Abstract
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.
Highlights
IPCC WGIII (2014) 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
Eastern Europe and the MYRRHA lead- cooled fast reactor (LFR) technology pilot proposed by Belgium
Advanced management of high-level radioactive waste (HLW) through partitioning and transmutation (P&T) consists in advanced separation of the minor actinides 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
Summary
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 power can contribute, via generation of either electricity or process heat for the production of hydrogen or other fuels. Sustainable nuclear energy technology platform 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. Nuclear is the world’s second-largest source of low-carbon electricity generation (IEA 20141). Within the European Union, 27 % of electricity production (13 % of primary energy) is obtained from 132 nuclear power plants in January 2015 (Fig. 1). 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
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
