Nuclear power as energy source still faces barriers

Nuclear power as energy source still faces barriers
…………………………………………………………………

BY B.J. ALMOND
Rice News Staff

Better-designed nuclear power plants could become a significant source of electricity generation, but so far innovative designs have failed to overcome sufficiently the economic, environmental and safety barriers that now are holding back growth in the nuclear power industry, according to a new study from Rice’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.

“The new generation of nuclear design has been aimed at resolving some of the issues that have held back the expansion of nuclear power,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, senior energy adviser at the Baker Institute, who coordinated the study with the Petroleum Energy Center of Japan and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

“Because of the interest in national energy independence and growing concerns about global warming, nuclear power is getting a second look,” she said. “But its status as a sustainable, substantial energy source around the world cannot be achieved unless developers of nuclear power plants can offer designs that resolve the economic and political hurdles associated with the industry.”

The study cites five critical areas in which emerging nuclear technologies will need to offer significant advantages for successful marketing: commercial competitiveness with other fuel sources and technologies, safety, waste disposal, social acceptance and resistance to the spread of nuclear material to terrorists or other unauthorized groups or governments for use in making weapons.

A number of innovative designs for nuclear power deployment and use that are being researched and developed focus on making reactors smaller with a reduced number of components and simplified operation and maintenance.

“Some of the new reactors eliminate the possibility of severe accidents with designs that rely on natural physical phenomena rather than on proper function of mechanical and electrical components such as pumps, valves and motors,” Jaffe said. Because such nuclear plants don’t rely on pumps that force coolant to circulate, the possibility of large loss-of-coolant accidents or loss of all pumps has been significantly reduced. But new designs that involve small, highly pressurized containments do not eliminate the potential for problems with leakage in the containment structure or degradation of materials.

The study notes that many of the benefits offered by the new energy technologies, especially in environmental protection and diversity of supply, are public rather than private — an argument in favor of public support. The challenge to public-sector investment is to avoid encouraging government to select winners without considerable study and testing, Jaffe explained.

“The first step to healthy and viable innovation is to ensure government support for training in energy technologies, including nuclear science and technology,” she said. But the strategy also should reflect the growing trend toward internationalization of technological research, with the United States, Japan and other nations working together to shape a sustainable future nuclear fuel cycle.

Involving public interest groups in early stage discussions of new design technologies can help avoid the wasteful allocation of public funds on highly expensive technologies that might not be able to gain public acceptance.

The study also advocates the attention of high-level government administration to resolving disposition of current nuclear power plant spent fuel and high-level defense waste.

“Without a solution to this issue, nuclear power will have difficulty attaining the social acceptance needed to site new facilities and to remain a commercially viable option for electricity generation,” Jaffe said.

The complete text of the study, which was supported by the Center for International Political Economy, is available online at <www.bakerinstitute.org>.