclear plant orders include high capital carrying charges, driven by high construction costs and extended construction times, as well as the risk of not recovering all construction costs.

Construction Costs

Construction costs are hard to establish, with no central source, and inconsistent data from several sources. Available data show a wide range of costs for U.S. nuclear plants, with the most expensive costing three times more (in dollars per kilowatt electric) than the least expensive in the same year of commercial operation. In the post-Three Mile Island era, the cost increases have been much larger. Considerable design modification and retrofitting to meet new regulations contributed to cost increases. From 1971 to 1980, the most expensive nuclear plant (in constant dollars) increased by 30 percent. The highest cost for a nuclear plant beginning commercial operation in the United States was twice as expensive (in constant dollars) from 1981 to 1984 as it was from 1977 to 1980.

Construction Time

Although plant size also increased, the average time to construct a U.S. nuclear plant went from about 5 years prior to 1975 to about 12 years from 1985 to 1989. U.S. construction times are much longer than those in other major nuclear countries, except for the United Kingdom. Over the period 1978 to 1989, the U.S. average construction time was nearly twice that of France and more than twice that of Japan.

Billions of dollars in disallowances of recovery of costs from utility ratepayers have made utilities and the financial community leery of further investments in nuclear power plants. During the 1980s, rate base disallowances by state regulators totaled about $14 billion for nuclear plants, but only about $0.7 billion for non-nuclear plants.

Operation and maintenance (O&M) costs for U.S. nuclear plants have increased faster than for coal plants. Over the decade of the 1980s, U.S. nuclear O&M-plus-fuel costs grew from nearly half to about the same as those for fossil fueled plants, a significant shift in relative advantage.

Performance

On average, U.S. nuclear plants have poorer capacity factors compared to those of plants in other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. On a lifetime basis, the United States is barely above 60 percent capacity factor, while France and Japan are at 68 percent, and West Germany is at 74 percent. Moreover, through 1988 12 U.S. plants were in the bottom 22. However, some U.S. plants do very well: 3 of the top 22 OECD plants through 1988 were U.S. U.S. plants averaged 65 percent in 1988, 63 percent in 1989, and 68 percent in 1990.

Except for capacity factors, the performance indicators of U.S. nuclear plants have improved significantly over the past several years. If the industry is to achieve parity with the operating performance in other countries, it must carefully examine its failure to achieve its own goal in this area and develop improved strategies, including better management practices. Such practices are important if the generators are to develop confidence that the new generation of plants can achieve the higher load factors estimated by the vendors.

Public Attitudes

There has been substantial opposition to new plants. The failure to solve the high-level radioactive waste disposal problem has harmed nuclear power's public image. It is the Committee's opinion, based upon our experience, that, more recently, an inability of states, that are members of regional compact commissions, to site low-level radioactive waste facilities has also harmed nuclear power's public image.

Several factors seem to influence the public to have a less than positive attitude toward new nuclear plants:

no perceived urgency for new capacity;

nuclear power is believed to be more costly than alternatives;

concerns that nuclear power is not safe enough;

little trust in government or industry advocates of nuclear power;

concerns about the health effects of low-level radiation;

concerns that there is no safe way to dispose of high-level waste; and

concerns about proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The Committee concludes that the following would improve public opinion of nuclear power:

a recognized need for a greater electrical supply that can best be met by large plants;

economic sanctions or public policies imposed to reduce fossil fuel burning;

maintaining the safe operation of existing nuclear plants and informing the public;

providing the opportunity for meaningful public participation in nuclear power issues, including generation planning, siting, and oversight;

better communication on the risk of low-level radiation;

resolving the high-level waste disposal issue; and

assurance that a revival of nuclear power would not increase proliferation of nuclear weapons.

As a result of operating experience, improved O&M training programs, safety research, better inspections, and productive use of probabilistic risk analysis, safety is continually improved. The Committee concludes that the risk to the health of the public from the operation of current reactors in the United States is very small. In this fundamental sense, current reactors are safe. However, a significant segment of the public has a different perception and also believes that the level of safety can and should be increased. The

development of advanced reactors is in part an attempt to respond to this public attitude.

Institutional Changes

The Committee believes that large-scale deployment of new nuclear power plants will require significant changes by both industry and government.

One of the most important factors affecting the future of nuclear power in the United States is its cost in relation to alternatives and the recovery of these capital and operating charges through rates that are charged for the electricity produced. Chapter 2 of this report deals with these issues in some detail. As stated there, the industry must develop better methods for managing the design and construction of nuclear plants. Arrangements among the participants that would assure timely, economical, and high-quality construction of new nuclear plants, the Committee believes, will be prerequisites to an adequate degree of assurance of capital cost recovery from state regulatory authorities in advance of construction. The development of state prudency laws also can provide a positive response to this issue.

The Committee and others are well aware of the increases in nuclear plant construction and operating costs over the last 20 years and the extension of plant construction schedules over this same period. 1 The Committee believes there are many reasons for these increases but is unable to disaggregate the cost effect among these reasons with any meaningful precision.

Like others, the Committee believes that the financial community and the generators must both be satisfied that significant improvements can be achieved before new plants can be ordered. In addition, the Committee believes that greater confidence in the control of costs can be realized with plant designs that are more nearly complete before construction begins, plants that are easier to construct, use of better construction and management methods, and business arrangements among the participants that provide stronger incentives for cost-effective, timely completion of projects.

It is the Committee's opinion, based upon our experience, that the principal participants in the nuclear industry--utilities, architect-engineers, and suppliers –should begin now to work out the full range of contractual arrangements for advanced nuclear power plants. Such arrangements would

increase the confidence of state regulatory bodies and others that the principal participants in advanced nuclear power plant projects will be financially accountable for the quality, timeliness, and economy of their products and services.

Inadequate management practices have been identified at some U.S. utilities, large and small public and private. Because of the high visibility of nuclear power and the responsibility for public safety, a consistently higher level of demonstrated utility management practices is essential before the U.S. public's attitude about nuclear power is likely to improve.

Over the past decade, utilities have steadily strengthened their ability to be responsible for the safety of their plants. Their actions include the formation and support of industry institutions, including the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO). Self-assessment and peer oversight through INPO are acknowledged to be strong and effective means of improving the performance of U.S. nuclear power plants. The Committee believes that such industry self-improvement, accountability, and self-regulation efforts improve the ability to retain nuclear power as an option for meeting U.S. electric energy requirements. The Committee encourages industry efforts to reduce reliance on the adversarial approach to issue resolution.

It is the Committee's opinion, based upon our experience, that the nuclear industry should continue to take the initiative to bring the standards of every American nuclear plant up to those of the best plants in the United States and the world. Chronic poor performers should be identified publicly and should face the threat of insurance cancellations. Every U.S. nuclear utility should continue its full-fledged participation in INPO; any new operators should be required to become members through insurance prerequisites or other institutional mechanisms.

Standardization. The Committee views a high degree of standardization as very important for the retention of nuclear power as an option for meeting U.S. electric energy requirements. There is not a uniformly accepted definition of standardization. The industry, under the auspices of the Nuclear Power Oversight Committee, has developed a position paper on standardization that provides definitions of the various phases of standardization and expresses an industry commitment to standardization. The Committee believes that a strong and sustained commitment by the principal participants will be required to realize the potential benefits of standardization (of families of plants) in the diverse U.S. economy. It is the Committee's opinion, based upon our experience, that the following will be necessary:

Families of standardized plants will be important for ensuring the highest levels of safety and for realizing the potential economic benefits of new nuclear plants. Families of standardized plants will allow standardized approaches to plant modification, maintenance, operation, and training.

Customers, whether utilities or other entities, must insist on standardization before an order is placed, during construction, and throughout the life of the plant.

Suppliers must take standardization into account early in planning and marketing. Any supplier of standardized units will need the experience and resources for a long-term commitment.

Antitrust considerations will have to be properly taken into account to develop standardized plants.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

An obstacle to continued nuclear power development has been the uncertainties in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) licensing process. Because the current regulatory framework was mainly intended for light water reactors (LWR) with active safety systems and because regulatory standards were developed piecemeal over many years, without review and consolidation, the regulations should be critically reviewed and modified (or replaced with a more coherent body of regulations) for advanced reactors of other types. The Committee recommends that NRC comprehensively review its regulations to prepare for advance reactors, in particular. LWRs with passive safety features. The review should proceed from first principles to develop a coherent, consistent set of regulations.

The Committee concludes that NRC should improve the quality of its regulation of existing and future nuclear power plants, including tighter management controls over all of its interactions with licensees and consistency of regional activities. Industry has proposed such to NRC.

The Committee encourages efforts by NRC to reduce reliance on the adversarial approach to issue resolution. The Committee recommends that NRC encourage industry self-improvement, accountability, and self-regulation initia tives . While federal regulation plays an important safety role, it must not be allowed to detract from or undermine the accountability of utilities and their line management organizations for the safety of their plants.

It is the Committee's expectation that economic incentive programs instituted by state regulatory bodies will continue for nuclear power plant operators. Properly formulated and administered, these programs should improve the economic performance of nuclear plants, and they may also enhance safety. However, they do have the potential to provide incentives counter to safety. The Committee believes that such programs should focus

on economic incentives and avoid incentives that can directly affect plant safety. On July 18, 1991 NRC issued a Nuclear Regulatory Commission Policy Statement which expressed concern that such incentive programs may adversely affect safety and commits NRC to monitoring such programs. A joint industry/state study of economic incentive programs could help assure that such programs do not interfere with the safe operation of nuclear power plants.

It is the Committee's opinion, based upon our experience, that NRC should continue to exercise its federally mandated preemptive authority over the regulation of commercial nuclear power plant safety if the activities of state government agencies (or other public or private agencies) run counter to nuclear safety. Such activities would include those that individually or in the aggregate interfere with the ability of the organization with direct responsibility for nuclear plant safety (the organization licensed by the Commission to operate the plant) to meet this responsibility. The Committee urges close industry-state cooperation in the safety area.

It is also the Committee's opinion, based upon our experience, that the industry must have confidence in the stability of NRC's licensing process. Suppliers and utilities need assurance that licensing has become and will remain a manageable process that appropriately limits the late introduction of new issues.

It is likely that, if the possibility of a second hearing before a nuclear plant can be authorized to operate is to be reduced or eliminated, legislation will be necessary. The nuclear industry is convinced that such legislation will be required to increase utility and investor confidence to retain nuclear power as an option for meeting U.S. electric energy requirements. The Committee concurs.

It is the Committee's opinion, based upon our experience, that potential nuclear power plant sponsors must not face large unanticipated cost increases as a result of mid-course regulatory changes, such as backfits. NRC 's new licensing rule, 10 CFR Part 52, provides needed incentives for standardized designs.

Industry and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

The U.S. system of nuclear regulation is inherently adversarial, but mitigation of unnecessary tension in the relations between NRC and its nuclear power licensees would, in the Committee's opinion, improve the regulatory environment and enhance public health and safety. Thus, the Committee commends the efforts by both NRC and the industry to work

more cooperatively together and encourages both to continue and strengthen these efforts.

Department of Energy

Lack of resolution of the high-level waste problem jeopardizes future nuclear power development. The Committee believes that the legal status of the Yucca Mountain site for a geologic repository should be resolved soon, and that the Department of Energy's (DOE) program to investigate this site should be continued. In addition, a contingency plan must be developed to store high-level radioactive waste in surface storage facilities pending the availability of the geologic repository.

Environmental Protection Agency

The problems associated with establishing a high-level waste site at Yucca Mountain are exacerbated by the requirement that, before operation of a repository begins, DOE must demonstrate to NRC that the repository will perform to standards established by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). NRC's staff has strongly questioned the workability of these quantitative requirements, as have the National Research Council's Radioactive Waste Management Board and others. The Committee concludes that the EPA standard for disposal of high-level waste will have to be reevaluated to ensure that a standard that is both adequate and feasible is applied to the geologic waste repository.

Administration and Congress

The Price-Anderson Act will expire in 2002. The Committee sought to discover whether or not such protection would be required for advanced reactors. The clear impression the Committee received from industry representatives was that some such protection would continue to be needed, although some Committee members believe that this was an expression of desire rather than of need. At the very least, renewal of Price-Anderson in 2002 would be viewed by the industry as a supportive action by Congress and would eliminate the potential disruptive effect of developing alternative liability arrangements with the insurance industry. Failure to renew Price-Anderson in 2002 would raise a new impediment to nuclear power plant orders as well as possibly reduce an assured source of funds to accident victims.

The Committee believes that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) approach to safety investigations, as a substitute for the present NRC approach, has merit. In view of the infrequent nature of the activities of such a committee, it may be feasible for it to be established on an ad hoc basis and report directly to the NRC chairman. Therefore, the Committee recommends that such a small safety review entity be established. Before the establishment of such an activity, its charter should be carefully defined, along with a clear delineation of the classes of accidents it would investigate. Its location in the government and its reporting channels should also be specified. The function of this group would parallel those of NTSB. Specifically, the group would conduct independent public investigations of serious incidents and accidents at nuclear power plants and would publish reports evaluating the causes of these events. This group would have only a small administrative structure and would bring in independent experts, including those from both industry and government, to conduct its investigations.

It is the Committee's opinion, based upon our experience, that responsible arrangements must be negotiated between sponsors and economic regulators to provide reasonable assurances of complete cost recovery for nuclear power plant sponsors. Without such assurances, private investment capital is not likely to flow to this technology.

In Chapter 2 , the Committee addressed the non-recovery of utility costs in rate proceedings and concluded that better methods of dealing with this issue must be established. The Committee was impressed with proposals for periodic reviews of construction progress and costs--“rolling prudency” determinations--as one method for managing the risks of cost recovery. The Committee believes that enactment of such legislation could remove much of the investor risk and uncertainty currently associated with state regulatory treatment of new power plant construction, and could therefore help retain nuclear power as an option for meeting U.S. electric energy requirements.

On balance, however, unless many states adopt this or similar legislation, it is the Committee's view that substantial assurances probably cannot be given, especially in advance of plant construction, that all costs incurred in building nuclear plants will be allowed into rate bases.

The Committee notes the current trend toward economic deregulation of electric power generation. It is presently unclear whether this trend is compatible with substantial additions of large-scale, utility-owned, baseload generating capacity, and with nuclear power plants in particular.

It is the Committee's opinion, based upon our experience, that regional low-level radioactive waste compact commissions must continue to establish disposal sites.

The institutional challenges are clearly substantial. If they are to be met, the Committee believes that the Federal government must decide, as a matter of national policy, whether a strong and growing nuclear power program is vital to the economic, environmental, and strategic interests of the American people. Only with such a clearly stated policy, enunciated by the President and backed by the Congress through appropriate statutory changes and appropriations, will it be possible to effect the institutional changes necessary to return the flow of capital and human resources required to properly employ this technology.

Alternative Reactor Technologies

Advanced reactors are now in design or development. They are being designed to be simpler, and, if design goals are realized, these plants will be safer than existing reactors. The design requirements for the advanced reactors are more stringent than the NRC safety goal policy. If final safety designs of advanced reactors, and especially those with passive safety features, are as indicated to this Committee, an attractive feature of them should be the significant reduction in system complexity and corresponding improvement in operability. While difficult to quantify, the benefit of improvements in the operator 's ability to monitor the plant and respond to system degradations may well equal or exceed that of other proposed safety improvements.

The reactor concepts assessed by the Committee were the large evolutionary LWRs, the mid-sized LWRs with passive safety features, 2 the Canadian deuterium uranium (CANDU) heavy water reactor, the modular high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (MHTGR), the safe integral reactor (SIR), the process inherent ultimate safety (PIUS) reactor, and the liquid metal reactor (LMR). The Committee developed the following criteria for comparing these reactor concepts:

safety in operation;

economy of construction and operation;

suitability for future deployment in the U.S. market;

fuel cycle and environmental considerations;

safeguards for resistance to diversion and sabotage;

technology risk and development schedule; and

amenability to efficient and predictable licensing.

With regard to advanced designs, the Committee reached the following conclusions.

Large Evolutionary Light Water Reactors

The large evolutionary LWRs offer the most mature technology. The first standardized design to be certified in the United States is likely to be an evolutionary LWR. The Committee sees no need for federal research and development (R&D) funding for these concepts, although federal funding could accelerate the certification process.

Mid-sized Light Water Reactors with Passive Safety Features

The mid-sized LWRs with passive safety features are designed to be simpler, with modular construction to reduce construction times and costs, and to improve operations. They are likely the next to be certified.

Because there is no experience in building such plants, cost projections for the first plant are clearly uncertain. To reduce the economic uncertainties it will be necessary to demonstrate the construction technology and improved operating performance. These reactors differ from current reactors in construction approach, plant configuration, and safety features. These differences do not appear so great as to require that a first plant be built for NRC certification. While a prototype in the traditional sense will not be required, the Committee concludes that no first-plant mid-sized LWR with passive safety features is likely to be certified and built without government incentives, in the form of shared funding or financial guarantees.

CANDU Heavy Water Reactor

The Committee judges that the CANDU ranks below the advanced mid-sized LWRs in market potential. The CANDU-3 reactor is farther along in design than the mid-sized LWRs with passive safety features. However, it has not entered NRC's design certification process. Commission requirements are complex and different from those in Canada so that U.S. certification

could be a lengthy process. However, the CANDU reactor can probably be licensed in this century.

The heavy water reactor is a mature design, and Canadian entry into the U.S. marketplace would give added insurance of adequate nuclear capacity if it is needed in the future. But the CANDU does not offer advantages sufficient to justify U.S. government assistance to initiate and conduct its licensing review.

Modular High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor

The MHTGR posed a difficult set of questions for the Committee. U.S. and foreign experience with commercial gas-cooled reactors has not been good. A consortium of industry and utility people continue to promote federal funding and to express interest in the concept, while none has committed to an order.

The reactor, as presently configured, is located below ground level and does not have a conventional containment. The basic rationale of the designers is that a containment is not needed because of the safety features inherent in the properties of the fuel.

However, the Committee was not convinced by the presentations that the core damage frequency for the MHTGR has been demonstrated to be low enough to make a containment structure unnecessary. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory estimates that data to confirm fuel performance will not be available before 1994. The Committee believes that reliance on the defense-in-depth concept must be retained, and accurate evaluation of safety will require evaluation of a detailed design.

A demonstration plant for the MHTGR could be licensed slightly after the turn of the century, with certification following demonstration of successful operation. The MHTGR needs an extensive R&D program to achieve commercial readiness in the early part of the next century. The construction and operation of a first plant would likely be required before design certification. Recognizing the opposite conclusion of the MHTGR proponents, the Committee was not convinced that a foreseeable commercial market exists for MHTGR-produced process heat, which is the unique strategic capability of the MHTGR. Based on the Committee 's view on containment requirements, and the economics and technology issues, the Committee judged the market potential for the MHTGR to be low.

The Committee believes that no funds should be allocated for development of high-temperature gas-cooled reactor technology within the commercial nuclear power development budget of DOE.

Safe Integral Reactor and Process Inherent Ultimate Safety Reactor

The other advanced light water designs the Committee examined were the United Kingdom and U.S. SIR and the Swedish PIUS reactor.

The Committee believes there is no near-term U.S. market for SIR and PIUS. The development risks for SIR and PIUS are greater than for the other LWRs and CANDU-3. The lack of operational and regulatory experience for these two is expected to significantly delay their acceptance by utilities. SIR and PIUS need much R&D, and a first plant will probably be required before design certification is approved.

The Committee concluded that no Federal funds should be allocated for R&D on SIR or PIUS.

Liquid Metal Reactor

LMRs offer advantages because of their potential ability to provide a long-term energy supply through a nearly complete use of uranium resources. Were the nuclear option to be chosen, and large scale deployment follow, at some point uranium supplies at competitive prices might be exhausted. Breeder reactors offer the possibility of extending fissionable fuel supplies well past the next century. In addition, actinides, including those from LWR spent fuel, can undergo fission without significantly affecting performance of an advanced LMR, transmuting the actinides to fission products, most of which, except for technetium, carbon, and some others of little import, have half-lives very much shorter than the actinides. (Actinides are among the materials of greatest concern in nuclear waste disposal beyond about 300 years.) However, substantial further research is required to establish (1) the technical and the economic feasibility of recycling in LMRs actinides recovered from LWR spent fuel, and (2) whether high-recovery recycling of transuranics and their transmutation can, in fact, benefit waste disposal. Assuming success, it would still be necessary to dispose of high-level waste, although the waste would largely consist of significantly shorter-lived fission products. Special attention will be necessary to ensure that the LMR's reprocessing facilities are not vulnerable to sabotage or to theft of plutonium.

The unique property of the LMR, fuel breeding, might lead to a U.S. market, but only in the long term. From the viewpoint of commercial licensing, it is far behind the evolutionary and mid-sized LWRs with passive safety features in having a commercial design available for review. A federally funded program, including one or more first plants, will be required before any LMR concept would be accepted by U.S. utilities.

Net Assessment

The Committee could not make any meaningful quantitative comparison of the relative safety of the various advanced reactor designs. The Committee believes that each of the concepts considered can be designed and operated to meet or closely approach the safety objectives currently proposed for future, advanced LWRs. The different advanced reactor designs employ different mixes of active and passive safety features. The Committee believes that there currently is no single optimal approach to improved safety. Dependence on passive safety features does not, of itself, ensure greater safety. The Committee believes that a prudent design course retains the historical defense-in-depth approach.

The economic projections are highly uncertain, first, because past experience suggests higher costs, longer construction times, and lower availabilities than projected and, second, because of different assumptions and levels of maturity among the designs. The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) data, which the Committee believes to be more reliable than that of the vendors, indicate that the large evolutionary LWRs are likely to be the least costly to build and operate on a cost per kilowatt electric or kilowatt hour basis, while the high-temperature gas-cooled reactors and LMRs are likely to be the most expensive. EPRI puts the mid-sized LWRs with passive safety features between the two extremes.

Although there are definite differences in the fuel cycle characteristics of the advanced reactors, fuel cycle considerations did not offer much in the way of discrimination among reactors, nor did safeguards and security considerations, particularly for deployment in the United States. However, the CANDU (with on-line refueling and heavy water) and the LMR (with reprocessing) will require special attention to safeguards.

SIR, MHTGR, PIUS, and LMR are not likely to be deployed for commercial use in the United States, at least within the next 20 years. The development required for commercialization of any of these concepts is substantial.

It is the Committee's overall assessment that the large evolutionary LWRs and the mid-sized LWRs with passive safety features rank highest relative to the Committee 's evaluation criteria. The evolutionary reactors could be ready for deployment by 2000, and the mid-sized could be ready for initial plant construction soon after 2000. The Committee's evaluations and overall assessment are summarized in Figure 5-1 .

FIGURE 5.1 Assessment of advanced reactor technologies.

This table is an attempt to summarize the Committee's qualitative rankings of selected reactor types against each other , without reference either to an absolute standard or to the performance of any other energy resource options, This evaluation was based on the Committee's professional judgment.

The Committee has concluded the following:

Safety and cost are the most important characteristics for future nuclear power plants.

LWRs of the large evolutionary and the mid-sized advanced designs offer the best potential for competitive costs (in that order).

Safety benefits among all reactor types appear to be about equal at this stage in the design process. Safety must be achieved by attention to all failure modes and levels of design by a multiplicity of safety barriers and features. Consequently, in the absence of detailed engineering design and because of the lack of construction and operating experience with the actual concepts, vendor claims of safety superiority among conceptual designs cannot be substantiated.

LWRs can be deployed to meet electricity production needs for the first quarter of the next century:

The evolutionary LWRs are further developed and, because of international projects, are most complete in design. They are likely to be the first plants certified by NRC. They are expected to be the first of the advanced reactors available for commercial use and could operate in the 2000 to 2005 time frame. Compared to current reactors, significant improvements in safety appear likely. Compared to recently completed high-cost reactors, significant improvements also appear possible in cost if institutional barriers are resolved. While little or no federal funding is deemed necessary to complete the process, such funding could accelerate the process.

Because of the large size and capital investment of evolutionary reactors, utilities that might order nuclear plants may be reluctant to do so. If nuclear power plants are to be available to a broader range of potential U.S. generators, the development of the mid-sized plants with passive safety features is important. These reactors are progressing in their designs, through DOE and industry funding, toward certification in the 1995 to 2000 time frame. The Committee believes such funding will be necessary to complete the process. While a prototype in the traditional sense will not be required, federal funding will likely be required for the first mid-sized LWR with passive safety features to be ordered.

Government incentives, in the form of shared funding or financial guarantees, would likely accelerate the next order for a light water plant. The Committee has not addressed what type of government assistance should be provided nor whether the first advanced light water plant should be a large evolutionary LWR or a mid-sized passive LWR.

The CANDU-3 reactor is relatively advanced in design but represents technology that has not been licensed in the United States. The Committee did not find compelling reasons for federal funding to the vendor to support the licensing.

SIR and PIUS, while offering potentially attractive safety features, are unlikely to be ready for commercial use until after 2010. This alone may limit their market potential. Funding priority for research on these reactor systems is considered by the Committee to be low.

MHTGRs also offer potential safety features and possible process heat applications that could be attractive in the market place. However, based on the extensive experience base with light water technology in the United States, the lack of success with commercial use of gas technology, the likely higher costs of this technology compared with the alternatives, and the substantial development costs that are still required before certification, 3 the Committee concluded that the MHTGR had a low market potential. The Committee considered the possibility that the MHTGR might be selected as the new tritium production reactor for defense purposes and noted the vendor association's estimated reduction in development costs for a commercial version of the MHTGR. However, the Committee concluded, for the reasons summarized above, that the commercial MHTGR should be given low priority for federal funding.

LMR technology also provides enhanced safety features, but its uniqueness lies in the potential for extending fuel resources through breeding. While the market potential is low in the near term (before the second quarter of the next century), it could be an important long-term technology, especially if it can be demonstrated to be economic. The Committee believes that the LMR should have the highest priority for long-term nuclear technology development.

The problems of proliferation and physical security posed by the various technologies are different and require continued attention. Special attention will need to be paid to the LMR.

Alternative Research and Development Programs

The Committee developed three alternative R&D programs, each of which contains three common research elements: (1) reactor research using federal facilities. The experimental breeder reactor-II, hot fuel examination facility/south, and fuel manufacturing facility are retained for the LMR; (2) university research programs; and (3) improved performance and life extension programs for existing U.S. nuclear power plants.

The Committee concluded that federal support for development of a commercial version of the MHTGR should be a low priority. However, the fundamental design strategy of the MHTGR is based upon the integrity of the fuel (=1600°C) under operation and accident conditions. There are other potentially significant uses for such fuel, in particular, space propulsion. Consequently, the Committee believes that DOE should consider maintaining a coated fuel particle research program within that part of DOE focused on space reactors.

Alternative 1 adds funding to assist development of the mid-sized LWRs with passive safety features. Alternative 2 adds a LMR development program and associated facilities--the transient reactor test facility, the zero power physics reactor, the Energy Technology Engineering Center, and either the hot fuel examination facility/north in Idaho or the Hanford hot fuel examination facility. This alternative would also include limited research to examine the feasibility of recycling actinides from LWR spent fuel, utilizing the LMR. Finally, Alternative 3 adds the fast flux test facility and increases LMR funding to accelerate reactor and integral fast reactor fuel cycle development and examination of actinide recycle of LWR spent fuel.

None of the three alternatives contain funding for development of the MHTGR, SIR, PIUS, or CANDU-3.

Significant analysis and research is required to assess both the technical and economic feasibility of recycling actinides from LWR spent fuel. The Committee notes that a study of separations technology and transmutation systems was initiated in 1991 by DOE through the National Research Council's Board on Radioactive Waste Management.

It is the Committee's judgment that Alternative 2 should be followed because it:

provides adequate support for the most promising near-term reactor technologies;

provides sufficient support for LMR development to maintain the technical capabilities of the LMR R&D community;

would support deployment of LMRs to breed fuel by the second quarter of the next century should that be needed; and

would maintain a research program in support of both existing and advanced reactors.

The construction of nuclear power plants in the United States is stopping, as regulators, reactor manufacturers, and operators sort out a host of technical and institutional problems.

This volume summarizes the status of nuclear power, analyzes the obstacles to resumption of construction of nuclear plants, and describes and evaluates the technological alternatives for safer, more economical reactors. Topics covered include:

• Institutional issues—including regulatory practices at the federal and state levels, the growing trends toward greater competition in the generation of electricity, and nuclear and nonnuclear generation options.
• Critical evaluation of advanced reactors—covering attributes such as cost, construction time, safety, development status, and fuel cycles.

Finally, three alternative federal research and development programs are presented.

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The explosion at Unit 4 and initial containment efforts

Deaths, radioactivity, and the creation of the chernobyl exclusion zone.

What happened in the Chernobyl disaster?

How many people died as a result of the chernobyl disaster, how big was the exclusion zone created after the chernobyl disaster.

Chernobyl disaster

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

• World Nuclear Association - Chernobyl Accident 1986
• United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation - Assessments of the radiation effects from the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident
• Live Science - Chernobyl: Facts and history of the world's worst nuclear disaster
• BBC - Future - The true toll of the Chernobyl disaster
• Nuclear Energy Institute - Chernobyl Accident And Its Consequences
• Chernobyl disaster - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
• Table Of Contents

When did the Chernobyl disaster occur?

The Chernobyl disaster occurred on April 25 and 26, 1986, at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the Soviet Union . It is one of the worst disasters in the history of nuclear power generation.

The Chernobyl disaster occurred when technicians at nuclear reactor Unit 4 attempted a poorly designed experiment. They shut down the reactor’s power-regulating system and its emergency safety systems, and they removed control rods from its core while allowing the reactor to run at 7 percent power. These mistakes, compounded by others, led to an uncontrolled chain reaction that resulted in several massive explosions.

Some sources state that two people were killed in the initial explosions of the Chernobyl disaster, whereas others report that the figure was closer to 50. Dozens more contracted serious radiation sickness ; some of these people later died. In addition, thousands of deaths from radiation-induced illnesses and cancer were expected years later.

As a result of the Chernobyl disaster, the Soviet Union created an exclusion zone with a radius of about 18.6 miles (30 km) centered on the nuclear power plant, covering 1,017 square miles (2,634 square km) around the plant. The zone was later expanded to 1,600 square miles (4,143 square km) to include heavily radiated areas outside the initial zone.

What effects did the Chernobyl disaster have?

The Chernobyl disaster caused serious radiation sickness and contamination. Between 50 and 185 million curies of radionuclides escaped into the atmosphere. Millions of acres of forest and farmland were contaminated, livestock was born deformed, and humans suffered long-term negative health effects.

Recent News

Chernobyl disaster , accident in 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the Soviet Union , the worst disaster in the history of nuclear power generation. The Chernobyl power station was situated at the settlement of Pryp’yat , 10 miles (16 km) northwest of the city of Chernobyl (Ukrainian: Chornobyl ) and 65 miles (104 km) north of Kyiv , Ukraine . The station consisted of four reactors, each capable of producing 1,000 megawatts of electric power ; it had come online in 1977–83.

The disaster occurred on April 25–26, 1986, when technicians at reactor Unit 4 attempted a poorly designed experiment. Workers shut down the reactor’s power-regulating system and its emergency safety systems, and they withdrew most of the control rods from its core while allowing the reactor to continue running at 7 percent power. These mistakes were compounded by others, and at 1:23 am on April 26 the chain reaction in the core went out of control. Several explosions triggered a large fireball and blew off the heavy steel and concrete lid of the reactor. This and the ensuing fire in the graphite reactor core released large amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere , where it was carried great distances by air currents. A partial meltdown of the core also occurred.

On April 27 the 30,000 inhabitants of Pryp’yat began to be evacuated. A cover-up was attempted, but on April 28 Swedish monitoring stations reported abnormally high levels of wind -transported radioactivity and pressed for an explanation. The Soviet government admitted there had been an accident at Chernobyl, thus setting off an international outcry over the dangers posed by the radioactive emissions . By May 4 both the heat and the radioactivity leaking from the reactor core were being contained, albeit at great risk to workers. Radioactive debris was buried at some 800 temporary sites, and later in the year the highly radioactive reactor core was enclosed in a concrete-and-steel sarcophagus (which was later deemed structurally unsound).

Some sources state that two people were killed in the initial explosions, whereas others report that the figure was closer to 50. Dozens more people contracted serious radiation sickness; some of them later died. Between 50 and 185 million curies of radionuclides (radioactive forms of chemical elements ) escaped into the atmosphere—several times more radioactivity than that created by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki , Japan. This radioactivity was spread by the wind over Belarus , Russia , and Ukraine and soon reached as far west as France and Italy . Millions of acres of forest and farmland were contaminated, and, although many thousands of people were evacuated, hundreds of thousands more remained in contaminated areas. In addition, in subsequent years many livestock were born deformed, and among humans several thousand radiation-induced illnesses and cancer deaths were expected in the long term. The Chernobyl disaster sparked criticism of unsafe procedures and design flaws in Soviet reactors, and it heightened resistance to the building of more such plants. Chernobyl Unit 2 was shut down after a 1991 fire, and Unit 1 remained on-line until 1996. Chernobyl Unit 3 continued to operate until 2000, when the nuclear power station was officially decommissioned.

Following the disaster, the Soviet Union created a circle-shaped exclusion zone with a radius of about 18.6 miles (30 km) centred on the nuclear power plant. The exclusion zone covered an area of about 1,017 square miles (2,634 square km) around the plant. However, it was later expanded to 1,600 square miles (4,143 square km) to include heavily radiated areas outside the initial zone. Although no people actually live in the exclusion zone, scientists, scavengers, and others may file for permits that allow them to enter for limited amounts of time. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, control of the site passed to Ukraine. In 2011 the Ukrainian government opened parts of the exclusion zone to organized tour groups, and Chernobyl and the abandoned city of Pryp’yat became popular destinations for so-called “dark tourists.” During the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 , Russian forces attacking from Belarus captured Chernobyl after a brief but pitched battle. Combat at the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster led to concerns about damage to the containment structure and the possibility of widespread radioactive contamination.

New nuclear capacity could help meet growing demand for clean, reliable electricity  

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today released a report that found more than 60 gigawatts (GW) of new nuclear capacity could potentially be built at operating or recently retired nuclear power plant sites across the country. This additional nuclear capacity could increase access to clean, firm, reliable, and resilient energy while putting our nation on a path to achieve the Biden-Harris Administration’s goal of a net-zero economy by 2050. 

“It is becoming increasingly important for the United States to deliver clean, firm electricity on a gigawatt-scale to meet growing energy demand,” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Dr. Mike Goff. “This report offers valuable insight into the possibility of utilizing the nation’s existing nuclear power plant sites to build new nuclear capacity to reach the nation’s clean energy goals.” 

The Evaluation of Nuclear Power Plant and Coal Power Plant Sites for New Nuclear Capacity report evaluated all 54 operating and 11 recently retired nuclear power plant sites across 31 states. The sites were reviewed for factors such as availability of adequate cooling water, proximity to large population centers or hazardous facilities, or unacceptable seismic or flood hazards. 

Early research shows that 41 operating and retired nuclear power plant sites have room to host new reactors. 

The report estimates that these sites could deliver an additional 60 GW or more of new electric power utilizing large light-water reactor technology — such as the AP1000 reactors recently built at Vogtle in Georgia — or 95 GW of electric power using smaller 600-megawatt electric advanced reactors. 

The report also examined the potential of siting new nuclear capacity at sites that have already applied for a combined construction and operating license with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as well as at retired or soon-to-be retired coal power plant sites. 

This report only serves as a preliminary analysis of sites that can potentially be used for new nuclear builds. Ultimately, utilities and communities must work together to determine whether or not to build a new plant. 

This study was conducted by DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy Systems Analysis & Integration campaign with contributions from researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory.

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The Case for Public Nuclear Power

With additional funding, the Tennessee Valley Authority could provide union jobs, kick-start American industrial production, and help the world go green.

Watts Bar Nuclear Plant.

As I drove across State Highway 68, a pair of white plumes rose above the lush landscape of Eastern Tennessee. A clearing in the trees revealed their source: the two hulking cooling towers of the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant.

These puffy vertical clouds aren’t greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide; they’re water vapor. And the owner and operator of the plant isn’t a private company; it’s the Tennessee Valley Authority, an instrument of the federal government set up during the New Deal and our largest public power utility.

The Watts Bar Nuclear site, about halfway between Knoxville and Chattanooga, is enveloped by nature, with an inner core of industrial facilities, brutalist concrete buildings, and the twin cooling towers. A young deer scampered in front of my car, and another had earlier left droppings on a footpath into the plant. “Not many people know this,” the former reactor operator leading my tour dryly joked, “but the deer are part of the security system.”

Almost a thousand people work here, contributing to the production of 24/7 clean energy. At break tables outside the entrance, I saw some of them soaking up the summer sun. Above them was a slogan affixed onto each of the TVA facilities I visited: “Built for the People of the United States of America.”

Thanks to its potential for decarbonization, nuclear energy is more prominent in national policy than it’s been in decades. The Biden administration has thrown the weight of the government behind the technology: subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act, regulatory reforms in the ADVANCE Act, and extensive engagement with the industry in the Department of Energy. For the first time in the United States, a closed nuclear plant, in Michigan, is being restarted . “To reach our goal of net-zero by 2050,” Jennifer Granholm, Biden’s secretary of energy, recently stated, “we have to at least triple our current nuclear capacity in this country.” But after staggering cost overruns and delays at the most recent nuclear megaproject now complete in Georgia—more than double its $14 billion estimate and seven years late—no companies are ready to build the next one.

In the burgeoning era of decarbonization, the TVA offers an opportunity—as a potential not-for-profit way to kick-start new nuclear energy in the US.

To make this reality, the TVA’s chief nuclear officer told me, it will need to solve a series of political and economic constraints, particularly a glaring budgetary hole. If the TVA moves forward with nuclear energy—and if it and the nation are serious about decarbonizing, it should—will that hole be plugged with federal funding in order to preserve the New Deal institution’s public orientation? Or will it be a new kind of public-private partnership with Big Tech companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, as the nuclear industry has been eyeing?

“I’ll be honest with you,” said Brent Hall, the 10th District vice president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, about the latter option. “I think that will be the beginning of the end of public power.”

The TVA’s journey to nuclear

Just before arriving at Watts Bar Nuclear, the state highway travels along the top of the old Watts Bar Dam. The dam and its generators, a construction project approved and funded by Congress in 1939, was the TVA’s fifth such public infrastructure project for flood control, river navigation, and cheap electricity. The dam created a reservoir, which is now filled with recreational boats and that has a playground along its shoreline.

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Though the TVA’s establishment was part of New Deal experiments to ameliorate the economic and ecological devastation of the Great Depression, the authority quickly took on a new national mission: powering industrial facilities like aluminum smelters with hydroelectric dams as part of the government’s war effort. The revenues from selling electricity to industry also meant lower rates for the growing number of TVA’s residential consumers.

In 1940, the federal government feared a power shortage because it was forecasting a dry year would lower the river levels. The TVA’s directors wrote to Roosevelt and made the case for expansion: “Nowhere in the country can that block of additional electrical energy be provided more rapidly.” The following year, at the government’s urging—and funding—the TVA commenced construction on its first coal-fired plant, the Watts Bar Steam Plant. Now the TVA’s power generation, crucial for war production, would no longer depend on the weather.

In the postwar period, the TVA grew to become the nation’s largest electric utility. An early TVA chairman once claimed that the authority’s dams contained “12 times the bulk of the seven great pyramids of Egypt.” But instead of hydropower it was the TVA’s coal plants, far less constrained than dams, that formed the backbone of the expansion. And once again the needs of the federal government drove the growth: uranium enrichment for the Cold War nuclear arsenal. Beginning with the Manhattan Project, enrichment at federal labs would eventually soak up most of the TVA’s power. In 1955, the TVA started operating its behemoth Kingston coal plant. At the time, it was the world’s largest fossil-fueled power plant.

A decade later, in 1965, the TVA announced plans for its first nuclear power plant. “Nuclear Roars at King Coal” read a Knoxville newspaper headline. The demand from federal labs had been decreasing from its 1957 peak, but the regional demand for TVA power was growing even faster. That growth forecast led the TVA’s directors to kick off an ambitious but organizationally flawed nuclear power program that, by 1975, consisted of 17 reactors planned across seven different sites. TVA directors had assumed that the 1970s energy crisis would drive industries to switch from fossil-fueled energy sources to electrical energy, driving up demand for power. Instead, demand shrank as industries joined households in cutting back on energy to lower their skyrocketing costs. That left the utility with multiple nuclear megaprojects whose power, if the TVA spent the roughly $10 billion needed to complete them, wouldn’t be needed.

Throughout the 1980s, the TVA canceled or put on hold many of these nuclear projects. In the end, it built seven reactors across three sites. The second reactor at Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, for example, came online only in 2016 after its construction lay dormant for decades.

Over the past 20 years, coal power, once a juggernaut in the region, dropped from 60 percent of all electricity in the TVA’s system to only 14 percent. Nuclear has overtaken it as the TVA’s largest source of power, standing at 43 percent last year. Though decarbonization wasn’t the original intent of the TVA’s nuclear program, it has been the result.

But another source of power has played a key role in the TVA’s energy transition away from coal: natural gas. In the same 20-year period, it went from only 2 percent to 34 percent of electricity in the TVA’s system. Like everywhere in the American power grid, the emergence of cheap natural gas in the 2000s offered a straightforward way—far cheaper, faster, and simpler than nuclear plants—to replace coal power. That’s why in recent years the TVA’s giant coal plants like Kingston are being retired in favor of new gas-fired power plants, not nuclear plants.

“We’re not fans of gas plants,” said Hall, the IBEW vice president. “You got 30 people that run it” in contrast to around 300 at a coal plant it might have replaced. “Fortunately, TVA’s worked with us very closely,” he said about the coal workforce, “so nobody’s lost their jobs.”

When it comes to a transition to clean energy, however, Hall has a clear preference: “We’ll take all the nuke plants you want to build! That takes more people than a coal plant!”

Because of all the nuclear power, the TVA ranks as providing the second -lowest share of fossil-fueled electricity among the 10 largest “balancing areas” of the grid—the regions with distinct rules and incentives for electrical resources, each controlled by a single grid operator—behind only the main one serving California. That’s despite the TVA’s gas plants. Environmental groups blast out a different data point about the TVA, though: It’s dead last among the same 10 by share of wind and solar electricity.

Environmental groups argue that the TVA’s choosing gas over renewables to replace coal plants is an outrage. But the claims of cheap renewables heralded by climate advocates—and the renewables industry—only narrowly reflect generation costs in a market-based grid, not total system costs for everything needed to integrate them into grid operations, like transmission connections, available land, and sufficient backup power when weather doesn’t permit. It’s those system costs that a grid operator like the TVA concerns itself with.

The Tennessee Valley is looking at massive new electricity demand thanks to a surge in manufacturing in the South and, according to a recent university study , an expected 22 percent growth in the region’s population by 2050. To meet that growth at the same time as it retires the rest of its coal plants, the TVA is turning to a suite of resources, including gas plants, solar farms, energy storage facilities, and, once again, nuclear power. And this time the nuclear program serves national interests beyond regional ones: kicking the tires of American industrial capacity to build big things.

A return to nuclear

In 2022, the TVA announced its decision to launch a new nuclear program. “Achieving a carbon-free energy future is a shared priority,” TVA CEO Jeff Lyash stated, “and TVA is developing a diverse portfolio of clean energy sources—like advanced nuclear technologies—that will help address this challenge.” The first project in this new program revolves around a new kind of nuclear reactor: GE-Hitachi’s BWRX-300, a so-called small modular reactor or SMR.

“We would potentially be first in the nation” to bring an SMR online, the TVA’s chief nuclear officer Tim Rausch told me. Also competing for first in the nation is TerraPower, a company backed by Bill Gates, which is developing an SMR in Wyoming based on their own design.

The TVA is not taking on the SMR project alone; it’s collaborating with the public power authority of Ontario, Canada; GE-Hitachi,; and a Polish industrial group looking to expand clean power in its own country. The goal of the partnership is to finalize the BWRX-300 reactor design and standardize a plan for how to build, staff, operate, and maintain a power plant based on it. With multiple partners comes more orders along the supply chain and, hopefully, decreases in costs.

The benefits of these smaller reactors, Rausch explained, is that “they bring in a lot more diversity in the way our grid is operated.” Unlike a conventional “gigawatt-scale” reactor that needs transmission system expansions to accommodate it, the SMR could fit more easily within the TVA’s existing system. The SMR can also be operated more flexibly: Taking it offline for maintenance and refueling can be done more nimbly, and its power output can ramp up and down, for example, to balance against sunrise and sunset.

If the project succeeds, the TVA could one day rely on SMRs instead of gas plants for flexible, on-demand power to complement increasing renewables. Both Rausch and IBEW see that as a good thing. Offering so much utility to the grid while emitting no carbon into the atmosphere and no pollutants into local communities is what justifies the substantial cost of building the first SMRs. The TVA’s standardized design for BWRX-300 deployment could become a template that is shared with other utilities: particularly smaller public ones across the United States or even those in developing nations that need clean, 24/7 power for industrialization.

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Asked what makes the TVA uniquely suited among American companies looking to develop new nuclear power, Rausch told me that it “bring[s] a wealth of best practices and lessons learned in megaprojects like nuclear plants,” for example, myriad technical matters around permitting, site design, and nuclear safety regulations. Crucially, it also has institutional memory of the mistakes of the past TVA nuclear program.

Put in those terms, it’s a wonder why tapping America’s homegrown nuclear operators and megaproject experts—the ones not beholden to shareholders concerned with stock prices and dividends—hasn’t been at the forefront of the resurgence of industrial policy.

At a ceremony to mark the completion of the two new large nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle in Georgia, Secretary Granholm declared , “It’s time to cash in on our investments by building more of these facilities.” Each build of the same nuclear design after the “first-of-a-kind” should lower project costs as planners, manufacturers, managers, and workforces learn by doing.

Asked whether the TVA could take on that role of building a large nuclear plant, Rausch said, with a poker face, “our new nuclear strategy is inclusive of all our options.”

Since the TVA announced the SMR project in 2022, he explained, two key factors have changed. The TVA’s electricity demand forecasts have increased further still, thanks in part to new manufacturing, and the nuclear industry has shifted its focus back to large plants like Vogtle after its successful completion and after the termination of the first commercial SMR project, based on a different design, in Idaho last November. Amid rising inflation, the consortium of municipal utilities in the West that were backing the project couldn’t justify to their customers another increase in estimated costs, despite up to $1.4 billion promised in direct federal cost sharing.

One tremendous advantage the TVA has if it does decide to invest in a large reactor: four perfectly good sites, each one frozen in amber since the original nuclear program stalled out. Rausch highlighted the TVA’s 1,200-acre Bellefonte site in particular. It has the water supply, suitable topography, carefully considered seismic conditions, transmission connection, and even cooling towers already in place. “That piece of property becomes more and more valuable as we analyze the demand growth.”

When it comes to a potential large nuclear project, labor unions representing thousands of TVA employees are fully on board. “For us as the union, knowing the need for new demand and the rate at which it’s growing, we see a large nuclear plant as being a viable option for TVA today ,” explained Curtis Sharpe, an IBEW international representative working with Hall and a longtime TVA electrical worker himself. They represent about 2,300 full-time TVA employees. “That doesn’t mean taking SMRs out of the picture.” SMRs, he said, “should be the future of nuclear.”

Why not both? That sentiment is echoed by the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, which represents some 2,500 white-collar professionals at TVA. Arguing that it “makes sense that TVA would lead the way on SMRs,” the union’s international president Matt Biggs told me they “fully support TVA moving forward on SMRs and large nuclear alike.” After all, “nuclear is critical in our efforts to meet net zero emissions.”

Down the current path, a first-of-a-kind small modular reactor facility that could be a blueprint for future clean energy worldwide. Down a possible branching path, a next-of-a-kind large reactor facility that activates American nuclear supply chains. And in any scenario, it would be “Built for the People of the United States of America.”

The problem is that somebody needs to fund it.

Funding our public goods

Though Watts Bar Dam and Watts Bar Steam Plant received congressional appropriations from a New Deal and then wartime Congress, Watts Bar Nuclear Plant didn’t receive any taxpayer money. Ever since 1959, when President Dwight Eisenhower decried the TVA as “creeping socialism,” its power projects have been self-financed.

The TVA has been funding its share of the collaborative SMR project by itself—an amount just recently expanded to $350 million. That will pay for finishing the design and applying for a construction permit with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But, unfortunately for the Valley, that money comes from an increase in rates—the prices people and businesses pay for electricity on their monthly bills.

In June, the Department of Energy announced a grant of $900 million available to a winning SMR project. A TVA representative told me it will apply for the grant, but to the government it will be a competitor undifferentiated from private companies like TerraPower.

How much would the SMR project cost, should the TVA ultimately decide to build it, not just plan it? Estimates for the first-of-a-kind project have not yet been disclosed by the TVA and are probably too far out to gauge. But for comparison, the expansion of Vogtle cost $35 billion while a recent gas plant that the TVA built to replace coal—tried-and-true technology, and with a capacity about half the power of the Vogtle expansion—cost it about $1 billion .

To deploy whatever enormous amount of capital is needed, the TVA has one core financial tool in its toolbox: debt. Since Eisenhower cut off the TVA from federal funding, it raises capital for its major power projects by issuing and selling bonds that are slowly paid off, with interest, from electricity sales.

Besides the cost to TVA customers, the tool is not big enough for the job. Federal statute sets a limit on TVA’s debt issuance at $30 billion—an amount that would be worth more than $100 billion today if it had kept pace with inflation—and it has only about $10 billion remaining.

TVA’s chief financial officer John Thomas recently claimed that its debt limit “doesn’t inhibit our ability” to start new nuclear projects. But three different nuclear consultants I spoke to doubted that assertion. The leaders from IBEW and IFPTE did too, but they expressed sympathy for TVA management: Calling for more debt isn’t exactly a popular political position. “They don’t want to ruffle feathers,” Biggs suggested.

There’s another constraint. A 1992 federal statute requires that the TVA plan for the energy resources with the lowest cost—not just in terms of dollars, but also environmental impacts and economic development. Basically, if new nuclear is not the cheapest option for the Valley, then it can’t be built.

“It’s a Rubik’s cube right now,” Rausch said, “trying to figure out how all those pieces come together for us.”

But there’s an easy solution: supplementary funding. That could come from the federal government or the private sector. An example of the latter, Rausch indicated, might be a Big Tech company like Google willing to pay a premium to say its data-center power consumption is zero-emission not just on an annual basis, as with the renewable-energy claims it makes today, but 24/7.

There’s precedent for the public option. The TVA received direct appropriations from Congress to fund its power projects up until Eisenhower. But the private option—a private funding source for a major capital project developed, owned, and operated by the TVA—would be a break from the public power system’s history.

Labor representatives want the public option. Biggs from IFPTE told me, “TVA is a shining gem we should maintain the way it is.”

Hall, the IBEW VP, said the federal government should help the TVA build the next nuclear plant. After all, it would be a tremendous service to national energy and industrial policy. “You think Elon Musk would go to the moon if NASA hadn’t already done it?” Hall asked. “Everybody talks about socialism, but socialism is what fuels capitalism.”

Public power’s political coalition

The labor unions of the TVA have proven to be the TVA’s most important political stewards.

For example, when President Barack Obama floated the prospect of privatizing the TVA in 2013, the annual AFL-CIO convention unanimously passed a resolution to “work with Congress in opposing any effort…[to] move toward selling the TVA to private interests.” They also resisted President Trump’s attempt to sell off the transmission system.

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Another key element of the unions’ stewardship is to lobby Congress—something that the TVA, as a federal entity, is prohibited from doing. The most significant legislative result in recent years is the TVA’s eligibility for clean energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act, a monumental reversal of precedent. “We took it to the White House that TVA deserves those tax credits just like anybody else,” Hall explained. “They shouldn’t be exempted just because they’re part of the government.” Biggs confirmed that IFPTE, too, lobbied Congress for TVA’s eligibility.

Labor’s advocacy for the TVA contrasts with the other major political constituency, environmental nonprofits who regularly train their crosshairs on the public power authority. The common narrative from the likes of Sierra Club is that the TVA is investing in gas plants instead of solar farms out of a fossil-fuel agenda, not as the satisfaction of any technical or economic constraints. The Southern Environmental Law Center says the TVA is on a “ fossil fuel spending spree ,” spending billions on new gas plants and pipelines. These environmental groups fail to acknowledge that the TVA is one of the cleanest grid operators in the country; it just arrives at that outcome primarily with nuclear, not solar, power. And with more nuclear power, it could rely less on natural gas, for example, to undergird the integration of more renewables.

Stephen Smith, the longtime executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, told me his organization is “not currently supporting TVA building nuclear plants”—nor did it support Watts Bar Nuclear, which actively contributed to TVA’s decarbonization—and “are not in favor of willy-nilly raising the debt limit.” Senior attorney Amanda Garcia of the Southern Environmental Law Center told me they “do not oppose research into unproven technologies like TVA’s proposed small modular reactors” but would only support federal funding with requirements on curbing new gas investments. (The BWRX-300 is based on the proven technology of boiling water reactors that the TVA has operated for decades; it even uses the same fuel.) The Center for Biological Diversity declined to comment for this story.

If the TVA can’t find supplementary funding from the government, it will likely find a private partner. Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft all have data centers powered by the TVA, and all have expressed interest in purchasing nuclear power to meet decarbonization commitments. And thanks to the TVA’s partnership with Ontario Power Generation, which has a head start in construction and whose commitment to four reactors is helping establish the supply chain, the SMR project will almost certainly persevere.

However the TVA manages to secure funding for a new nuclear plant, and no matter whether it’s a small modular reactor or a modern large nuclear plant, it would be a tremendous achievement for clean energy and for public power. But without political support for government funding of TVA’s nuclear program right now —the kind that labor unions demand and environmental lawyers ignore—that project will be the result of private interests muscling their way into public power.

If and when that plant is built, let’s make sure the entrance reads “Built for the People of the United States of America” without needing an addition: “and Google.”

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Fred Stafford is a STEM professional and independent researcher on the power system, decarbonization, and public power. His newsletter can be found at PublicPowerReview.org.

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Pros and Cons of Nuclear Power Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Nuclear power pros, nuclear power cons, impacts of nuclear energy on the society, works cited.

Nuclear power in description is a contained nuclear fission that generates electricity and heat. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world’s energy and 14% of electricity. Nuclear energy is neither green nor sustainable energy because of the life threatening aspect from its wastes and the nuclear plants themselves.

Another reason is that its only source of raw material is only available on earth. On the other hand, nuclear energy is a non-renewable energy because of the scarcity of its source fuel, uranium, which has an estimation of about 30 to 60 years before it becomes extinct (Florida State University 1).

Nuclear power has quite a number of pros associated with its use. The first pro of nuclear energy is that it emits little pollution to the environment. A power plant that uses coal emits more radiation than nuclear powered plant. Another pro of nuclear energy is that it is reliable.

Because of the fact that nuclear plants uses little fuel, their vulnerability to natural disasters or strikes is limited. The next pro is safety that nuclear energy provides. Safety is both a pro and a con, depending on what point of view one takes. Nevertheless, even though results from a reactor can be disastrous, prevention mechanisms for it work perfectly well with it. Another pro that is associated with nuclear energy is efficiency.

In considering the different economic viewpoints, nuclear energy offers the best solution in energy provision and is more advantageous. In addition, we have portability as the next pro of nuclear energy. A high amount of nuclear energy can be contained in a very small amount of volume. Lastly, the technology that nuclear energy adopts is readily available and does not require development before use (Time for change.org 1).

On the other hand, nuclear energy has a number of cons that are associated with its usage. First is the problem of radioactive waste, whereby nuclear energy waste from it is extremely dangerous and needs careful look-up.

The other con of nuclear energy is that of its waste storage. A good number of wastes from nuclear energy are radioactive even thousands of years later since they contain both radioactive and fissionable materials. These materials are removable through a process called reprocessing which is through clearing all the fissionable materials in the nuclear fuel.

The next con of nuclear energy is the occurrence of a meltdown. A meltdown can be the worst-case scenario that can ever occur in a nuclear energy plant because its effects are deadly. The effects of a meltdown are very huge with estimation that radioactive contamination can cover a distance of over a thousand miles in radius. The final downturn associated with nuclear energy is radiation. Radiation mostly is associated with effects such as cancer, mutation and radiation sickness (Green Energy, Inc. 1).

The society being an association that has people of diverse ideologies and faiths regarding the production and consumption of energy, and economic goods, to the good life and good society. Nuclear energy should serve social justice and quality of life rather than being looked upon as end in it.

The existence of technology is purposely for serving human needs; it can destroy people and human values, deliberately or by unintended consequences. Because of this, the technological processes are guided by values that require constant public scrutiny and discussion.

Nuclear energy has implications towards the political viewpoint in that a country might wish to take advantage of its nuclear weapons to gain control of others. This will deprive others of their democratic rights coexist within their territory without interference of intruders.

Legal impacts

In terms of the legal impacts of nuclear energy, there are regulations that gives rights to who or which organizations have the authority to own nuclear facilities. The legal implications also target what specific standards are set out for adequate protection and what risks are not acceptable.

From the above discussion, in comparing the pros and cons of nuclear energy, one can conclude that as much as nuclear energy has severe effects to people and environment it also has varied benefits. In my own viewpoint, I presume to counter with the cons rather than the pros. It is evident what devastating effect nuclear energy has on the environment and as much as it benefits the environment through low pollution, in case of an accident and there is a meltdown the whole environment will be wiped out.

In a moral standpoint, I believe that lives of people are more important than energy sources. In as much as we would wish to have the most reliable energy source, our lives is the most important than any other thing (Florida State University 1).

In conclusion, it is evident from the mentioned pros and cons that nuclear energy is not the all-time solution to any problem. One can argue that to the extreme it is much of a problem source that a solution. In an effort to getting a good life, withstanding the ethical and moral issues, we should always strive for sustaining our lives to the best way possible. Nevertheless, many of the social and ethical issues associated with emerging nuclear power require determinate, immediate, distinct, significant actions (Falk 1).

Falk, Jim. Global Fission: The Battle over Nuclear Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982. Print.

Florida State University. “Pros of Nuclear Power.” eng.fsu.edu . FSU, n.d. Web.

Green Energy, Inc. “Pros and Cons of Nuclear Power.” greenenergyhelpfiles.com . Green Energy, n.d. Web.

Time for change.org. “ Pros and cons of nuclear power ”. timeforchange.org. Time For Change, n.d. Web.

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• Big Coal and the Natural Environment Pollution
• Radioactive Decay Types:  Environments
• Understanding the Three Mile Island Nuclear Meltdown through the Perspective of Human
• How maglev trains work
• Different Sources of Energy
• Ballistics: Types of Bullets and Damage
• Can you study paranormal scientifically?
• The Path of Light
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IvyPanda. (2018, October 25). Pros and Cons of Nuclear Power. https://ivypanda.com/essays/pros-and-cons-of-nuclear-power/

"Pros and Cons of Nuclear Power." IvyPanda , 25 Oct. 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/pros-and-cons-of-nuclear-power/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'Pros and Cons of Nuclear Power'. 25 October.

IvyPanda . 2018. "Pros and Cons of Nuclear Power." October 25, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/pros-and-cons-of-nuclear-power/.

1. IvyPanda . "Pros and Cons of Nuclear Power." October 25, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/pros-and-cons-of-nuclear-power/.

Bibliography

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Addressing the Grid Integration Challenges of Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant: A Comprehensive Analysis

21 Pages Posted: 11 Sep 2024 Publication Status: Under Review

Md. Simul Hasan Talukder

Dhaka University of Engineering & Technology

Md. Tanvir Hasan

Islam md shafiqul.

University of Dhaka

Integrating a nuclear power plant (NPP) into a national grid poses significant challenges for a newcomer country. A stable and reliable grid is a fundamental safety requirement to ensure the safe operation of an NPP. This paper explores the feasibility of integrating the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant (RNPP) into the national grid of Bangladesh (NGB). It examines the challenges of grid interfacing for RNPP, assesses the current state of the NGB, and reviews international practices in grid stability, regulatory requirements, and shortcomings. In this study, we analyze the requirements set by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and our national regulatory bodies to evaluate the national grid system. We investigate voltage variations in the existing related national grid systems, as well as frequency variations over time in the grid. Additionally, we study the frequency control system, load and generation management across the country, and the strategies and technologies currently in use. The study reveals significant instability in the national grid of Bangladesh due to existing voltage and frequency variations. It identifies the factors contributing to the challenges of RNPP grid interfacing and highlights the need for substantial improvements in infrastructure and grid management. The study concludes by suggesting remedial actions to strengthen the existing system and ensure the reliable integration of the RNPP into the national grid for safe and sustainable operation.

Keywords: Rooppur Nuclear power plant, National grid integration, Grid stability, Grid management, Regulatory requirements

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Dhaka University of Engineering & Technology ( email )

Islam md shafiqul (contact author), university of dhaka ( email ).

University of Dhaka Dhaka 1000 Ramna, Dhaka, Dhaka 1000 Bangladesh

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In what is claimed to be a first for Europe, service provider Vodafone and Czech power generation conglomerate ČEZ Group have introduced what they say is Europe's first private 5G mobile phone network (MPN) at a nuclear power plant – albeit in pilot form – in Temelin, a municipality and village in the south of the Czech Republic.

The pilot network covers the outdoor area of the Temelin plant and selected areas of a production unit with the aim of testing how it works and the potential for future use of a private 5G network for operational requirements

Indeed, as part of the pilot, the new 5G connectivity will enable a transition away from walkie-talkie (two-way) radio in the plant, presumably towards normal mobile telephony. It will also pave the way for augmented reality glasses to support the work of technicians. 

The standalone private mobile network can achieve a download speed of 1GB/s. It is built for the specific customer with infrastructure installed on site and fully independent of the public network, thus ensuring that all user data and infrastructure are securely managed within the power plant's own systems.

This is not the only Vodafone pilot private 5G network in the country in recent years; one was built for Škoda Auto in 2022. The network’s ultra-fast speeds and low latency facilitate automated car parking, as well as better communication between Škoda’s robots, machines and sensors. 

As for the object of the pilot testing, Violeta Luca, CEO of Vodafone in the Czech Republic, explains: "The primary objective of our pilot testing is to ensure that the 5G mobile private network meets the strict security and operational standards required in the unique environment of a nuclear power plant.”

There is an alternative in case of failure, and the control system remains completely separate from the outside world. Bohdan Zronek, Director of the Nuclear Division of ČEZ, adds: "We are the first nuclear power plant in Europe to actually test a private 5G network, while other European operators work mostly with 4G."

The results of the pilot project, and subsequent evaluation conducted by ČEZ, will inform the deployments of 5G MPNs at further sites.

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