Nuclear energy in the 21st century

Author(s)

Bibliographic Information

Nuclear energy in the 21st century

Ian Hore-Lacy

World Nuclear University Press, c2012

3rd ed

  • pbk.

Other Title

Nuclear energy in the twenty first century

World Nuclear University Primer

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Note

Includes index

"The first edition under this title was publsihed by Elsevier and the World Nuclear University in 2006. The second edition was published by the World Nuclear Unversity in 2012, reprinted 2011. Seven previous editions were published as Nuclear Electricity(1978-2003)"--T.p. verso

Description and Table of Contents

Description

The World Nuclear University Primer on Nuclear Energy in the 21st Century is an authoritative resource for educators, students, policy-makers and interested lay-people alike. With balanced and accessible text, it provides: - An introduction to nuclear science for the non-specialist. - A valuable account of many aspects of nuclear technology, including industry applications. - Answers to public concerns about nuclear power including safety, proliferation, radiation and waste. - Up-to-date data and references. Since the first edition of this book in 1978 - as Nuclear Electricity - the intention has been to get behind the controversies and selective arguments, and present facts about energy demand and how it is met, in part, by nuclear power. Every form of energy production and conversion has an effect on the environment and carries risks. Nuclear energy has its challenges but these are frequently misunderstood and often misrepresented. Nuclear energy remains a safe, reliable, clean, and generally economic source of electricity with minimal impact on the environment. But many people do not see it that way. This revised edition comes out at a time when environmental concern focused on tangible indicators of pollution and global warming stands in ever-starker contrast to Romantic environmentalism, which is driven by mistrust of science and technology, and which stigmatises nuclear power. Increasing evidence of the contribution to global warming from burning fossil fuels is countered by fear-mongering often based on the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and 2011 accident at Fukushima. The introduction to the first edition of this book in the 1970s expressed the opinion that if more effort were put into improving the safety and effectiveness of commercial nuclear power, and correspondingly less into ideological battles with those who wished it had never been invented, then the world would be much better off. As John Ritch, President of the World Nuclear University, pointed out in opening the sixth annual WNU Summer Institute: Between now and 2050, as world population swells from 6.8 billion toward 9 billion, humankind will consume more energy than the combined total used in all previous history. Under present patterns of energy use, the consequences will prove calamitous. The resulting pollution will damage or ruin the health of tens and likely hundreds of millions of citizens, mainly in the developing world. Far worse, the intensifying concentration of greenhouse gases will take us past a point of no return as we hurtle toward climate catastrophe. Today the world economy is producing greenhouse emissions at the rate of 30 billion tonnes per year - nearly 1,000 tonnes per second." He made it clear that present patterns of energy use, if continued, would have apocalyptic consequences. This book provides some detail of an alternative. This edition comes with a Foreword by Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, which attests to today's worldwide re-evaluation of nuclear power. The World Nuclear University is a global partnership of industry, inter-governmental, and academic institutions committed to enhancing education in nuclear science and technology. WNU partners include the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) of the OECD, and the World Nuclear Association (WNA). With a secretariat staffed by government- and company-sponsored secondees, the London-based WNU Coordinating Centre fosters a diversity of collaborative projects to strengthen nuclear education and to build future nuclear leadership.

Table of Contents

  • Foreword by Dr. Patrick Moore
  • Introduction
  • 1 Energy use
  • 1.1 Sources of energy
  • 1.2 Sustainability of energy
  • 1.3 Energy demand
  • 1.4 Energy supply
  • 1.5 Changes in energy demand and supply
  • 1.6 Future energy demand and supply
  • 2 Electricity today and tomorrow
  • 2.1 Electricity demand
  • 2.2 Electricity supply
  • 2.3 Fuels for electricity generation today
  • 2.4 Provision for future base-load electricity
  • 2.5 Renewable energy sources
  • 2.6 Coal and uranium compared
  • 2.7 Energy inputs to generate electricity
  • 2.8 Economic factors
  • 3 Nuclear power and its fuels
  • 3.1 Mass to energy in the reactor core
  • 3.2 Nuclear power reactors - basic design and function
  • Panel: Components common to most types of nuclear reactors
  • 3.3 Uranium availability
  • 3.4 Nuclear weapons as a source of fuel
  • 3.5 Thorium as a nuclear fuel
  • 3.6 Accelerator-driven systems
  • 3.7 Physics of a nuclear reactor
  • 4 Types of nuclear power reactor
  • 4.1 Today's power reactors
  • 4.2 Advanced power reactors
  • 4.3 Floating nuclear power plant
  • 4.4 Modular light water reactors
  • 4.5 High temperature reactors
  • 4.6 Fast neutron reactors
  • 4.7 Very small nuclear power reactors
  • 5 The 'front end' of the nuclear fuel cycle
  • 5.1 Mining and milling of uranium ore
  • 5.2 The nuclear fuel cycle
  • Panel: Uranium enrichment
  • 5.3 Thorium cycle
  • 6 The 'back end' of the nuclear fuel cycle
  • 6.1 Nuclear 'wastes'
  • 6.2 Reprocessing used fuel
  • 6.3 High-level wastes from reprocessing
  • Panel: Transporting radioactive materials
  • 6.4 Storage and disposal of high-level wastes
  • 6.5 Decommissioning nuclear reactors
  • 7 Other nuclear energy applications
  • 7.1 Transport
  • 7.2 Hydrogen production and use
  • 7.3 Process heat
  • 7.4 Desalination
  • 7.5 Marine propulsion
  • 7.6 Radioisotope systems and reactors for space
  • 7.7 Research reactors, making radioisotopes
  • 8 Environment, health and safety
  • 8.1 Greenhouse gas emissions
  • 8.2 Other environmental effects
  • 8.3 Health effects of power generation
  • 8.4 Radiation exposure
  • 8.5 Reactor safety
  • 9 Avoiding weapons proliferation
  • 9.1 International cooperation to achieve security
  • 9.2 International nuclear safeguards
  • 9.3 Fissile materials
  • 9.4 Recycling military uranium and plutonium for electricity
  • 9.5 Australian and Canadian nuclear safeguards policies
  • 10 History of nuclear energy
  • 10.1 Exploring the nature of the atom
  • 10.2 Harnessing nuclear fission
  • 10.3 Nuclear physics in Russia
  • 10.4 Conceiving the atomic bomb
  • 10.5 Developing the concepts: bomb and boiler
  • 10.6 The Manhattan Project
  • 10.7 The Soviet bomb
  • 10.8 Revival of the 'nuclear boiler'
  • 10.9 Nuclear energy goes commercial
  • 10.10 The nuclear power renaissance
  • Appendices: 1. Ionising radiation and how it is measured
  • 2. Some radioactive decay series
  • 3. Environmental and ethical aspects of radioactive waste management
  • 4. Some useful references
  • Glossary
  • Index

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