Nuclear Power and Energy Security: A Revised Strategy for Japan

Abstract

SUMMARY During the period of nuclear power’s rapid growth, shared assumptions regarding uranium resources and technological capabilities led the majority of industrial nations to remarkably similar strategies for nuclear power deployment. These common assumptions motivated the choice, more than 40 years ago, of the Light Water Reactor (LWR) as the near-term power reactor, to be followed, as soon as possible, by the introduction and deployment of the Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR). The FBR, which uses much less uranium than an LWR of the same capacity, was a crucial part of the strategy because uranium was then believed to be a scarce resource. This strategy, based on the LWR producing the startup fuel for the FBR, implicitly included spent fuel reprocessing, plutonium recycle, and disposal of separated wastes in geologic repositories. Nations with limited indigenous energy reserves, most notably France and Japan, made particularly strong commitments to this strategy. This article was originally presented as a paper at the PARES Workshop: Energy Secu