The National Academies Summit on America's Energy Future Summary of a Meeting (2008) / Chapter Skim
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6 Nuclear Power
6 Nuclear Power
Pages 44-48
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From page 44... ...
For that reason, although the 2003 report assigned a price to nuclear power of about $2,000 per kilowatt, current costs are substantially higher. Nevertheless, companies continue to express renewed interest in the construction of nuclear power plants.
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From page 45... ...
For example, Orbach mentioned the possibility of developing self-healing materials that would reduce the problems observed in current reactors. Steven Specker also emphasized that careful planning today can do much to extend the lifetimes of current and future generations of nuclear power plants.
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From page 46... ...
"If you want nuclear energy to be rapidly expandable, and to take a bite out of the climate change problem, you want to make it as cheap as possible, as simple as possible, as proliferationresistant as possible, and as non-controversial as possible, and that means you don't want to reprocess any time soon." At the same time, all of the speakers agreed that research on reprocessing for the longer term should be intensively explored. "We need to be investing in it," Holdren said, "but what we don't need to be doing is deploying reprocessing soon with technologies that are currently available because that will shoot nuclear energy in the foot." Moniz pointed out that far too little has been invested in advanced nuclear concepts, and "we are paying the price today for that lack of adequate research." For example, one possible approach would be for a balanced fuel cycle in which conventional reactors in "user" states feed spent fuel into a complex of advanced reactors located in "supplier" states (Figure 6.1)
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From page 47... ...
Interim storage also would provide more time for the large amounts of research that still need to be done on the disposal of nuclear waste, given that a substantial expansion of nuclear power generation will create much larger quantities of waste. As Orbach pointed out, if nuclear power is to provide a considerable portion of the future U.S.
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From page 48... ...
ITER is an experimental fusion reactor in which hot gas is confined in a donut-shaped vessel and heated to more than 100 million degrees. The facility, which is sited in France and is a joint project of six nations and the European Union, is designed to produce about 10 times as much energy as it uses (Figure 6.2)
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