nuclear reaction
In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, a nuclear reaction is a process in which two atomic nucleus, nuclei, or a nucleus and an external subatomic particle, collide to produce one or more new nuclides. Thus, a nuclear reaction must cause a t ...
s to produce
electricity
Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...
. Nuclear power can be obtained from
nuclear fission
Nuclear fission is a reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller nuclei. The fission process often produces gamma photons, and releases a very large amount of energy even by the energetic standards of radio ...
,
nuclear decay
Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is consid ...
and
nuclear fusion
Nuclear fusion is a reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei are combined to form one or more different atomic nuclei and subatomic particles ( neutrons or protons). The difference in mass between the reactants and products is manifest ...
reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by nuclear ''fission'' of
uranium
Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...
and
plutonium
Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibi ...
in
nuclear power plant
A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a electric generator, generato ...
s. Nuclear ''decay'' processes are used in niche applications such as
radioisotope thermoelectric generator
A radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG, RITEG), sometimes referred to as a radioisotope power system (RPS), is a type of nuclear battery that uses an array of thermocouples to convert the heat released by the decay of a suitable radioacti ...
s in some space probes such as ''
Voyager 2
''Voyager 2'' is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. As a part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, ''Voyager 1'', on a ...
''. Generating electricity from ''fusion'' power remains the focus of international research.
Most nuclear power plants use
thermal reactor
A thermal-neutron reactor is a nuclear reactor that uses slow or thermal neutrons. ("Thermal" does not mean hot in an absolute sense, but means in thermal equilibrium with the medium it is interacting with, the reactor's fuel, moderator and struct ...
s with
enriched uranium
Enriched uranium is a type of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 (written 235U) has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Naturally occurring uranium is composed of three major isotopes: uranium-238 (238 ...
chain reaction
A chain reaction is a sequence of reactions where a reactive product or by-product causes additional reactions to take place. In a chain reaction, positive feedback leads to a self-amplifying chain of events.
Chain reactions are one way that syst ...
can no longer be sustained, typically three years. It is then cooled for several years in on-site
spent fuel pool
Spent fuel pools (SFP) are storage pools (or "ponds" in the United Kingdom) for spent fuel from nuclear reactors. They are typically 40 or more feet (12 m) deep, with the bottom 14 feet (4.3 m) equipped with storage racks designed to hold f ...
s before being transferred to long term storage. The spent fuel, though low in volume, is
high-level radioactive waste
High-level waste (HLW) is a type of nuclear waste created by the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. It exists in two main forms:
* First and second cycle raffinate and other waste streams created by nuclear reprocessing.
* Waste formed by vit ...
. While its radioactivity decreases exponentially it must be isolated from the biosphere for hundreds of thousands of years, though newer technologies (like
fast reactor
A fast-neutron reactor (FNR) or fast-spectrum reactor or simply a fast reactor is a category of nuclear reactor in which the fission chain reaction is sustained by fast neutrons (carrying energies above 1 MeV or greater, on average), as opposed t ...
s) have the potential to reduce this significantly. Because the spent fuel is still mostly fissionable material, some countries (e.g.
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
and
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
fissile
In nuclear engineering, fissile material is material capable of sustaining a nuclear fission chain reaction. By definition, fissile material can sustain a chain reaction with neutrons of thermal energy. The predominant neutron energy may be typ ...
and
fertile
Fertility is the capability to produce offspring through reproduction following the onset of sexual maturity. The fertility rate is the average number of children born by a female during her lifetime and is quantified demographically. Fertilit ...
elements for fabrication in new fuel, although this process is more expensive than producing new fuel from mined uranium. All reactors breed some
plutonium-239
Plutonium-239 (239Pu or Pu-239) is an isotope of plutonium. Plutonium-239 is the primary fissile isotope used for the production of nuclear weapons, although uranium-235 is also used for that purpose. Plutonium-239 is also one of the three main ...
, which is found in the spent fuel, and because Pu-239 is the preferred material for
nuclear weapons
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
first nuclear power plant
Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant (russian: Обнинская АЭС, Obninskaja AES; ) was built in the "Science City" of Obninsk,Three Mile Island accident
The Three Mile Island accident was a partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island, Unit 2 (TMI-2) reactor in Pennsylvania, United States. It began at 4 a.m. on March 28, 1979. It is the most significant accident in U.S. commercial nuclea ...
in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
and the 1986
Chernobyl disaster
The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two nuc ...
in the Soviet Union resulted in increased regulation and public opposition to nuclear plants. These factors, along with high cost of construction, resulted in the global installed capacity only increasing to 390GW by 2022. These plants supplied 2,586
terawatt hour
A kilowatt-hour (unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a unit of energy: one kilowatt of power for one hour. In terms of SI derived units with special names, it equals 3.6 megajoules (MJ). Kilowatt-hours are a common bil ...
s (TWh) of electricity in 2019, equivalent to about 10% of
global electricity generation
World energy supply and consumption is global production and preparation of fuel, generation of electricity, energy transport, and energy consumption. It is a basic part of economic activity. It includes heat, but not energy from food.
This art ...
, and were the second-largest
low-carbon power
Low-carbon power is electricity produced with substantially lower greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fossil fuel power generation. The energy transition to low-carbon power is one of the most important actions required to limit climate ...
source after
hydroelectricity
Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other Renewabl ...
. there are 437 civilian fission reactors in the world, with overall capacity of 393GW, 57 under construction and 102 planned, with a combined capacity of 62GW and 96GW, respectively. The United States has the largest fleet of nuclear reactors, generating over 800TWh of zero-emissions electricity per year with an average
capacity factor
The net capacity factor is the unitless ratio of actual electrical energy output over a given period of time to the theoretical maximum electrical energy output over that period. The theoretical maximum energy output of a given installation is de ...
of 92%. Average global capacity factor is 89%. Most new reactors under construction are
generation III reactor
Generation III reactors, or Gen III reactors, are a class of nuclear reactors designed to succeed Generation II reactors, incorporating evolutionary improvements in design. These include improved fuel technology, higher thermal efficiency, sign ...
s in Asia.
Nuclear power generation causes one of the lowest levels of fatalities per unit of energy generated compared to other energy sources.
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal is formed when dea ...
,
petroleum
Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...
,
natural gas
Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...
and hydroelectricity each have caused more fatalities per unit of energy due to
air pollution
Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. There are many different types ...
and
accidents
An accident is an unintended, normally unwanted event that was not directly caused by humans. The term ''accident'' implies that nobody should be blamed, but the event may have been caused by unrecognized or unaddressed risks. Most researcher ...
. Nuclear power plants emit no
greenhouse gases
A greenhouse gas (GHG or GhG) is a gas that absorbs and emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range, causing the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere are water vapor (), carbon dioxide (), methane ...
. One of the dangers of nuclear power is the potential for
accidents
An accident is an unintended, normally unwanted event that was not directly caused by humans. The term ''accident'' implies that nobody should be blamed, but the event may have been caused by unrecognized or unaddressed risks. Most researcher ...
like the
Fukushima nuclear disaster
The was a nuclear accident in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. The proximate cause of the disaster was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which occurred on the afternoon of 11 March 2011 and ...
in
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
in 2011.
There is a debate about nuclear power. Proponents contend that nuclear power is a safe, sustainable energy source that reduces
carbon emissions
Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities strengthen the greenhouse effect, contributing to climate change. Most is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. The largest emitters include coal in China and larg ...
. The
anti-nuclear movement
The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes various nuclear technologies. Some direct action groups, environmental movements, and professional organisations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, nationa ...
contends that nuclear power poses many threats to people and the environment and is too expensive and slow to deploy when compared to alternative
sustainable energy
Energy is sustainable if it "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". Most definitions of sustainable energy include considerations of environmental aspects such as greenh ...
sources.
History
Origins
The discovery of nuclear fission occurred in 1938 following over four decades of work on the science of radioactivity and the elaboration of new
nuclear physics
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter.
Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...
that described the components of
atom
Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons.
Every solid, liquid, gas, and ...
s.
Soon after the discovery of the fission process, it was realized that a fissioning nucleus can induce further nucleus fissions, thus inducing a self-sustaining chain reaction.
Once this was experimentally confirmed in 1939, scientists in many countries petitioned their governments for support of nuclear fission research, just on the cusp of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, for the development of a
nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...
.
In the United States, these research efforts led to the creation of the first man-made nuclear reactor, the
Chicago Pile-1
Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1) was the world's first artificial nuclear reactor. On 2 December 1942, the first human-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was initiated in CP-1, during an experiment led by Enrico Fermi. The secret development of t ...
, which achieved criticality on December 2, 1942. The reactor's development was part of the
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
, the
Allied
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
effort to create
atomic bombs
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
during World War II. It led to the building of larger single-purpose
production reactor
A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat from ...
s for the production of
weapons-grade plutonium
Weapons-grade nuclear material is any fissionable nuclear material that is pure enough to make a nuclear weapon or has properties that make it particularly suitable for nuclear weapons use. Plutonium and uranium
Uranium is a chemical eleme ...
for use in the first nuclear weapons. The United States tested the first nuclear weapon in July 1945, the
Trinity test
Trinity was the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon. It was conducted by the United States Army at 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project. The test was conducted in the Jornada del Muerto desert ab ...
, with the
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the onl ...
taking place one month later.
Despite the military nature of the first nuclear devices, the 1940s and 1950s were characterized by strong optimism for the potential of nuclear power to provide cheap and endless energy.
Electricity was generated for the first time by a nuclear reactor on December 20, 1951, at the
EBR-I
Experimental Breeder Reactor I (EBR-I) is a decommissioned research reactor and U.S. National Historic Landmark located in the desert about southeast of Arco, Idaho. It was the world's first breeder reactor. At 1:50 p.m. on December 20, ...
experimental station near
Arco, Idaho
Arco is a city in Butte County, Idaho, United States. The population was 879 as of the 2020 United States census, down from 995 at the 2010 census. Arco is the county seat and largest city in Butte County.
History
Originally known as Root Ho ...
, which initially produced about 100 kW.
In 1953, American President
Dwight Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
gave his "
Atoms for Peace
"Atoms for Peace" was the title of a speech delivered by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower to the UN General Assembly in New York City on December 8, 1953.
The United States then launched an "Atoms for Peace" program that supplied equipment ...
" speech at the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
, emphasizing the need to develop "peaceful" uses of nuclear power quickly. This was followed by the
Atomic Energy Act of 1954
The Atomic Energy Act of 1954, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2011-2021, 2022-2286i, 2296a-2297h-13, is a United States federal law that covers for the development, regulation, and disposal of nuclear materials and facilities in the United States.
It was an ame ...
which allowed rapid declassification of U.S. reactor technology and encouraged development by the private sector.
First power generation
The first organization to develop practical nuclear power was the
U.S. Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...
, with the
S1W reactor
The S1W reactor was the first prototype naval reactor used by the United States Navy to prove that the technology could be used for electricity generation and propulsion on submarines.
The designation of "S1W" stands for
* S = Submarine platform ...
for the purpose of propelling
submarine
A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...
s and
aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a ...
s. The first nuclear-powered submarine, , was put to sea in January 1954.
The S1W reactor was a
pressurized water reactor
A pressurized water reactor (PWR) is a type of light-water reactor, light-water nuclear reactor. PWRs constitute the large majority of the world's nuclear power plants (with notable exceptions being the UK, Japan and Canada). In a PWR, the primary ...
. This design was chosen because it was simpler, more compact, and easier to operate compared to alternative designs, thus more suitable to be used in submarines. This decision would result in the PWR being the reactor of choice also for power generation, thus having a lasting impact on the civilian electricity market in the years to come.
On June 27, 1954, the
Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant
Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant (russian: Обнинская АЭС, Obninskaja AES; ) was built in the "Science City" of Obninsk,USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
became the world's first nuclear power plant to generate electricity for a
power grid
An electrical grid is an interconnected network for electricity delivery from producers to consumers. Electrical grids vary in size and can cover whole countries or continents. It consists of:Kaplan, S. M. (2009). Smart Grid. Electrical Power ...
, producing around 5 megawatts of electric power.
The world's first commercial nuclear power station,
Calder Hall
Sellafield is a large multi-function nuclear site close to Seascale on the coast of Cumbria, England. As of August 2022, primary activities are nuclear waste processing and storage and nuclear decommissioning. Former activities included nucle ...
at Windscale, England was connected to the national power grid on 27 August 1956. In common with a number of other
generation I reactor
A generation II reactor is a design classification for a nuclear reactor, and refers to the class of commercial reactors built until the end of the 1990s. Prototypical and older versions of PWR, CANDU, BWR, AGR, RBMK and VVER are among them.
...
s, the plant had the dual purpose of producing
electricity
Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...
and
plutonium-239
Plutonium-239 (239Pu or Pu-239) is an isotope of plutonium. Plutonium-239 is the primary fissile isotope used for the production of nuclear weapons, although uranium-235 is also used for that purpose. Plutonium-239 is also one of the three main ...
The total global installed nuclear capacity initially rose relatively quickly, rising from less than 1
gigawatt
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wat ...
(GW) in 1960 to 100GW in the late 1970s.
During the 1970s and 1980s rising economic costs (related to extended construction times largely due to regulatory changes and pressure-group litigation) and falling fossil fuel prices made nuclear power plants then under construction less attractive. In the 1980s in the U.S. and 1990s in Europe, the flat electric grid growth and
electricity liberalization
Energy liberalisation refers to the liberalisation of energy markets, with specific reference to electricity generation markets, by bringing greater competition into electricity and gas markets in the interest of creating more competitive markets ...
also made the addition of large new
baseload
The base load (also baseload) is the minimum level of demand on an electrical grid over a span of time, for example, one week. This demand can be met by unvarying power plants, dispatchable generation, or by a collection of smaller intermittent e ...
energy generators economically unattractive.
The
1973 oil crisis
The 1973 oil crisis or first oil crisis began in October 1973 when the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), led by Saudi Arabia, proclaimed an oil embargo. The embargo was targeted at nations that had supp ...
had a significant effect on countries, such as
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
and
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, which had relied more heavily on oil for electric generation to invest in nuclear power.
France would construct 25 nuclear power plants over the next 15 years, and as of 2019, 71% of French electricity was generated by nuclear power, the highest percentage by any nation in the world.
Some local opposition to nuclear power emerged in the United States in the early 1960s. In the late 1960s some members of the scientific community began to express pointed concerns. These
anti-nuclear
The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes various nuclear technologies. Some direct action groups, environmental movements, and professional organisations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, natio ...
concerns related to
nuclear accidents
A nuclear and radiation accident is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "an event that has led to significant consequences to people, the environment or the facility. Examples include lethal effects to individuals, lar ...
,
nuclear proliferation
Nuclear proliferation is the spread of nuclear weapons, fissionable material, and weapons-applicable nuclear technology and information to nations not recognized as " Nuclear Weapon States" by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Wea ...
,
nuclear terrorism
Nuclear terrorism refers to any person or persons detonating a nuclear weapon as an act of terrorism (i.e., illegal or immoral use of violence for a political or religious cause). Some definitions of nuclear terrorism include the sabotage of a ...
and
radioactive waste disposal Radioactive waste disposal may refer to:
*High-level radioactive waste management
* Low-level waste disposal
*Ocean disposal of radioactive waste
**Ocean floor disposal
*Deep borehole disposal
*Deep geological repository
See also
* Radioactive wast ...
.
In the early 1970s, there were large protests about a proposed nuclear power plant in
Wyhl
Wyhl () is a municipality in the district of Emmendingen in Baden-Württemberg in southwestern Germany.
It is known in the 1970s for its role in the anti-nuclear movement. Wyhl was first mentioned in 1971 as a possible site for a nuclear power st ...
, Germany. The project was cancelled in 1975. The anti-nuclear success at Wyhl inspired opposition to nuclear power in other parts of Europe and North America.Robert Gottlieb (2005) Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement Revised Edition, Island Press, p. 237.
By the mid-1970s
anti-nuclear
The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes various nuclear technologies. Some direct action groups, environmental movements, and professional organisations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, natio ...
activism gained a wider appeal and influence, and nuclear power began to become an issue of major public protest.Walker, J. Samuel (2004). Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective ' (Berkeley: University of California Press), pp. 10–11.
In some countries, the nuclear power conflict "reached an intensity unprecedented in the history of technology controversies". The increased public hostility to nuclear power led to a longer license procurement process, regulations and increased requirements for safety equipment, which made new construction much more expensive.
In the United States, over 120 LWR reactor proposals were ultimately cancelled and the construction of new reactors ground to a halt.
The 1979 accident at Three Mile Island with no fatalities, played a major part in the reduction in the number of new plant constructions in many countries.
Chernobyl and renaissance
During the 1980s one new nuclear reactor started up every 17 days on average. By the end of the decade, global installed nuclear capacity reached 300GW. Since the late 1980s, new capacity additions slowed down significantly, with the installed nuclear capacity reaching 366GW in 2005.
The 1986
Chernobyl disaster
The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two nuc ...
in the
USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
, involving an
RBMK
The RBMK (russian: реактор большой мощности канальный, РБМК; ''reaktor bolshoy moshchnosti kanalnyy'', "high-power channel-type reactor") is a class of graphite-moderated nuclear power reactor designed and buil ...
reactor, altered the development of nuclear power and led to a greater focus on meeting international safety and regulatory standards.
It is considered the worst nuclear disaster in history both in total casualties, with 56 direct deaths, and financially, with the cleanup and the cost estimated at 18billion Rbls (US$68billion in 2019, adjusted for inflation). (see 1996 interview with Mikhail Gorbachev) The international organization to promote safety awareness and the professional development of operators in nuclear facilities, the
World Association of Nuclear Operators
The World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) is a not for profit, international organisation with a mission to maximize the safety and reliability of the world’s commercial nuclear power plants. The organization’s members are mainly owner ...
(WANO), was created as a direct outcome of the 1986 Chernobyl accident.
The Chernobyl disaster played a major part in the reduction in the number of new plant constructions in the following years. Influenced by these events, Italy voted against nuclear power in a 1987 referendum, becoming the first country to completely phase out nuclear power in 1990.
In the early 2000s, nuclear energy was expecting a
nuclear renaissance
Since about 2001 the term nuclear renaissance has been used to refer to a possible nuclear power industry revival, driven by rising fossil fuel prices and new concerns about meeting greenhouse gas emission limits.
In the 2009 ''World Energy ...
, an increase in the construction of new reactors, due to concerns about
carbon dioxide emissions
Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities strengthen the greenhouse effect, contributing to climate change. Most is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. The largest emitters include coal in China and lar ...
.
During this period, newer
generation III reactor
Generation III reactors, or Gen III reactors, are a class of nuclear reactors designed to succeed Generation II reactors, incorporating evolutionary improvements in design. These include improved fuel technology, higher thermal efficiency, sign ...
s, such as the EPR began construction.
Annual world electricity net generation.svg, Net
electrical generation
Electricity generation is the process of generating electric power from sources of primary energy. For utilities in the electric power industry, it is the stage prior to its delivery (transmission, distribution, etc.) to end users or its storag ...
by source and growth from 1980. In terms of energy generated between 1980 and 2010, the contribution from fission grew the fastest.
Electricity in France.svg, Electricity production in France, showing the shift to nuclear power.
Nuclear power history.svg, The rate of new reactor constructions essentially halted in the late 1980s. Increased
capacity factor
The net capacity factor is the unitless ratio of actual electrical energy output over a given period of time to the theoretical maximum electrical energy output over that period. The theoretical maximum energy output of a given installation is de ...
in existing reactors was primarily responsible for the continuing increase in electrical energy produced during this period.
Nuclear power generation in different countries.svg, Electricity generation trends in the top producing countries (Our World in Data)
Fukushima
Prospects of a nuclear renaissance were delayed by another nuclear accident.
The 2011
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident
The was a nuclear accident in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. The proximate cause of the disaster was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which occurred on the afternoon of 11 March 2011 a ...
was caused by a large tsunami triggered by the Tōhoku earthquake, one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded. The
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
The is a disabled nuclear power plant located on a site in the towns of Ōkuma and Futaba in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. The plant suffered major damage from the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on March 11, 2011. The ...
suffered three core meltdowns due to failure of the emergency cooling system for lack of electricity supply. This resulted in the most serious nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster. The accident prompted a re-examination of
nuclear safety
Nuclear safety is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "The achievement of proper operating conditions, prevention of accidents or mitigation of accident consequences, resulting in protection of workers, the public and the ...
and
nuclear energy policy
Nuclear energy policy is a national and international policy concerning some or all aspects of nuclear energy and the nuclear fuel cycle, such as uranium mining, ore concentration, conversion, enrichment for nuclear fuel, generating electrici ...
in many countries.
Germany approved plans to close all its reactors by 2022, and many other countries reviewed their nuclear power programs.
Following the disaster, Japan shut down all of its nuclear power reactors, some of them permanently, and in 2015 began a gradual process to restart the remaining 40 reactors, following safety checks and based on revised criteria for operations and public approval.
In 2022, the Japanese government, under the leadership of Prime Minister
Fumio Kishida
is a Japanese politician serving as Prime Minister of Japan and president of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) since 2021. A member of the House of Representatives, he previously served as Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2012 to 2017 and ...
, has declared that 10 more nuclear power plants be reopened since the 2011 disaster. Kishida is also pushing for research and construction of new safer nuclear plants to safeguard Japanese consumers from the fluctuating fossil fuel market and reduce Japan's greenhouse gas emissions. Prime Minister Kishida intends to have Japan become a significant exporter of nuclear energy and technology to developing countries around the world..
Current prospects
By 2015, the IAEA's outlook for nuclear energy had become more promising, recognizing the importance of low-carbon generation for mitigating
climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
.
, the global trend was for new nuclear power stations coming online to be balanced by the number of old plants being retired.
In 2016, the
U.S. Energy Information Administration
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System responsible for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating energy information to promote sound policymaking, efficient markets, and publ ...
projected for its "base case" that world nuclear power generation would increase from 2,344
terawatt hour
A kilowatt-hour (unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a unit of energy: one kilowatt of power for one hour. In terms of SI derived units with special names, it equals 3.6 megajoules (MJ). Kilowatt-hours are a common bil ...
s (TWh) in 2012 to 4,500TWh in 2040. Most of the predicted increase was expected to be in Asia. As of 2018, there are over 150 nuclear reactors planned including 50 under construction. In January 2019, China had 45 reactors in operation, 13 under construction, and plans to build 43 more, which would make it the world's largest generator of nuclear electricity. As of 2021, 17 reactors were reported to be under construction. China built significantly fewer reactors than originally planned, its share of electricity from nuclear power was 5% in 2019 and observers have cautioned that, along with the risks, the changing economics of energy generation may cause new nuclear energy plants to "no longer make sense in a world that is leaning toward cheaper, more reliable renewable energy".
In October 2021, the Japanese cabinet approved the new Plan for Electricity Generation to 2030 prepared by the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (ANRE) and an advisory committee, following public consultation. The nuclear target for 2030 requires the restart of another ten reactors. Prime Minister
Fumio Kishida
is a Japanese politician serving as Prime Minister of Japan and president of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) since 2021. A member of the House of Representatives, he previously served as Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2012 to 2017 and ...
in July 2022 announced that the country should consider building advanced reactors and extending operating licences beyond 60 years.
As of 2022, with world oil and gas prices on the rise, while Germany is restarting its coal plants to deal with loss of Russian gas that it needs to supplement its Energiwende, many other countries have announced ambitious plans to reinvigorate ageing nuclear generating capacity with new investments. French President
Emmanuel Macron
Emmanuel Macron (; born 21 December 1977) is a French politician who has served as President of France since 2017. ''Ex officio'', he is also one of the two Co-Princes of Andorra. Prior to his presidency, Macron served as Minister of Econ ...
announced his intention to build six new reactors in coming decades, placing nuclear at the heart of France's drive for carbon neutrality by 2050.
Power plants
Nuclear power plants are
thermal power station
A thermal power station is a type of power station in which heat energy is converted to electrical energy. In a steam-generating cycle heat is used to boil water in a large pressure vessel to produce high-pressure steam, which drives a stea ...
s that generate electricity by harnessing the
thermal energy
The term "thermal energy" is used loosely in various contexts in physics and engineering. It can refer to several different well-defined physical concepts. These include the internal energy or enthalpy of a body of matter and radiation; heat, d ...
released from
nuclear fission
Nuclear fission is a reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller nuclei. The fission process often produces gamma photons, and releases a very large amount of energy even by the energetic standards of radio ...
.
A fission nuclear power plant is generally composed of: a
nuclear reactor
A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat from nu ...
, in which the nuclear reactions generating heat take place; a cooling system, which removes the heat from inside the reactor; a
steam turbine
A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam turbin ...
, which transforms the heat into
mechanical energy
In Outline of physical science, physical sciences, mechanical energy is the sum of potential energy and kinetic energy. The principle of conservation of mechanical energy states that if an isolated system is subject only to conservative forces, t ...
; an
electric generator
In electricity generation, a generator is a device that converts motive power (mechanical energy) or fuel-based power (chemical energy) into electric power for use in an external circuit. Sources of mechanical energy include steam turbines, gas ...
, which transforms the mechanical energy into electrical energy.
When a
neutron
The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , which has a neutral (not positive or negative) charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. Protons and neutrons constitute the nuclei of atoms. Since protons and neutrons beh ...
hits the nucleus of a
uranium-235
Uranium-235 (235U or U-235) is an isotope of uranium making up about 0.72% of natural uranium. Unlike the predominant isotope uranium-238, it is fissile, i.e., it can sustain a nuclear chain reaction. It is the only fissile isotope that exis ...
or
plutonium
Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibi ...
atom, it can split the nucleus into two smaller nuclei, which is a nuclear fission reaction. The reaction releases energy and neutrons. The released neutrons can hit other uranium or plutonium nuclei, causing new fission reactions, which release more energy and more neutrons. This is called a
chain reaction
A chain reaction is a sequence of reactions where a reactive product or by-product causes additional reactions to take place. In a chain reaction, positive feedback leads to a self-amplifying chain of events.
Chain reactions are one way that syst ...
.
In most commercial reactors, the reaction rate is contained by
control rod
Control rods are used in nuclear reactors to control the rate of fission of the nuclear fuel – uranium or plutonium. Their compositions include chemical elements such as boron, cadmium, silver, hafnium, or indium, that are capable of absorbing ...
s that absorb excess neutrons.
The controllability of nuclear reactors depends on the fact that a small fraction of neutrons resulting from fission are delayed. The time delay between the fission and the release of the neutrons slows down changes in reaction rates and gives time for moving the control rods to adjust the reaction rate.
Fuel cycle
The life cycle of nuclear fuel starts with
uranium mining
Uranium mining is the process of extraction of uranium ore from the ground. Over 50 thousand tons of uranium were produced in 2019. Kazakhstan, Canada, and Australia were the top three uranium producers, respectively, and together account f ...
. The
uranium ore
Uranium ore deposits are economically recoverable concentrations of uranium
Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 9 ...
is then converted into a compact
ore concentrate
Ore concentrate, dressed ore or simply concentrate is the product generally produced by metal ore mines. The raw ore is usually ground finely in various comminution operations and gangue (waste) is removed, thus concentrating the metal component. ...
form, known as
yellowcake
Yellowcake (also called urania) is a type of uranium concentrate powder obtained from leach solutions, in an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores. It is a step in the processing of uranium after it has been mined but before fue ...
(U3O8), to facilitate transport.
Fission reactors generally need
uranium-235
Uranium-235 (235U or U-235) is an isotope of uranium making up about 0.72% of natural uranium. Unlike the predominant isotope uranium-238, it is fissile, i.e., it can sustain a nuclear chain reaction. It is the only fissile isotope that exis ...
, a
fissile
In nuclear engineering, fissile material is material capable of sustaining a nuclear fission chain reaction. By definition, fissile material can sustain a chain reaction with neutrons of thermal energy. The predominant neutron energy may be typ ...
isotope of uranium.
The concentration of uranium-235 in natural uranium is very low (about 0.7%). Some reactors can use this natural uranium as fuel, depending on their
neutron economy
Neutron economy is defined as the ratio of an adjoint weighted average of the excess neutron production divided by an adjoint weighted average of the fission production.
The distribution of neutron energies in a nuclear reactor differs from the f ...
. These reactors generally have graphite or heavy water moderators.
For light water reactors, the most common type of reactor, this concentration is too low, and it must be increased by a process called
uranium enrichment
Enriched uranium is a type of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 (written 235U) has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Naturally occurring uranium is composed of three major isotopes: uranium-238 (238U ...
. In civilian light water reactors, uranium is typically enriched to 3.55% uranium-235.
The uranium is then generally converted into
uranium oxide
Uranium oxide is an oxide of the element uranium.
The metal uranium forms several oxides:
* Uranium dioxide or uranium(IV) oxide (UO2, the mineral uraninite or pitchblende)
* Diuranium pentoxide or uranium(V) oxide (U2O5)
* Uranium trioxide or u ...
(UO2), a ceramic, that is then compressively
sintered
Clinker nodules produced by sintering
Sintering or frittage is the process of compacting and forming a solid mass of material by pressure or heat without melting it to the point of liquefaction.
Sintering happens as part of a manufacturing ...
into fuel pellets, a stack of which forms
fuel rod
Nuclear fuel is material used in nuclear power stations to produce heat to power turbines. Heat is created when nuclear fuel undergoes nuclear fission.
Most nuclear fuels contain heavy fissile actinide elements that are capable of undergoing ...
s of the proper composition and geometry for the particular reactor.
After some time in the reactor, the fuel will have reduced fissile material and increased fission products, until its use becomes impractical. At this point, the spent fuel will be moved to a
spent fuel pool
Spent fuel pools (SFP) are storage pools (or "ponds" in the United Kingdom) for spent fuel from nuclear reactors. They are typically 40 or more feet (12 m) deep, with the bottom 14 feet (4.3 m) equipped with storage racks designed to hold f ...
which provides cooling for the thermal heat and shielding for ionizing radiation. After several months or years, the spent fuel is radioactively and thermally cool enough to be moved to dry storage casks or reprocessed.
Uranium resources
Uranium
Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...
is a fairly common element in the Earth's crust: it is approximately as common as
tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal.
Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...
or
germanium
Germanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ge and atomic number 32. It is lustrous, hard-brittle, grayish-white and similar in appearance to silicon. It is a metalloid in the carbon group that is chemically similar to its group neighbors s ...
, and is about 40 times more common than
silver
Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...
.
Uranium is present in trace concentrations in most rocks, dirt, and ocean water, but is generally economically extracted only where it is present in high concentrations.
Uranium mining can be underground,
open-pit
Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock (geology), rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a Borrow pit, b ...
, or
in-situ leach
In-situ leaching (ISL), also called in-situ recovery (ISR) or solution mining, is a mining process used to recover minerals such as copper and uranium through boreholes drilled into a deposit, ''in situ''. In situ leach works by artificially disso ...
mining. An increasing number of the highest output mines are remote underground operations, such as
McArthur River uranium mine
The McArthur River Uranium Mine, in northern Saskatchewan, Canada, is the world's largest high-grade uranium deposit.
The McArthur River deposit was discovered in 1988. The property is located as the crow flies north of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan ...
, in Canada, which by itself accounts for 13% of global production.
As of 2011 the world's known resources of uranium, economically recoverable at the arbitrary price ceiling of US$130/kg, were enough to last for between 70 and 100 years.
In 2007, the OECD estimated 670 years of economically recoverable uranium in total conventional resources and
phosphate
In chemistry, a phosphate is an anion, salt, functional group or ester derived from a phosphoric acid. It most commonly means orthophosphate, a derivative of orthophosphoric acid .
The phosphate or orthophosphate ion is derived from phospho ...
ores assuming the then-current use rate.
Light water reactors make relatively inefficient use of nuclear fuel, mostly using only the very rare uranium-235 isotope.
Nuclear reprocessing
Nuclear reprocessing is the chemical separation of fission products and actinides from spent nuclear fuel. Originally, reprocessing was used solely to extract plutonium for producing nuclear weapons. With commercialization of nuclear power, the ...
can make this waste reusable, and newer reactors also achieve a more efficient use of the available resources than older ones. With a pure
fast reactor
A fast-neutron reactor (FNR) or fast-spectrum reactor or simply a fast reactor is a category of nuclear reactor in which the fission chain reaction is sustained by fast neutrons (carrying energies above 1 MeV or greater, on average), as opposed t ...
fuel cycle with a burn up of all the uranium and
actinide
The actinide () or actinoid () series encompasses the 15 metallic chemical elements with atomic numbers from 89 to 103, actinium through lawrencium. The actinide series derives its name from the first element in the series, actinium. The inform ...
s (which presently make up the most hazardous substances in nuclear waste), there is an estimated 160,000 years worth of uranium in total conventional resources and phosphate ore at the price of 60–100 US$/kg. However, reprocessing is expensive, possibly dangerous and can be used to manufacture nuclear weapons. One analysis found that for uranium prices could increase by two orders of magnitudes between 2035 and 2100 and that there could be a shortage near the end of the century. A 2017 study by researchers from MIT and WHOI found that "at the current consumption rate, global conventional reserves of terrestrial uranium (approximately 7.6 million tonnes) could be depleted in a little over a century". Limited uranium-235 supply may inhibit substantial expansion with the current nuclear technology. While various ways to reduce dependence on such resources are being explored, new nuclear technologies are considered to not be available in time for climate change mitigation purposes or competition with alternatives of renewables in addition to being more expensive and require costly research and development. A study found it to be uncertain whether identified resources will be developed quickly enough to provide uninterrupted fuel supply to expanded nuclear facilities and various forms of mining may be challenged by ecological barriers, costs, and land requirements. Researchers also report considerable import dependence of nuclear energy.
Unconventional uranium resources also exist. Uranium is naturally present in seawater at a concentration of about 3
microgram
In the metric system, a microgram or microgramme is a unit of mass equal to one millionth () of a gram. The unit symbol is μg according to the International System of Units (SI); the recommended symbol in the United States and United Kingdom whe ...
s per liter, with 4.4 billion tons of uranium considered present in seawater at any time.
In 2014 it was suggested that it would be economically competitive to produce nuclear fuel from seawater if the process was implemented at large scale.
Like fossil fuels, over geological timescales, uranium extracted on an industrial scale from seawater would be replenished by both river erosion of rocks and the natural process of uranium dissolved from the surface area of the ocean floor, both of which maintain the solubility equilibria of seawater concentration at a stable level.
Some commentators have argued that this strengthens the case for nuclear power to be considered a renewable energy.
Waste
The normal operation of nuclear power plants and facilities produce
radioactive waste
Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. Radioactive waste is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, rare-earth mining, and nuclear weapons r ...
, or nuclear waste. This type of waste is also produced during plant decommissioning. There are two broad categories of nuclear waste: low-level waste and high-level waste. The first has low radioactivity and includes contaminated items such as clothing, which poses limited threat. High-level waste is mainly the spent fuel from nuclear reactors, which is very radioactive and must be cooled and then safely disposed of or reprocessed.
High-level waste
The most important waste stream from nuclear power reactors is
spent nuclear fuel
Spent nuclear fuel, occasionally called used nuclear fuel, is nuclear fuel that has been irradiated in a nuclear reactor (usually at a nuclear power plant). It is no longer useful in sustaining a nuclear reaction in an ordinary thermal reactor an ...
, which is considered
high-level waste
High-level waste (HLW) is a type of nuclear waste created by the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. It exists in two main forms:
* First and second cycle raffinate and other waste streams created by nuclear reprocessing.
* Waste formed by vit ...
. For LWRs, spent fuel is typically composed of 95% uranium, 4%
fission product
Nuclear fission products are the atomic fragments left after a large atomic nucleus undergoes nuclear fission. Typically, a large nucleus like that of uranium fissions by splitting into two smaller nuclei, along with a few neutrons, the release ...
s, and about 1%
transuranic
The transuranium elements (also known as transuranic elements) are the chemical elements with atomic numbers greater than 92, which is the atomic number of uranium. All of these elements are unstable and decay radioactively into other elements. ...
actinides
The actinide () or actinoid () series encompasses the 15 metallic chemical elements with atomic numbers from 89 to 103, actinium through lawrencium. The actinide series derives its name from the first element in the series, actinium. The inform ...
(mostly
plutonium
Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibi ...
,
neptunium
Neptunium is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Np and atomic number 93. A radioactivity, radioactive actinide metal, neptunium is the first transuranic element. Its position in the periodic table just after uranium, named after ...
and
americium
Americium is a synthetic radioactive chemical element with the symbol Am and atomic number 95. It is a transuranic member of the actinide series, in the periodic table located under the lanthanide element europium, and thus by analogy was na ...
). The fission products are responsible for the bulk of the short-term radioactivity, whereas the plutonium and other transuranics are responsible for the bulk of the long-term radioactivity.
High-level waste (HLW) must be stored isolated from the
biosphere
The biosphere (from Greek βίος ''bíos'' "life" and σφαῖρα ''sphaira'' "sphere"), also known as the ecosphere (from Greek οἶκος ''oîkos'' "environment" and σφαῖρα), is the worldwide sum of all ecosystems. It can also be ...
with sufficient shielding so as to limit radiation exposure. After being removed from the reactors, used fuel bundles are stored for six to ten years in
spent fuel pool
Spent fuel pools (SFP) are storage pools (or "ponds" in the United Kingdom) for spent fuel from nuclear reactors. They are typically 40 or more feet (12 m) deep, with the bottom 14 feet (4.3 m) equipped with storage racks designed to hold f ...
s, which provide cooling and shielding against radiation. After that, the fuel is cool enough that it can be safely transferred to
dry cask storage
Dry cask storage is a method of storing high-level radioactive waste, such as spent nuclear fuel that has already been cooled in the spent fuel pool for at least one year and often as much as ten years. Casks are typically steel cylinders that ar ...
. The radioactivity decreases exponentially with time, such that it will have decreased by 99.5% after 100 years. The more intensely radioactive short-lived
fission products
Nuclear fission products are the atomic fragments left after a large atomic nucleus undergoes nuclear fission. Typically, a large nucleus like that of uranium fissions by splitting into two smaller nuclei, along with a few neutrons, the release ...
(SLFPs) decay into stable elements in approximately 300 years, and after about 100,000 years, the spent fuel becomes less radioactive than natural uranium ore.
Commonly suggested methods to isolate LLFP waste from the biosphere include separation and transmutation,
synroc Synroc, a portmanteau of "synthetic rock", is a means of safely storing radioactive waste. It was pioneered in 1978 by a team led by Professor Ted Ringwood at the Australian National University, with further research undertaken in collaboration with ...
treatments, or deep geological storage.
Thermal-neutron reactor
A thermal-neutron reactor is a nuclear reactor that uses slow or thermal neutrons. ("Thermal" does not mean hot in an absolute sense, but means in thermal equilibrium with the medium it is interacting with, the reactor's fuel, moderator and struct ...
s, which presently constitute the majority of the world fleet, cannot burn up the
reactor grade plutonium Reactor-grade plutonium (RGPu) is the isotopic grade of plutonium that is found in spent nuclear fuel after the uranium-235 primary fuel that a nuclear power reactor uses has burnt up. The uranium-238 from which most of the plutonium isotopes der ...
that is generated during the reactor operation. This limits the life of nuclear fuel to a few years.
In some countries, such as the United States, spent fuel is classified in its entirety as a nuclear waste.
In other countries, such as France, it is largely reprocessed to produce a partially recycled fuel, known as mixed oxide fuel or
MOX
Mixed oxide fuel, commonly referred to as MOX fuel, is nuclear fuel that contains more than one oxide of fissile material, usually consisting of plutonium blended with natural uranium, reprocessed uranium, or depleted uranium. MOX fuel is an al ...
. For spent fuel that does not undergo reprocessing, the most concerning isotopes are the medium-lived
transuranic element
The transuranium elements (also known as transuranic elements) are the chemical elements with atomic numbers greater than 92, which is the atomic number of uranium. All of these elements are unstable and decay radioactively into other elements. ...
s, which are led by reactor-grade plutonium (half-life 24,000 years).
Some proposed reactor designs, such as the
integral fast reactor
The integral fast reactor (IFR, originally advanced liquid-metal reactor) is a design for a nuclear reactor using fast neutrons and no neutron moderator (a "fast" reactor). IFR would breed more fuel and is distinguished by a nuclear fuel cycle ...
and
molten salt reactor
A molten salt reactor (MSR) is a class of nuclear fission reactor in which the primary nuclear reactor coolant and/or the fuel is a molten salt mixture. Only two MSRs have ever operated, both research reactors in the United States. The 1950's Ai ...
s, can use as fuel the plutonium and other actinides in spent fuel from light water reactors, thanks to their
fast fission
Fast fission is fission that occurs when a heavy atom absorbs a high-energy neutron, called a fast neutron, and splits. Most fissionable materials need thermal neutrons, which move more slowly.
Fast reactors vs. thermal reactors
Fast neutron reac ...
spectrum. This offers a potentially more attractive alternative to deep geological disposal.
The
thorium fuel cycle
The thorium fuel cycle is a nuclear fuel cycle that uses an isotope of thorium, , as the fertile material. In the reactor, is transmuted into the fissile artificial uranium isotope which is the nuclear fuel. Unlike natural uranium, natural tho ...
results in similar fission products, though creates a much smaller proportion of transuranic elements from
neutron capture
Neutron capture is a nuclear reaction in which an atomic nucleus and one or more neutrons collide and merge to form a heavier nucleus. Since neutrons have no electric charge, they can enter a nucleus more easily than positively charged protons, ...
events within a reactor. Spent thorium fuel, although more difficult to handle than spent uranium fuel, may present somewhat lower proliferation risks.
Low-level waste
The nuclear industry also produces a large volume of
low-level waste
Low-level waste (LLW) or Low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) is nuclear waste that does not fit into the categorical definitions for intermediate-level waste (ILW), high-level waste (HLW), spent nuclear fuel (SNF), transuranic waste (TRU), or cer ...
, with low radioactivity, in the form of contaminated items like clothing, hand tools, water purifier resins, and (upon decommissioning) the materials of which the reactor itself is built. Low-level waste can be stored on-site until radiation levels are low enough to be disposed of as ordinary waste, or it can be sent to a low-level waste disposal site.
Waste relative to other types
In countries with nuclear power, radioactive wastes account for less than 1% of total industrial toxic wastes, much of which remains hazardous for long periods. Overall, nuclear power produces far less waste material by volume than fossil-fuel based power plants. Coal-burning plants, in particular, produce large amounts of toxic and mildly radioactive ash resulting from the concentration of
naturally occurring radioactive material
Naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) and technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials (TENORM) consist of materials, usually industrial wastes or by-products enriched with radioactive elements found in the envir ...
s in coal.
A 2008 report from
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a U.S. multiprogram science and technology national laboratory sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and administered, managed, and operated by UT–Battelle as a federally funded research and ...
concluded that coal power actually results in more radioactivity being released into the environment than nuclear power operation, and that the population
effective dose equivalent Effective dose is a dose quantity in the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) system of radiological protection.ICRP publication, 103 para 103
It is the tissue-weighted sum of the equivalent doses in all specified tissues and ...
from radiation from coal plants is 100 times that from the operation of nuclear plants.
Although coal ash is much less radioactive than spent nuclear fuel by weight, coal ash is produced in much higher quantities per unit of energy generated. It is also released directly into the environment as
fly ash
Fly ash, flue ash, coal ash, or pulverised fuel ash (in the UK) plurale tantum: coal combustion residuals (CCRs)is a coal combustion product that is composed of the particulates (fine particles of burned fuel) that are driven out of coal-fired ...
, whereas nuclear plants use shielding to protect the environment from radioactive materials.
Nuclear waste volume is small compared to the energy produced. For example, at
Yankee Rowe Nuclear Power Station
Yankee Rowe Nuclear Power Station ( decommissioned) was a nuclear power plant in Rowe, Massachusetts, that operated from 1960 to 1992. The 185-megawatt electric pressurized-water plant, located on the Deerfield River in the town of Rowe in weste ...
, which generated 44 billion
kilowatt hours
A kilowatt-hour (unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a unit of energy: one kilowatt of power for one hour. In terms of SI derived units with special names, it equals 3.6 megajoules (MJ). Kilowatt-hours are a common bil ...
of electricity when in service, its complete spent fuel inventory is contained within sixteen casks. It is estimated that to produce a lifetime supply of energy for a person at a western
standard of living
Standard of living is the level of income, comforts and services available, generally applied to a society or location, rather than to an individual. Standard of living is relevant because it is considered to contribute to an individual's quality ...
(approximately 3
GWh
A kilowatt-hour (unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a unit of energy: one kilowatt of power for one hour. In terms of SI derived units with special names, it equals 3.6 megajoules (MJ). Kilowatt-hours are a common bil ...
) would require on the order of the volume of a
soda can
A drink can (or beverage can) is a metal container designed to hold a fixed portion of liquid such as carbonated soft drinks, alcoholic drinks, fruit juices, teas, herbal teas, energy drinks, etc. Drink cans are made of aluminum (75% of wor ...
of
low enriched uranium
Enriched uranium is a type of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 (written 235U) has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Naturally occurring uranium is composed of three major isotopes: uranium-238 (238U ...
, resulting in a similar volume of spent fuel generated.
Waste disposal
Following interim storage in a
spent fuel pool
Spent fuel pools (SFP) are storage pools (or "ponds" in the United Kingdom) for spent fuel from nuclear reactors. They are typically 40 or more feet (12 m) deep, with the bottom 14 feet (4.3 m) equipped with storage racks designed to hold f ...
, the bundles of used fuel rod assemblies of a typical nuclear power station are often stored on site in
dry cask storage
Dry cask storage is a method of storing high-level radioactive waste, such as spent nuclear fuel that has already been cooled in the spent fuel pool for at least one year and often as much as ten years. Casks are typically steel cylinders that ar ...
vessels.
Presently, waste is mainly stored at individual reactor sites and there are over 430 locations around the world where radioactive material continues to accumulate.
Disposal of nuclear waste is often considered the most politically divisive aspect in the lifecycle of a nuclear power facility.Montgomery, Scott L. (2010). ''The Powers That Be'', University of Chicago Press, p. 137.
With the lack of movement of nuclear waste in the 2 billion year old
natural nuclear fission reactor
A natural nuclear fission reactor is a uranium deposit where self-sustaining nuclear chain reactions occur. The conditions under which a natural nuclear reactor could exist had been predicted in 1956 by Japanese American chemist Paul Kuroda. Th ...
s in
Oklo
Oklo is a region near the town of Franceville, in the Haut-Ogooué province of the Central African country of Gabon. Several natural nuclear fission reactors were discovered in the uranium mines in the region in 1972.
History
Gabon was a French ...
,
Gabon
Gabon (; ; snq, Ngabu), officially the Gabonese Republic (french: République gabonaise), is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. Located on the equator, it is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north ...
being cited as "a source of essential information today."
Experts suggest that centralized underground repositories which are well-managed, guarded, and monitored, would be a vast improvement.
There is an "international consensus on the advisability of storing nuclear waste in deep geological repositories". With the advent of new technologies, other methods including
horizontal drillhole disposal
Deep horizontal drillhole disposal is the concept of disposing of high-level radioactive waste from a nuclear reactor in deep horizontal boreholes instead of in more traditional deep geological repositories that are excavated like mines. The desi ...
into geologically inactive areas have been proposed.
There are no commercial scale purpose built underground high-level waste repositories in operation. However, in Finland the
Onkalo spent nuclear fuel repository
The Onkalo spent nuclear fuel repository is a deep geological repository for the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel. It is near the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant in the municipality of Eurajoki, on the west coast of Finland. It is being const ...
of the
Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant
The Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant ( fi, Olkiluodon ydinvoimalaitos, sv, Olkiluoto kärnkraftverk) is one of Finland's two nuclear power plants, the other being the two-unit VVER Loviisa Nuclear Power Plant. The plant is owned and operated by ...
is under construction as of 2015.
Reprocessing
Most
thermal-neutron reactor
A thermal-neutron reactor is a nuclear reactor that uses slow or thermal neutrons. ("Thermal" does not mean hot in an absolute sense, but means in thermal equilibrium with the medium it is interacting with, the reactor's fuel, moderator and struct ...
s run on a
once-through nuclear fuel cycle
The nuclear fuel cycle, also called nuclear fuel chain, is the progression of nuclear fuel through a series of differing stages. It consists of steps in the ''front end'', which are the preparation of the fuel, steps in the ''service period'' in w ...
, mainly due to the low price of fresh uranium.
However, many reactors are also fueled with recycled fissionable materials that remain in spent nuclear fuel. The most common fissionable material that is recycled is the
reactor-grade plutonium Reactor-grade plutonium (RGPu) is the isotopic grade of plutonium that is found in spent nuclear fuel after the uranium-235 primary fuel that a nuclear power reactor uses has burnt up. The uranium-238 from which most of the plutonium isotopes der ...
(RGPu) that is extracted from spent fuel, it is mixed with uranium oxide and fabricated into mixed-oxide or
MOX fuel
Mixed oxide fuel, commonly referred to as MOX fuel, is nuclear fuel that contains more than one oxide of fissile material, usually consisting of plutonium blended with natural uranium, reprocessed uranium, or depleted uranium. MOX fuel is an alt ...
.
Because thermal LWRs remain the most common reactor worldwide, this type of recycling is the most common. It is considered to increase the sustainability of the nuclear fuel cycle, reduce the attractiveness of spent fuel to theft, and lower the volume of high level nuclear waste.
Spent MOX fuel cannot generally be recycled for use in thermal-neutron reactors. This issue does not affect
fast-neutron reactor
A fast-neutron reactor (FNR) or fast-spectrum reactor or simply a fast reactor is a category of nuclear reactor in which the fission chain reaction is sustained by fast neutrons (carrying energies above 1 MeV or greater, on average), as opposed t ...
s, which are therefore preferred in order to achieve the full energy potential of the original uranium.
The main constituent of spent fuel from LWRs is slightly
enriched uranium
Enriched uranium is a type of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 (written 235U) has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Naturally occurring uranium is composed of three major isotopes: uranium-238 (238 ...
. This can be recycled into
reprocessed uranium
Reprocessed uranium (RepU) is the uranium recovered from nuclear reprocessing, as done commercially in France, the UK and Japan and by nuclear weapons states' military plutonium production programs. This uranium makes up the bulk of the material s ...
(RepU), which can be used in a fast reactor, used directly as fuel in
CANDU
The CANDU (Canada Deuterium Uranium) is a Canadian pressurized heavy-water reactor design used to generate electric power. The acronym refers to its deuterium oxide ( heavy water) moderator and its use of (originally, natural) uranium fuel. C ...
reactors, or re-enriched for another cycle through an LWR.
Re-enriching of reprocessed uranium is common in France and Russia.
Reprocessed uranium is also safer in terms of nuclear proliferation potential.
Reprocessing has the potential to recover up to 95% of the uranium and plutonium fuel in spent nuclear fuel, as well as reduce long-term radioactivity within the remaining waste.
However, reprocessing has been politically controversial because of the potential for
nuclear proliferation
Nuclear proliferation is the spread of nuclear weapons, fissionable material, and weapons-applicable nuclear technology and information to nations not recognized as " Nuclear Weapon States" by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Wea ...
and varied perceptions of increasing the vulnerability to
nuclear terrorism
Nuclear terrorism refers to any person or persons detonating a nuclear weapon as an act of terrorism (i.e., illegal or immoral use of violence for a political or religious cause). Some definitions of nuclear terrorism include the sabotage of a ...
. Reprocessing also leads to higher fuel cost compared to the once-through fuel cycle.R. Stephen Berry and George S. Tolley Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing , The University of Chicago, 2013.
While reprocessing reduces the volume of high-level waste, it does not reduce the
fission product
Nuclear fission products are the atomic fragments left after a large atomic nucleus undergoes nuclear fission. Typically, a large nucleus like that of uranium fissions by splitting into two smaller nuclei, along with a few neutrons, the release ...
s that are the primary causes of residual heat generation and radioactivity for the first few centuries outside the reactor. Thus, reprocessed waste still requires an almost identical treatment for the initial first few hundred years.
Reprocessing of civilian fuel from power reactors is currently done in France, the United Kingdom, Russia, Japan, and India. In the United States, spent nuclear fuel is currently not reprocessed.
The
La Hague reprocessing facility
The La Hague site is a nuclear reprocessing, nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at La Hague on the Cotentin Peninsula in northern France, with the Manche storage centre bordering on it. Operated by Orano Cycle, Orano, formerly Areva, AREVA, and prio ...
in France has operated commercially since 1976 and is responsible for half the world's reprocessing as of 2010. It produces MOX fuel from spent fuel derived from several countries. More than 32,000 tonnes of spent fuel had been reprocessed as of 2015, with the majority from France, 17% from Germany, and 9% from Japan.
Breeding
Breeding is the process of converting non-fissile material into fissile material that can be used as nuclear fuel. The non-fissile material that can be used for this process is called
fertile material
Fertile material is a material that, although not itself fissionable by thermal neutrons, can be converted into a fissile material by neutron absorption and subsequent nuclei conversions.
Naturally occurring fertile materials
Naturally occurring ...
, and constitute the vast majority of current nuclear waste.
This breeding process occurs naturally in
breeder reactor
A breeder reactor is a nuclear reactor that generates more fissile material than it consumes. Breeder reactors achieve this because their neutron economy is high enough to create more fissile fuel than they use, by irradiation of a fertile mate ...
s. As opposed to light water thermal-neutron reactors, which use uranium-235 (0.7% of all natural uranium), fast-neutron breeder reactors use uranium-238 (99.3% of all natural uranium) or thorium.
A number of fuel cycles and breeder reactor combinations are considered to be sustainable or renewable sources of energy. In 2006 it was estimated that with seawater extraction, there was likely five billion years' worth of uranium resources for use in breeder reactors. Citing:
Breeder technology has been used in several reactors, but as of 2006, the high cost of reprocessing fuel safely requires uranium prices of more than US$200/kg before becoming justified economically.
Breeder reactors are however being developed for their potential to burn up all of the actinides (the most active and dangerous components) in the present inventory of nuclear waste, while also producing power and creating additional quantities of fuel for more reactors via the breeding process.
As of 2017, there are two breeders producing commercial power,
BN-600 reactor
The BN-600 reactor is a sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor, built at the Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Station, in Zarechny, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia. Designed to generate electrical power of 600 MW in total, the plant dispatches 560 MW t ...
and the
BN-800 reactor
The BN-800 reactor (Russian: реактор БН–800) is a sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor, built at the Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Station, in Zarechny, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia.
The reactor is designed to generate 880 MW of electrical pow ...
, both in Russia.
The
Phénix
Phénix (French for phoenix) was a small-scale (gross 264/net 233 MWe) prototype fast breeder reactor, located at the Marcoule nuclear site, near Orange, France. It was a pool-type liquid-metal fast breeder reactor cooled with liquid sodium. It ...
breeder reactor in France was powered down in 2009 after 36 years of operation.
Both China and India are building breeder reactors. The Indian 500 MWe
Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor
The Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) is a 500 MWe fast breeder nuclear reactor presently being constructed at the Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS) in Kalpakkam, India. The Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR) is responsible ...
is in the commissioning phase, with plans to build more.
Another alternative to fast-neutron breeders are thermal-neutron breeder reactors that use uranium-233 bred from
thorium
Thorium is a weakly radioactive metallic chemical element with the symbol Th and atomic number 90. Thorium is silvery and tarnishes black when it is exposed to air, forming thorium dioxide; it is moderately soft and malleable and has a high me ...
as fission fuel in the
thorium fuel cycle
The thorium fuel cycle is a nuclear fuel cycle that uses an isotope of thorium, , as the fertile material. In the reactor, is transmuted into the fissile artificial uranium isotope which is the nuclear fuel. Unlike natural uranium, natural tho ...
. Thorium is about 3.5 times more common than uranium in the Earth's crust, and has different geographic characteristics.
India's three-stage nuclear power programme
India's three-stage nuclear power programme was formulated by Homi Bhabha, the well-known physicist, in the 1950s to secure the country's long term energy independence, through the use of uranium and thorium reserves found in the monazite sands ...
features the use of a thorium fuel cycle in the third stage, as it has abundant thorium reserves but little uranium.
Decommissioning
Nuclear decommissioning is the process of dismantling a
nuclear facility
A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a electric generator, generato ...
to the point that it no longer requires measures for radiation protection, returning the facility and its parts to a safe enough level to be entrusted for other uses.
Due to the presence of radioactive materials, nuclear decommissioning presents technical and economic challenges.
The costs of decommissioning are generally spread over the lifetime of a facility and saved in a decommissioning fund.
Production
Civilian nuclear power supplied 2,586
terawatt hour
A kilowatt-hour (unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a unit of energy: one kilowatt of power for one hour. In terms of SI derived units with special names, it equals 3.6 megajoules (MJ). Kilowatt-hours are a common bil ...
s (TWh) of electricity in 2019, equivalent to about 10% of
global electricity generation
World energy supply and consumption is global production and preparation of fuel, generation of electricity, energy transport, and energy consumption. It is a basic part of economic activity. It includes heat, but not energy from food.
This art ...
, and was the second largest
low-carbon power
Low-carbon power is electricity produced with substantially lower greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fossil fuel power generation. The energy transition to low-carbon power is one of the most important actions required to limit climate ...
source after
hydroelectricity
Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other Renewabl ...
.
Since electricity accounts for about 25% of
world energy consumption
World energy supply and consumption is global production and preparation of fuel, generation of electricity, energy transport, and energy consumption. It is a basic part of economic activity. It includes heat, but not energy from food.
This art ...
, nuclear power's contribution to global energy was about 2.5% in 2011.
This is a little more than the combined global electricity production from wind, solar,
biomass
Biomass is plant-based material used as a fuel for heat or electricity production. It can be in the form of wood, wood residues, energy crops, agricultural residues, and waste from industry, farms, and households. Some people use the terms bi ...
and geothermal power, which together provided 2% of global final energy consumption in 2014.
Nuclear power's share of global electricity production has fallen from 16.5% in 1997, in large part because the economics of nuclear power have become more difficult.
there are 439 civilian fission reactors in the world, with a combined electrical capacity of 392
gigawatt
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wat ...
(GW). There are also 56 nuclear power reactors under construction and 96 reactors planned, with a combined capacity of 62GW and 96GW, respectively.
The United States has the largest fleet of nuclear reactors, generating over 800TWh per year with an average
capacity factor
The net capacity factor is the unitless ratio of actual electrical energy output over a given period of time to the theoretical maximum electrical energy output over that period. The theoretical maximum energy output of a given installation is de ...
of 92%. Most reactors under construction are
generation III reactor
Generation III reactors, or Gen III reactors, are a class of nuclear reactors designed to succeed Generation II reactors, incorporating evolutionary improvements in design. These include improved fuel technology, higher thermal efficiency, sign ...
s in Asia.
Regional differences in the use of nuclear power are large. The United States produces the most nuclear energy in the world, with nuclear power providing 20% of the electricity it consumes, while France produces the highest percentage of its electrical energy from nuclear reactors71% in 2019.
In the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
, nuclear power provides 26% of the electricity as of 2018.
Nuclear power is the single largest low-carbon electricity source in the United States, and accounts for two-thirds of the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
's low-carbon electricity.
Nuclear energy policy
Nuclear energy policy is a national and international policy concerning some or all aspects of nuclear energy and the nuclear fuel cycle, such as uranium mining, ore concentration, conversion, enrichment for nuclear fuel, generating electrici ...
differs among European Union countries, and some, such as Austria,
Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
, Ireland and
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
, have no active nuclear power stations.
In addition, there were approximately 140 naval vessels using
nuclear propulsion
Nuclear propulsion includes a wide variety of propulsion methods that use some form of nuclear reaction as their primary power source. The idea of using nuclear material for propulsion dates back to the beginning of the 20th century. In 1903 it was ...
in operation, powered by about 180 reactors.
These include military and some civilian ships, such as
nuclear-powered icebreaker
A nuclear-powered icebreaker is an icebreaker with an Nuclear marine propulsion, onboard nuclear power plant that produces power for the vessel's propulsion system. , Russia is the only country that builds and operates nuclear-powered icebreakers ...
s.
International research is continuing into additional uses of process heat such as
hydrogen production
Hydrogen production is the family of industrial methods for generating hydrogen gas. As of 2020, the majority of hydrogen (∼95%) is produced from fossil fuels by steam reforming of natural gas and other light hydrocarbons, partial oxidation of h ...
(in support of a
hydrogen economy
The hydrogen economy is using hydrogen to decarbonize economic sectors which are hard to electrify, essentially, the "hard-to-abate" sectors such as cement, steel, long-haul transport etc. In order to phase out fossil fuels and limit climate ch ...
district heating
District heating (also known as heat networks or teleheating) is a system for distributing heat generated in a centralized location through a system of insulated pipes for residential and commercial heating requirements such as space heating a ...
systems.
Economics
The economics of new nuclear power plants is a controversial subject and multi-billion-dollar investments depend on the choice of energy sources. Nuclear power plants typically have high capital costs for building the plant. For this reason, comparison with other power generation methods is strongly dependent on assumptions about construction timescales and capital financing for nuclear plants. Fuel costs account for about 30 percent of the operating costs, while prices are subject to the market.''What's behind the red-hot uranium boom.'' CNN, 19 April 2007
The high cost of construction is one of the biggest challenges for nuclear power plants. A new 1,100MW plant is estimated to cost between $6 billion to $9 billion. Nuclear power cost trends show large disparity by nation, design, build rate and the establishment of familiarity in expertise. The only two nations for which data is available that saw cost decreases in the 2000s were India and South Korea.
Analysis of the economics of nuclear power must also take into account who bears the risks of future uncertainties.
As of 2010, all operating nuclear power plants have been developed by state-owned or
regulated
Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. Fo ...
electric utility
An electric utility is a company in the electric power industry (often a public utility) that engages in electricity generation and distribution of electricity for sale generally in a regulated market. The electrical utility industry is a major pr ...
monopolies.
Many countries have since liberalized the
electricity market
In a broad sense, an electricity market is a system that facilitates the exchange of electricity-related goods and services. During more than a century of evolution of the electric power industry, the economics of the electricity markets had un ...
where these risks, and the risk of cheaper competitors emerging before capital costs are recovered, are borne by plant suppliers and operators rather than consumers, which leads to a significantly different evaluation of the economics of new nuclear power plants.
The
levelized cost of electricity
The levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), or levelized cost of energy, is a measure of the average net present cost of electricity generation for a generator over its lifetime. It is used for investment planning and to compare different methods ...
(LCOE) from a new nuclear power plant is estimated to be 69USD/MWh, according to an analysis by the
International Energy Agency
The International Energy Agency (IEA) is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organisation, established in 1974, that provides policy recommendations, analysis and data on the entire global energy sector, with a recent focus on curbing carb ...
and the
OECD
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...
Nuclear Energy Agency
The Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) is an intergovernmental agency that is organized under the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Originally formed on 1 February 1958 with the name European Nuclear Energy Agency (ENEA)— ...
. This represents the median cost estimate for an nth-of-a-kind nuclear power plant to be completed in 2025, at a discount rate of 7%. Nuclear power was found to be the least-cost option among dispatchable technologies.Variable renewables can generate cheaper electricity: the median cost of onshore wind power was estimated to be 50USD/MWh, and utility-scale solar power 56USD/MWh.
At the assumed CO2 emission cost of 30USD/ton, power from coal (88USD/MWh) and gas (71USD/MWh) is more expensive than low-carbon technologies.
Electricity from long-term operation of nuclear power plants by lifetime extension was found the be the least-cost option, at 32USD/MWh.
Measures to mitigate global warming, such as a
carbon tax
A carbon tax is a tax levied on the carbon emissions required to produce goods and services. Carbon taxes are intended to make visible the "hidden" social costs of carbon emissions, which are otherwise felt only in indirect ways like more sev ...
or
carbon emissions trading
Emission trading (ETS) for carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHG) is a form of carbon pricing; also known as cap and trade (CAT) or carbon pricing. It is an approach to limit climate change by creating a market with limited ...
, may favor the economics of nuclear power. Extreme weather events, including events made more severe by climate change, are decreasing all energy source reliability including nuclear energy by a small degree, depending on location siting.
New
small modular reactors
Small modular reactors (SMRs) are a proposed class of nuclear fission reactors, smaller than conventional nuclear reactors, which can be built in one location (such as a factory), then shipped, commissioned, and operated at a separate site. The ...
, such as those developed by
NuScale Power
NuScale Power is a publicly traded American company that designs and markets small modular reactors (SMRs). It is headquartered in Tigard, Oregon, United States. NuScale has been approved to build reactors in Idaho, in 2029 and 2030. The design ...
, are aimed at reducing the investment costs for new construction by making the reactors smaller and modular, so that they can be built in a factory.
Certain designs had considerable early positive economics, such as the
CANDU
The CANDU (Canada Deuterium Uranium) is a Canadian pressurized heavy-water reactor design used to generate electric power. The acronym refers to its deuterium oxide ( heavy water) moderator and its use of (originally, natural) uranium fuel. C ...
, which realized much higher
capacity factor
The net capacity factor is the unitless ratio of actual electrical energy output over a given period of time to the theoretical maximum electrical energy output over that period. The theoretical maximum energy output of a given installation is de ...
and reliability when compared to generation II light water reactors up to the 1990s.
Nuclear power plants, though capable of some grid-
load following
A load-following power plant, regarded as producing mid-merit or mid-priced electricity, is a power plant that adjusts its power output as demand for electricity fluctuates throughout the day. Load-following plants are typically in between base lo ...
, are typically run as much as possible to keep the cost of the generated electrical energy as low as possible, supplying mostly
base-load
The base load (also baseload) is the minimum level of demand on an electrical grid over a span of time, for example, one week. This demand can be met by unvarying power plants, dispatchable generation, or by a collection of smaller intermittent en ...
electricity.
Due to the on-line refueling reactor design,
PHWR
A pressurized heavy-water reactor (PHWR) is a nuclear reactor that uses heavy water ( deuterium oxide D2O) as its coolant and neutron moderator. PHWRs frequently use natural uranium as fuel, but sometimes also use very low enriched uranium. The ...
s (of which the CANDU design is a part) continue to hold many world record positions for longest continual electricity generation, often over 800 days.
The specific record as of 2019 is held by a PHWR at
Kaiga Atomic Power Station
Kaiga Generating Station is a nuclear power generating station situated at Kaiga, near the river Kali, in Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka, India. The plant has been in operation since March 2000 and is operated by the Nuclear Power Corpora ...
, generating electricity continuously for 962 days.
Costs not considered in LCOE calculations include funds for research and development, and disasters (the Fukushima disaster is estimated to cost taxpayers ≈$187 billion). Governments were found to in some cases force "consumers to pay upfront for potential cost overruns" or subsidize uneconomic nuclear energy or be required to do so. Nuclear operators are liable to pay for the waste management in the EU. In the U.S. the Congress reportedly decided 40 years ago that the nation, and not private companies, would be responsible for storing radioactive waste with taxpayers paying for the costs. The World Nuclear Waste Report 2019 found that "even in countries in which the polluter-pays-principle is a legal requirement, it is applied incompletely" and notes the case of the German Asse II deep geological disposal facility, where the retrieval of large amounts of waste has to be paid for by taxpayers. Similarly, other forms of energy, including fossil fuels and renewables, have a portion of their costs covered by governments.
Use in space
The most common use of nuclear power in space is the use of
radioisotope thermoelectric generator
A radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG, RITEG), sometimes referred to as a radioisotope power system (RPS), is a type of nuclear battery that uses an array of thermocouples to convert the heat released by the decay of a suitable radioacti ...
s, which use
radioactive decay
Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is consid ...
to generate power.
These power generators are relatively small scale (few kW), and they are mostly used to power
space mission
Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly spacecraft into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board. Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly with spacecraft such as satellites in or ...
s and experiments for long periods where solar power is not available in sufficient quantity, such as in the ''
Voyager 2
''Voyager 2'' is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. As a part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, ''Voyager 1'', on a ...
'' space probe.
A few space vehicles have been launched using
nuclear reactor
A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat from nu ...
s: 34 reactors belong to the Soviet
RORSAT
Upravlyaemy Sputnik Aktivnyy (russian: Управляемый Спутник Активный for Controlled Active Satellite), or US-A, also known in the west as Radar Ocean Reconnaissance Satellite or RORSAT (GRAU index 17F16K), was a series of ...
series and one was the American
SNAP-10A
SNAP-10A (Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power, aka Snapshot for Space Nuclear Auxiliary Power Shot, also known as OPS 4682) was a US experimental nuclear powered satellite launched into space in 1965 as part of the SNAPSHOT program.fission and fusion appear promising for
space propulsion
Spacecraft propulsion is any method used to accelerate spacecraft and artificial satellites. In-space propulsion exclusively deals with propulsion systems used in the vacuum of space and should not be confused with space launch or atmospheric e ...
applications, generating higher mission velocities with less
reaction mass
Working mass, also referred to as reaction mass, is a mass against which a system operates in order to produce acceleration.
In the case of a chemical rocket, for example, the reaction mass is the Product (chemistry), product of the burned fuel sh ...
.
Safety
Nuclear power plants have three unique characteristics that affect their safety, as compared to other power plants.
Firstly, intensely
radioactive material
A radionuclide (radioactive nuclide, radioisotope or radioactive isotope) is a nuclide that has excess nuclear energy, making it unstable. This excess energy can be used in one of three ways: emitted from the nucleus as gamma radiation; transfer ...
s are present in a nuclear reactor. Their release to the environment could be hazardous.
Secondly, the
fission product
Nuclear fission products are the atomic fragments left after a large atomic nucleus undergoes nuclear fission. Typically, a large nucleus like that of uranium fissions by splitting into two smaller nuclei, along with a few neutrons, the release ...
s, which make up most of the intensely radioactive substances in the reactor, continue to generate a significant amount of
decay heat
Decay heat is the heat released as a result of radioactive decay. This heat is produced as an effect of radiation on materials: the energy of the alpha, beta or gamma radiation is converted into the thermal movement of atoms.
Decay heat occurs na ...
even after the fission
chain reaction
A chain reaction is a sequence of reactions where a reactive product or by-product causes additional reactions to take place. In a chain reaction, positive feedback leads to a self-amplifying chain of events.
Chain reactions are one way that syst ...
has stopped. If the heat cannot be removed from the reactor, the fuel rods may overheat and release radioactive materials.
Thirdly, a
criticality accident
A criticality accident is an accidental uncontrolled nuclear fission chain reaction. It is sometimes referred to as a critical excursion, critical power excursion, or divergent chain reaction. Any such event involves the unintended accumulation ...
(a rapid increase of the reactor power) is possible in certain reactor designs if the chain reaction cannot be controlled.
These three characteristics have to be taken into account when designing nuclear reactors.
All modern reactors are designed so that an uncontrolled increase of the reactor power is prevented by natural feedback mechanisms, a concept known as negative
void coefficient
In nuclear engineering, the void coefficient (more properly called void coefficient of reactivity) is a number that can be used to estimate how much the reactivity of a nuclear reactor changes as voids (typically steam bubbles) form in the reactor ...
of reactivity. If the temperature or the amount of steam in the reactor increases, the fission rate inherently decreases. The chain reaction can also be manually stopped by inserting
control rod
Control rods are used in nuclear reactors to control the rate of fission of the nuclear fuel – uranium or plutonium. Their compositions include chemical elements such as boron, cadmium, silver, hafnium, or indium, that are capable of absorbing ...
s into the reactor core.
Emergency core cooling system
:''This article covers the technical aspects of active nuclear safety systems in the United States. For a general approach to nuclear safety, see nuclear safety.''
The three primary objectives of nuclear reactor safety systems as defined by the ...
s (ECCS) can remove the decay heat from the reactor if normal cooling systems fail. If the ECCS fails, multiple physical barriers limit the release of radioactive materials to the environment even in the case of an accident. The last physical barrier is the large
containment building
A containment building is a reinforced steel, concrete or lead structure enclosing a nuclear reactor. It is designed, in any emergency, to contain the escape of radioactive steam or gas to a maximum pressure in the range of . The containment i ...
.
With a death rate of 0.07 per
TWh TWH or twh could refer to:
* Tai Dón language, a language of Vietnam, Laos, and China
* Tai Wo Hau station, Hong Kong; MTR station code
* Tennessee Walking Horse, a breed of horse
* Toronto Western Hospital, a hospital in Toronto, Canada
* Tun ...
, nuclear power is the safest energy source per unit of energy generated in terms of mortality when the historical track-record is considered.
Energy produced by coal, petroleum, natural gas and
hydropower
Hydropower (from el, ὕδωρ, "water"), also known as water power, is the use of falling or fast-running water to Electricity generation, produce electricity or to power machines. This is achieved by energy transformation, converting the Pot ...
has caused more deaths per unit of energy generated due to
air pollution
Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. There are many different types ...
and
energy accidents
Energy resources bring with them great social and economic promise, providing financial growth for communities and energy services for local economies. However, the infrastructure which delivers energy services can break down in an energy accident ...
.
This is found when comparing the immediate deaths from other energy sources to both the immediate and the latent, or predicted, indirect cancer deaths from nuclear energy accidents.
When the direct and indirect fatalities (including fatalities resulting from the mining and air pollution) from nuclear power and fossil fuels are compared, the use of nuclear power has been calculated to have prevented about 1.84 million deaths from air pollution between 1971 and 2009, by reducing the proportion of energy that would otherwise have been generated by fossil fuels.
Following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, it has been estimated that if Japan had never adopted nuclear power, accidents and pollution from coal or gas plants would have caused more lost years of life.
Serious impacts of nuclear accidents are often not directly attributable to radiation exposure, but rather social and psychological effects. Evacuation and long-term displacement of affected populations created problems for many people, especially the elderly and hospital patients.
Forced evacuation from a nuclear accident may lead to social isolation, anxiety, depression, psychosomatic medical problems, reckless behavior, and suicide.
A comprehensive 2005 study on the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster concluded that the mental health impact is the largest public health problem caused by the accident.
Frank N. von Hippel
Frank N. von Hippel (born 1937) is an American physicist. He is Professor and Co-Director of Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University and the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.
He is Arthur von Hippel's s ...
, an American scientist, commented that a disproportionate fear of ionizing radiation (
radiophobia
Radiophobia is a fear of ionizing radiation. Examples include health patients refusing X-rays because they believe the radiation will kill them, such as Steve Jobs and Bob Marley who both died after refusing radiation treatment for their cancer. ...
) could have long-term psychological effects on the population of contaminated areas following the Fukushima disaster.
Accidents
Some serious
nuclear and radiation accidents
A nuclear and radiation accident is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "an event that has led to significant consequences to people, the environment or the facility. Examples include lethal effects to individuals, lar ...
have occurred. The severity of nuclear accidents is generally classified using the
International Nuclear Event Scale
The International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) was introduced in 1990 by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in order to enable prompt communication of safety significant information in case of nuclear accidents.
The s ...
(INES) introduced by the
International Atomic Energy Agency
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an intergovernmental organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. It was established in 1957 ...
(IAEA).
The scale ranks anomalous events or accidents on a scale from 0 (a deviation from normal operation that poses no safety risk) to 7 (a major accident with widespread effects).
There have been three accidents of level 5 or higher in the civilian nuclear power industry, two of which, the
Chernobyl accident
The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two nu ...
and the
Fukushima accident
The was a nuclear accident in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. The proximate cause of the disaster was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
The occurred at 14:46 JST (05:46 UTC) on 11 ...
, are ranked at level 7.
The first major nuclear accidents were the
Kyshtym disaster
The Kyshtym disaster, sometimes referred to as the Mayak disaster or Ozyorsk disaster in newer sources, was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on 29 September 1957 at Mayak, a plutonium production site for nuclear weapons and nu ...
in the Soviet Union and the
Windscale fire
The Windscale fire of 10 October 1957 was the worst nuclear accident in the United Kingdom's history, and one of the worst in the world, ranked in severity at level 5 out of a possible 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale. The fire was in ...
in the United Kingdom, both in 1957. The first major accident at a nuclear reactor in the USA occurred in 1961 at the
SL-1
Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One, also known as SL-1 or the Argonne Low Power Reactor (ALPR), was a United States Army experimental nuclear reactor in the western United States at the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS), later the ...
, a
U.S. Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
experimental nuclear power reactor at the
Idaho National Laboratory
Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is one of the national laboratories of the United States Department of Energy and is managed by the Battelle Energy Alliance. While the laboratory does other research, historically it has been involved with nu ...
. An uncontrolled chain reaction resulted in a
steam explosion
A steam explosion is an explosion caused by violent boiling or flashing of water or ice into steam, occurring when water or ice is either superheated, rapidly heated by fine hot debris produced within it, or heated by the interaction of molten m ...
which killed the three crew members and caused a
meltdown
Meltdown may refer to:
Science and technology
* Nuclear meltdown, a severe nuclear reactor accident
* Meltdown (security vulnerability), affecting computer processors
* Mutational meltdown, in population genetics
Arts and entertainment Music
* Me ...
. IDO-19313: Additional Analysis of the SL-1 Excursion Final Report of Progress July through October 1962'', November 21, 1962, Flight Propulsion Laboratory Department, General Electric Company, Idaho Falls, Idaho, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Division of Technical Information.
Another serious accident happened in 1968, when one of the two
liquid-metal-cooled reactor
A liquid metal cooled nuclear reactor, liquid metal fast reactor or LMFR is an advanced type of nuclear reactor where the primary coolant is a liquid metal. Liquid metal cooled reactors were first adapted for nuclear submarine use and have been s ...
s on board the underwent a
fuel element failure
A fuel element failure is a rupture in a nuclear reactor's fuel cladding that allows the nuclear fuel or fission products, either in the form of dissolved radioisotopes or hot particles, to enter the reactor coolant or storage water.
The '' ...
, with the emission of gaseous
fission product
Nuclear fission products are the atomic fragments left after a large atomic nucleus undergoes nuclear fission. Typically, a large nucleus like that of uranium fissions by splitting into two smaller nuclei, along with a few neutrons, the release ...
s into the surrounding air, resulting in 9 crew fatalities and 83 injuries.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident was caused by the
2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami
Eleven or 11 may refer to:
*11 (number), the natural number following 10 and preceding 12
* one of the years 11 BC, AD 11, 1911, 2011, or any year ending in 11
Literature
* ''Eleven'' (novel), a 2006 novel by British author David Llewellyn
*''El ...
.
The accident has not caused any radiation-related deaths but resulted in radioactive contamination of surrounding areas. The difficult cleanup operation is expected to cost tens of billions of dollars over 40 or more years.
The
Three Mile Island accident
The Three Mile Island accident was a partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island, Unit 2 (TMI-2) reactor in Pennsylvania, United States. It began at 4 a.m. on March 28, 1979. It is the most significant accident in U.S. commercial nuclea ...
in 1979 was a smaller scale accident, rated at INES level 5.
There were no direct or indirect deaths caused by the accident.
The impact of nuclear accidents is controversial. According to
Benjamin K. Sovacool
Benjamin K. Sovacool is an American academic who is director of the Institute for Global Sustainability at Boston University as well as Professor of Earth and Environment at Boston University. He was formerly Director of the Danish Center for Ene ...
, fission
energy accidents
Energy resources bring with them great social and economic promise, providing financial growth for communities and energy services for local economies. However, the infrastructure which delivers energy services can break down in an energy accident ...
ranked first among energy sources in terms of their total economic cost, accounting for 41 percent of all property damage attributed to energy accidents. Another analysis found that coal, oil,
liquid petroleum gas
Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG or LP gas) is a fuel gas which contains a flammable mixture of hydrocarbon gases, specifically propane, propylene, butylene, isobutane and n-butane.
LPG is used as a fuel gas in heating appliances, cooking equ ...
and hydroelectric accidents (primarily due to the Banqiao Dam disaster) have resulted in greater economic impacts than nuclear power accidents. The study compares latent cancer deaths attributable to nuclear with immediate deaths from other energy sources per unit of energy generated, and does not include fossil fuel related cancer and other indirect deaths created by the use of fossil fuel consumption in its "severe accident" (an accident with more than five fatalities) classification. The Chernobyl accident in 1986 caused approximately 50 deaths from direct and indirect effects, and some temporary serious injuries from acute radiation syndrome. The future predicted mortality from increases in cancer rates is estimated at 4000 in the decades to come. However, the costs have been large and are increasing.
Nuclear power works under an
insurance
Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...
framework that limits or structures accident liabilities in accordance with national and international conventions.
It is often argued that this potential shortfall in liability represents an external cost not included in the cost of nuclear electricity. This cost is small, amounting to about 0.1% of the
levelized cost of electricity
The levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), or levelized cost of energy, is a measure of the average net present cost of electricity generation for a generator over its lifetime. It is used for investment planning and to compare different methods ...
, according to a study by the
Congressional Budget Office
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is a federal agency within the legislative branch of the United States government that provides budget and economic information to Congress.
Inspired by California's Legislative Analyst's Office that manages ...
in the United States.
These beyond-regular insurance costs for worst-case scenarios are not unique to nuclear power.
Hydroelectric power
Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and ...
plants are similarly not fully insured against a catastrophic event such as
dam failure
A dam failure or dam burst is a catastrophic type of structural failure characterized by the sudden, rapid, and uncontrolled release of impounded water or the likelihood of such an uncontrolled release. Between the years 2000 and 2009 more than ...
s. For example, the failure of the
Banqiao Dam
The Banqiao Reservoir Dam () is a dam on the River Ru (), a tributary of the Hong River in Zhumadian City, Henan province, China. The Banqiao dam and Shimantan Reservoir Dam () are among 62 dams in Zhumadian that failed catastrophically in 1975 du ...
caused the death of an estimated 30,000 to 200,000 people, and 11 million people lost their homes. As private insurers base dam insurance premiums on limited scenarios, major disaster insurance in this sector is likewise provided by the state.
Attacks and sabotage
Terrorists could target
nuclear power plant
A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a electric generator, generato ...
s in an attempt to release
radioactive contamination
Radioactive contamination, also called radiological pollution, is the deposition of, or presence of radioactive substances on surfaces or within solids, liquids, or gases (including the human body), where their presence is unintended or undesirab ...
into the community. The United States 9/11 Commission has said that nuclear power plants were potential targets originally considered for the
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...
. An attack on a reactor's
spent fuel pool
Spent fuel pools (SFP) are storage pools (or "ponds" in the United Kingdom) for spent fuel from nuclear reactors. They are typically 40 or more feet (12 m) deep, with the bottom 14 feet (4.3 m) equipped with storage racks designed to hold f ...
could also be serious, as these pools are less protected than the reactor core. The release of radioactivity could lead to thousands of near-term deaths and greater numbers of long-term fatalities.
In the United States, the NRC carries out "Force on Force" (FOF) exercises at all nuclear power plant sites at least once every three years.
In the United States, plants are surrounded by a double row of tall fences which are electronically monitored.
The plant grounds are patrolled by a sizeable force of armed guards.
Insider sabotage is also a threat because insiders can observe and work around security measures.
Successful insider crimes depended on the perpetrators' observation and knowledge of security vulnerabilities.
A fire caused 5–10 million dollars worth of damage to New York's
Indian Point Energy Center
Indian Point Energy Center (I.P.E.C.) is a three-unit nuclear power plant station located in Buchanan, just south of Peekskill, in Westchester County, New York. It sits on the east bank of the Hudson River, about north of Midtown Manhattan. Th ...
in 1971.
The arsonist was a plant maintenance worker.
Proliferation
Nuclear proliferation is the spread of
nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...
s, fissionable material, and weapons-related nuclear technology to states that do not already possess nuclear weapons. Many technologies and materials associated with the creation of a nuclear power program have a dual-use capability, in that they can also be used to make nuclear weapons. For this reason, nuclear power presents proliferation risks.
Nuclear power program can become a route leading to a nuclear weapon. An example of this is the concern over
Iran's nuclear program
The nuclear program of Iran is an ongoing scientific effort by Iran to research nuclear technology that can be used to make nuclear weapons. Iran has several research sites, two uranium mines, a research reactor, and uranium processing facili ...
.
The re-purposing of civilian nuclear industries for military purposes would be a breach of the
Non-Proliferation Treaty
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT, is an international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation ...
, to which 190 countries adhere.
As of April 2012, there are thirty one countries that have civil nuclear power plants, of which nine have nuclear weapons. The vast majority of these
nuclear weapons state
Eight sovereign states have publicly announced successful detonation of nuclear weapons. Five are considered to be nuclear-weapon states (NWS) under the terms of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). In order of acquisit ...
s have produced weapons before commercial nuclear power stations.
A fundamental goal for global security is to minimize the nuclear proliferation risks associated with the expansion of nuclear power.
The
Global Nuclear Energy Partnership
The International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation (IFNEC) formerly the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) began as a U.S. proposal, announced by United States Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman on February 6, 2006, to form an internat ...
was an international effort to create a distribution network in which developing countries in need of energy would receive
nuclear fuel
Nuclear fuel is material used in nuclear power stations to produce heat to power turbines. Heat is created when nuclear fuel undergoes nuclear fission.
Most nuclear fuels contain heavy fissile actinide elements that are capable of undergoing ...
at a discounted rate, in exchange for that nation agreeing to forgo their own indigenous development of a uranium enrichment program.
The France-based
Eurodif
Eurodif, which means ''European Gaseous Diffusion Uranium Enrichment Consortium'', is a subsidiary of the French company Orano, which operates a uranium enrichment plant established at the Tricastin Nuclear Power Center in Pierrelatte in Drô ...
/''European Gaseous Diffusion Uranium Enrichment Consortium'' is a program that successfully implemented this concept, with
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
and other countries without enrichment facilities buying a share of the fuel produced at the French-controlled enrichment facility, but without a transfer of technology.
Iran was an early participant from 1974 and remains a shareholder of Eurodif via
Sofidif
Eurodif, which means ''European Gaseous Diffusion Uranium Enrichment Consortium'', is a subsidiary of the France, French company Orano, which operates a uranium enrichment plant established at the Tricastin Nuclear Power Center in Pierrelatte in ...
.
A 2009 United Nations report said that:
the revival of interest in nuclear power could result in the worldwide dissemination of uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing technologies, which present obvious risks of proliferation as these technologies can produce fissile materials that are directly usable in nuclear weapons.
On the other hand, power reactors can also reduce nuclear weapons arsenals when military-grade nuclear materials are reprocessed to be used as fuel in nuclear power plants.
The
Megatons to Megawatts Program The Megatons to Megawatts Program, also called the United States-Russia Highly Enriched Uranium Purchase Agreement, was an agreement between Russia and the United States. The official name of the program is the "Agreement between the Government of t ...
is considered the single most successful
non-proliferation
Nuclear proliferation is the spread of nuclear weapons, fissionable material, and weapons-applicable nuclear technology and information to nations not recognized as " Nuclear Weapon States" by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Wea ...
program to date.
Up to 2005, the program had processed $8 billion of high enriched, weapons-grade uranium into
low enriched uranium
Enriched uranium is a type of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 (written 235U) has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Naturally occurring uranium is composed of three major isotopes: uranium-238 (238U ...
suitable as nuclear fuel for commercial fission reactors by diluting it with
natural uranium
Natural uranium (NU or Unat) refers to uranium with the same isotopic ratio as found in nature. It contains 0.711% uranium-235, 99.284% uranium-238, and a trace of uranium-234 by weight (0.0055%). Approximately 2.2% of its radioactivity comes fr ...
.
This corresponds to the elimination of 10,000 nuclear weapons.
For approximately two decades, this material generated nearly 10 percent of all the electricity consumed in the United States, or about half of all U.S. nuclear electricity, with a total of around 7,000
TWh TWH or twh could refer to:
* Tai Dón language, a language of Vietnam, Laos, and China
* Tai Wo Hau station, Hong Kong; MTR station code
* Tennessee Walking Horse, a breed of horse
* Toronto Western Hospital, a hospital in Toronto, Canada
* Tun ...
of electricity produced.
In total it is estimated to have cost $17 billion, a "bargain for US ratepayers", with Russia profiting $12 billion from the deal. Much needed profit for the Russian nuclear oversight industry, which after the collapse of the
Soviet economy
The economy of the Soviet Union was based on state ownership of the means of production, collective farming, and Industrial engineering, industrial manufacturing. An administrative-command system managed a Soviet-type economic planning, distinc ...
, had difficulties paying for the maintenance and security of the Russian Federations highly enriched uranium and warheads.
The Megatons to Megawatts Program was hailed as a major success by anti-nuclear weapon advocates as it has largely been the driving force behind the sharp reduction in the number of nuclear weapons worldwide since the cold war ended.
However, without an increase in nuclear reactors and greater demand for fissile fuel, the cost of dismantling and down blending has dissuaded Russia from continuing their disarmament.
As of 2013 Russia appears to not be interested in extending the program.
Environmental impact
Being a low-carbon energy source with relatively little land-use requirements, nuclear energy can have a positive environmental impact. It also requires a constant supply of significant amounts of water and affects the environment through mining and milling. Its largest potential negative impacts on the environment may arise from its transgenerational risks for nuclear weapons proliferation that may increase risks of their use in the future, risks for problems associated with the management of the radioactive waste such as groundwater contamination, risks for accidents and for risks for various forms of attacks on waste storage sites or reprocessing- and power-plants. However, these remain mostly only risks as historically there have only been few disasters at nuclear power plants with known relatively substantial environmental impacts.
electricity
Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...
renewable energy
Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...
.
A 2014 analysis of the
carbon footprint
A carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by an individual, event, organization, service, place or product, expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). Greenhouse gases, including the carbon-containing gases carbo ...
literature by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) a ...
emission intensity
An emission intensity (also carbon intensity or C.I.) is the emission rate of a given pollutant relative to the intensity of a specific activity, or an industrial production process; for example grams of carbon dioxide released per megajoule ...
kWh
A kilowatt-hour (unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a unit of energy: one kilowatt of power for one hour. In terms of SI derived units with special names, it equals 3.6 megajoules (MJ). Kilowatt-hours are a common bil ...
, which is the lowest among all commercial
baseload
The base load (also baseload) is the minimum level of demand on an electrical grid over a span of time, for example, one week. This demand can be met by unvarying power plants, dispatchable generation, or by a collection of smaller intermittent e ...
energy sources.
This is contrasted with
coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal is formed when dea ...
and
natural gas
Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...
at 820 and 490 g eq/kWh.
As of 2021, nuclear reactors worldwide have helped avoid the emission of 72 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide since 1970, compared to coal-fired electricity generation, according to a report.
Radiation
The average dose from natural
background radiation
Background radiation is a measure of the level of ionizing radiation present in the environment at a particular location which is not due to deliberate introduction of radiation sources.
Background radiation originates from a variety of sources ...
is 2.4
millisievert
The sievert (symbol: SvNot be confused with the sverdrup or the svedberg, two non-SI units that sometimes use the same symbol.) is a unit in the International System of Units (SI) intended to represent the stochastic health risk of ionizing radi ...
per year (mSv/a) globally. It varies between 1mSv/a and 13mSv/a, depending mostly on the geology of the location. According to the United Nations (
UNSCEAR
The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) was set up by resolution of the United Nations General Assembly in 1955. 21 states are designated to provide scientists to serve as members of the committee which ...
), regular nuclear power plant operations, including the nuclear fuel cycle, increases this amount by 0.0002mSv/a of public exposure as a global average. The average dose from operating nuclear power plants to the local populations around them is less than 0.0001mSv/a.
For comparison, the average dose to those living within 50 miles of a
coal power plant
A coal-fired power station or coal power plant is a thermal power station which burns coal to generate electricity. Worldwide, there are about 8,500 coal-fired power stations totaling over 2,000 gigawatts capacity. They generate about a th ...
is over three times this dose, at 0.0003mSv/a.
Chernobyl resulted in the most affected surrounding populations and male recovery personnel receiving an average initial 50 to 100mSv over a few hours to weeks, while the remaining global legacy of the worst nuclear power plant accident in average exposure is 0.002mSv/a and is continuously dropping at the decaying rate, from the initial high of 0.04mSv per person averaged over the entire populace of the Northern Hemisphere in the year of the accident in 1986.
Debate
The nuclear power debate concerns the controversy which has surrounded the deployment and use of nuclear fission reactors to generate electricity from nuclear fuel for civilian purposes.
Proponents of nuclear energy regard it as a
sustainable energy
Energy is sustainable if it "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". Most definitions of sustainable energy include considerations of environmental aspects such as greenh ...
source that reduces
carbon emissions
Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities strengthen the greenhouse effect, contributing to climate change. Most is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. The largest emitters include coal in China and larg ...
and increases
energy security
Energy security is the association between national security and the availability of natural resources for energy consumption. Access to (relatively) cheap energy has become essential to the functioning of modern economies. However, the uneven ...
by decreasing dependence on other energy sources that are also often dependent on imports.. For example, proponents note that annually, nuclear-generated electricity reduces 470 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions that would otherwise come from fossil fuels. Additionally, the amount of comparatively low waste that nuclear energy does create is safely disposed of by the large scale nuclear energy production facilities or it is repurposed/recycled for other energy uses.
M. King Hubbert
Marion King Hubbert (October 5, 1903 – October 11, 1989) was an American geologist and geophysicist. He worked at the Shell research lab in Houston, Texas. He made several important contributions to geology, geophysics, and petroleum geolog ...
, who popularized the concept of
peak oil
Peak oil is the hypothetical point in time when the maximum rate of global oil production is reached, after which it is argued that production will begin an irreversible decline. It is related to the distinct concept of oil depletion; while ...
, saw oil as a resource that would run out and considered nuclear energy its replacement.
Proponents also claim that the present quantity of nuclear waste is small and can be reduced through the latest technology of newer reactors and that the operational safety record of fission-electricity in terms of deaths is so far "unparalleled". Kharecha and Hansen estimated that "global nuclear power has prevented an average of 1.84 million air pollution-related deaths and 64 gigatonnes of CO2-equivalent (Gt-eq) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that would have resulted from fossil fuel burning" and, if continued, it could prevent up to 7 million deaths and 240Gt-eq emissions by 2050.
Proponents also bring to attention the opportunity cost of utilizing other forms of electricity. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that coal kills 30,000 people a year, as a result of its environmental impact, while 60 people died in the Chernobyl disaster. A real world example of impact provided by proponents is the 650,000 ton increase in carbon emissions in the two months following the closure of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.
Opponents believe that nuclear power poses many threats to people's health and environment such as the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation, long-term safe waste management and terrorism in the future. They also contend that nuclear power plants are complex systems where many things can and have gone wrong. Costs of the
Chernobyl disaster
The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two nuc ...
amount to ≈$68 billion as of 2019 and are increasing, the Fukushima disaster is estimated to cost taxpayers ~$187 billion, and radioactive waste management is estimated to cost the EU nuclear operators ~$250 billion by 2050. However, in countries that already use nuclear energy, when not considering reprocessing, intermediate nuclear waste disposal costs could be relatively fixed to certain but unknown degrees "as the main part of these costs stems from the operation of the intermediate storage facility".
Critics find that one of the largest drawbacks to building new nuclear fission power plants are the large construction and operating costs when compared to alternatives of sustainable energy sources.
Further costs include costs for ongoing research and development, expensive reprocessing in cases where such is practiced and decommissioning. Proponents note that focussing on the
Levelized Cost of Energy
The levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), or levelized cost of energy, is a measure of the average net present cost of electricity generation for a generator over its lifetime. It is used for investment planning and to compare different methods ...
(LCOE), however, ignores the value premium associated with 24/7 dispatchable electricity and the cost of storage and backup systems necessary to integrate variable energy sources into a reliable electrical grid. "Nuclear thus remains the dispatchable low-carbon technology with the lowest expected costs in 2025. Only large hydro reservoirs can provide a similar contribution at comparable costs but remain highly dependent on the natural endowments of individual countries."
Overall, many opponents find that nuclear energy cannot meaningfully contribute to climate change mitigation. In general, they find it to be, too dangerous, too expensive, to take too long for deployment, to be an obstacle to achieving a transition towards sustainability and carbon-neutrality, effectively being a distracting competition for resources (i.e. human, financial, time, infrastructure and expertise) for the deployment and development of alternative, sustainable,
energy system
An energy system is a system primarily designed to supply energy-services to end-users. The intent behind energy systems is to minimise energy losses to a negligible level, as well as to ensure the efficient use of energy. The IPCC Fifth Ass ...
technologies (such as for wind, ocean and solar – including e.g.
floating solar
Floating solar or floating photovoltaics (FPV), sometimes called floatovoltaics, is solar panels mounted on a structure that floats on a body of water, typically a reservoir or a lake.
The market for this renewable energy technology has grown rap ...
– as well as ways to manage their intermittency other than nuclear baseload generation such as
dispatchable generation
Dispatchable generation refers to sources of electricity that can be programmed ''on demand'' at the request of power grid operators, according to market needs. Dispatchable generators may adjust their power output according to an order.
Non-disp ...
, renewables-diversification,super grids, flexible energy demand and supply regulating
smart grid
A smart grid is an electrical grid which includes a variety of operation and energy measures including:
*Advanced metering infrastructure (of which smart meters are a generic name for any utility side device even if it is more capable e.g. a f ...
s and energy storage technologies).
Nevertheless, there is ongoing research and debate over costs of new nuclear, especially in regions where i.a. seasonal energy storage is difficult to provide and which aim to phase out fossil fuels in favor of low carbon power faster than the global average. Some find that financial transition costs for a 100% renewables-based European energy system that has completely phased out nuclear energy could be more costly by 2050 based on current technologies (i.e. not considering potential advances in e.g. green hydrogen, transmission and flexibility capacities, ways to reduce energy needs, geothermal energy and fusion energy) when the grid only extends across Europe. Arguments of economics and safety are used by both sides of the debate.
Comparison with renewable energy
Slowing global warming requires a transition to a low-carbon economy, mainly by burning far less fossil fuel. Limiting global warming to 1.5°C is technically possible if no new fossil fuel power plants are built from 2019. This has generated considerable interest and dispute in determining the best path forward to rapidly replace fossil-based fuels in the global energy consumption, global energy mix, with intense academic debate. Sometimes the IEA says that countries without nuclear should develop it as well as their renewable power.
Several studies suggest that it might be theoretically possible to cover a majority of world energy generation with new renewable sources.
The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) a ...
(IPCC) has said that if governments were supportive, renewable energy supply could account for close to 80% of the world's energy use by 2050.
While in developed nations the economically feasible geography for new hydropower is lacking, with every geographically suitable area largely already exploited, some proponents of wind and solar energy claim these resources alone could eliminate the need for nuclear power.
Nuclear power is comparable to, and in some cases lower, than many renewable energy sources in terms of lives lost in the past per unit of electricity delivered. Depending on recycling of renewable energy technologies, nuclear reactors may produce a much smaller volume of waste, although much more toxic, expensive to manage and longer-lived. A nuclear plant also needs to be disassembled and removed and much of the disassembled nuclear plant needs to be stored as low-level nuclear waste for a few decades. The disposal and management of the wide variety of radioactive waste, of which there are over one quarter of a million tons as of 2018, can cause future damage and costs across the world radioactive waste#Fuel composition and long term radioactivity, for over or during hundreds of thousands of years – possibly over a million years, due to issues such as leakage, malign retrieval, vulnerability to attacks (including of reprocessing and Vulnerability of nuclear plants to attack, power plants), groundwater contamination, radiation and leakage to above ground, brine leakage or bacterial corrosion. The European Commission Joint Research Centre found that as of 2021 the necessary technologies for geological disposal of nuclear waste are now available and can be deployed. Corrosion experts noted in 2020 that putting the problem of storage off any longer "isn't good for anyone". Separated
plutonium
Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibi ...
and
enriched uranium
Enriched uranium is a type of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 (written 235U) has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Naturally occurring uranium is composed of three major isotopes: uranium-238 (238 ...
could be used for
nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...
s, which – even with the current centralized control (e.g. state-level) and level of prevalence – are considered to be a difficult and Global catastrophic risk#Warfare and mass destruction, substantial global risk for substantial future impacts on human health, lives, civilization and the environment.
Speed of transition and investment needed
Analysis in 2015 by professor Barry Brook (scientist), Barry W. Brook and colleagues found that nuclear energy could displace or remove fossil fuels from the electric grid completely within 10 years. This finding was based on the historically modest and proven rate at which nuclear energy was added in France and Sweden during their building programs in the 1980s. In a similar analysis, Brook had earlier determined that 50% of all world energy consumption, global energy, including transportation synthetic fuels etc., could be generated within approximately 30 years if the global nuclear fission build rate was identical to historical proven installation rates calculated in Gigawatt, GW per year per unit of global GDP (GW/year/$).
This is in contrast to the conceptual studies for 100% renewable energy systems, which would require an order of magnitude more costly global investment per year, which has no historical precedent. These renewable scenarios would also need far greater land devoted to onshore wind and onshore solar projects. Brook notes that the "principal limitations on nuclear fission are not technical, economic or fuel-related, but are instead linked to complex issues of societal acceptance, fiscal and political inertia, and inadequate critical evaluation of the real-world constraints facing [the other] low-carbon alternatives."
Scientific data indicates that – assuming 2021 emissions levels – humanity only has a carbon budget equivalent to 11 years of emissions left for limiting warming to 1.5°C while the construction of new nuclear reactors took a median of 7.2–10.9 years in 2018–2020, substantially longer than, alongside other measures, scaling up the deployment of wind and solar – especially for novel reactor types – as well as being more risky, often delayed and more dependent on state-support. Researchers have cautioned that novel nuclear technologies – which have been in development since decades, are less tested, have higher Radioactive waste#Proliferation concerns, proliferation risks, have more new safety problems, are often far from commercialization and are more expensive – are not available in time. Critics of nuclear energy often only oppose nuclear fission energy but not nuclear fusion; however, fusion energy is unlikely to be commercially widespread before 2050.
Land use
The median land area used by US nuclear power stations per 1GW installed capacity is 1.3 square miles. To generate the same amount of electricity annually (taking into account
capacity factor
The net capacity factor is the unitless ratio of actual electrical energy output over a given period of time to the theoretical maximum electrical energy output over that period. The theoretical maximum energy output of a given installation is de ...
s) from solar PV would require about 60 square miles, and from a wind farm about 310 square miles. Not included in this is land required for the associated transmission lines, water supply, rail lines, mining and processing of nuclear fuel, and for waste disposal.
Research
Advanced fission reactor designs
Current fission reactors in operation around the world are generation II reactor, second or generation III reactor, third generation systems, with most of the first-generation systems having been already retired.
Research into advanced generation IV reactor types was officially started by the Generation IV International Forum (GIF) based on eight technology goals, including to improve economics, safety, proliferation resistance, natural resource utilization and the ability to consume existing nuclear waste in the production of electricity.
Most of these reactors differ significantly from current operating light water reactors, and are expected to be available for commercial construction after 2030.
Hybrid fusion-fission
Hybrid nuclear power is a proposed means of generating power by the use of a combination of nuclear fusion and fission processes. The concept dates to the 1950s and was briefly advocated by Hans Bethe during the 1970s, but largely remained unexplored until a revival of interest in 2009, due to delays in the realization of pure fusion. When a sustained nuclear fusion power plant is built, it has the potential to be capable of extracting all the fission energy that remains in spent fission fuel, reducing the volume of nuclear waste by orders of magnitude, and more importantly, eliminating all actinides present in the spent fuel, substances which cause security concerns.
Fusion
Fusion power, Nuclear fusion reactions have the potential to be safer and generate less radioactive waste than fission.
These reactions appear potentially viable, though technically quite difficult and have yet to be created on a scale that could be used in a functional power plant.
Fusion power has been under theoretical and experimental investigation since the 1950s. Nuclear fusion research is underway but fusion energy is not likely to be commercially widespread before 2050.
Several experimental nuclear fusion reactors and facilities exist. The largest and most ambitious international nuclear fusion project currently in progress is ITER, a large tokamak under construction in France. ITER is planned to pave the way for commercial fusion power by demonstrating self-sustained nuclear fusion reactions with positive energy gain. Construction of the ITER facility began in 2007, but the project has run into many delays and budget overruns. The facility is now not expected to begin operations until the year 2027–11 years after initially anticipated. A follow on commercial nuclear fusion power station, DEMOnstration Power Station, DEMO, has been proposed. – Projected fusion power timeline There are also suggestions for a power plant based upon a different fusion approach, that of an inertial fusion power plant.
Fusion-powered electricity generation was initially believed to be readily achievable, as fission-electric power had been. However, the extreme requirements for continuous reactions and plasma containment led to projections being extended by several decades. In 2020, more than 80 years after Timeline of nuclear fusion#1930s, the first attempts, commercialization of fusion power production was thought to be unlikely before 2050.
See also
* Atomic battery
* Nuclear power by country
* Nuclear weapons debate
* Pro-nuclear movement
* Thorium-based nuclear power
* Uranium mining debate
* World energy consumption
References
Further reading
* AEC Atom Information Booklets Both series, "Understanding the Atom" and "The World of the Atom" A total of 75 booklets published by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in the 1960s and 1970s, Authored by scientists and taken together, the booklets comprise the history of nuclear science and its applications at the time.
* Armstrong, Robert C., Catherine Wolfram, Robert Gross, Nathan S. Lewis, and M.V. Ramana et al The Frontiers of Energy ''Nature Energy'', Vol 1, 11 January 2016.
* Brown, Kate (2013). Plutopia, ''Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters'', Oxford University Press.
* Clarfield, Gerald H. and William M. Wiecek (1984). ''Nuclear America: Military and Civilian Nuclear Power in the United States 1940–1980'', Harper & Row.
* Stephanie Cooke, Cooke, Stephanie (2009). ''In Mortal Hands: A Cautionary History of the Nuclear Age'', Black Inc.
*
* David Elliott (professor), Elliott, David (2007). ''Nuclear or Not?, Nuclear or Not? Does Nuclear Power Have a Place in a Sustainable Energy Future?'', Palgrave.
* Ferguson, Charles D., (2007). ''Nuclear Energy: Balancing Benefits and Risks'' Council on Foreign Relations.
* Garwin, Richard L. and Charpak, Georges (2001) Megawatts and Megatons A Turning Point in the Nuclear Age?, Knopf.
* Herbst, Alan M. and George W. Hopley (2007). ''Nuclear Energy Now: Why the Time has come for the World's Most Misunderstood Energy Source'', Wiley.
*
* Naomi Oreskes, Oreskes, Naomi, "Breaking the Techno-Promise: We do not have enough time for nuclear power to save us from the climate crisis", ''Scientific American'', vol. 326, no. 2 (February 2022), p. 74.
* Mycle Schneider, Schneider, Mycle, Stephen Thomas (economist), Steve Thomas, Antony Froggatt, Doug Koplow (2016). ''The World Nuclear Industry Status Report: World Nuclear Industry Status as of 1 January 2016''.
* Walker, J. Samuel (1992). ''Containing the Atom: Nuclear Regulation in a Changing Environment, 1993–1971'', Berkeley: University of California Press.
* Spencer Weart, Weart, Spencer R. ''The Rise of Nuclear Fear''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012.
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