Nuclear Power as a Component of Innovative Development in a Globalized World Economy

Abstract

It is shown that it is not so much the internal problems as the macroeconomic situation that has a decisive effect on nuclear power in different countries. Analysis performed in the international project INPRO under the auspices of IAEA shows that many developing countries have big plans for growing nuclear capacities and they hope to expand the market for services in the nuclear-power sphere. The potential accumulated in Russia in technologies of sodium-cooled fast reactors with mixed uranium-plutonium oxide fuel should be used to solve the internal problems of the nuclear industry and to expand the package of services at the closing stage of the NFC when selling domestically produced reactors. The globalization of economics and energy markets, trends toward international separation of labor, growth and privatization of the electricity production sector, the public’s demand for increasingly tougher environmental protection and other factors strongly influence the production of electricity. All this must be taken into account in devising a strategy for the development and technologies of nuclear power. The present article examines the status and prospects for the development of nuclear power not only from the standpoint of technological innovations but also in the context of macroeconomic processes in Russia and the world. Factors Influencing the Rates of Development of Nuclear Power. The fraction of electricity produced globally by NPPs reached its highest value 17% at the beginning of the 1990s. Now it has decreased to 12%. This trend is usually explained by factors pertaining to internal problems. These include the following: 1) safety problems, which after the accidents at the Three-Mile Island NPP in the USA (1979), Chernobyl NPP in