subject: Future Of The Nuclear Energy [print this page] In November last year, I described the first incident of cyber-terrorism at nuclear power plants over the Internet ("Nuclear Security and Cyber Terrorism"). In January, I explained the operation of fission and fusion processes ("Nuclear Safety, Part II-division Basics"). In this article I will focus on current and future trends in the industry and the role that process management should play in making it safer.
The advantage of using nuclear energy is the fact that he has no "carbon footprint", and do not cause climate change. Its disadvantages are related to unsafe nature of the process and its exhaustion of fuel (uranium). The presence of this fuel depends on the price of uranium, because the profitability of production depends on it. Today, the price is about $ 50/lb (U3O8) and on this basis, the amount that may be advantageous to recover is estimated at 3:57 million tons. If the price rises to $ 100/lb, this global reserve increase to about four to five million tons. As the annual consumption is around 77000 tons, even at $ 100/lb, this reserve will be sufficient for only about 65 years, reserves and production (R / P) ratio of 65. That is less than R / P ratio of coal and only about 50% higher than oil or natural gas.
Although the fuel for thermal reactors today uranium fission reactor fuel is plutonium-239. The main concerns of breeders, that the plutonium can be used directly (without further concentration) to create a "dirty" nuclear bombs, and uranium requires a complex concentration before it can be used in weapons. Thus, in this discussion, I will not even consider the breeders. In addition, I will not discuss nuclear fusion reactors, because they work, millions of degrees of temperature, so I consider them impractical.
Today, nuclear power 7.5% of total world energy consumption (Fig. 1), which corresponds to approximately 17% of the world (20% of the U.S.) power consumption.
