New Nuclear Reactors Proposed Around the World Now Number 160.

[NNadir]

This is in addition to the 442 reactors now operating, the 28 under construction, and the 62 on order.

The total capacity for the world - ignoring reactors that may shut and be decommissioned - would thus be close to 600 GW and would represent about 50 exajoules of primary energy produced each year. For comparison purposes, the world consumption of coal - which should be phased out as quickly as is possible - is about 120 exajoules right now.

I keep track of the data posted on the useful table on the world-nuclear website, and I must admit that even I am astounded at the day to day growth in the figures presented there. It is easy to envision more than 700 reactors on earth within a decade or decade and a half. In fact, given the acceleration of planning it is easy to imagine more than 1000 reactors within that period. The world would need, I think, about 2000 to 3000 reactors to completely eliminate fossil fuels. These figures assume growth in renewables, conservation, and stabilization of population, none of which are absolutely certain.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.htm

The number of proposed reactors in the United States now numbers 21.

It's been a long time coming but I am actually starting to believe that the world may find the sense to stop using coal, except to make steel. I'm not sure it can be accomplished in the necessary time frame, but at least now the idea has reached the active planning stage. Something is being done.

Some important objectives need to be included in this program, the most urgent being internationalization of the fuel cycle to assure that essential nuclear technologies are devoted solely to peace. The denaturing of (nearly) isotopically pure plutonium-239 should be an international priority, as well as the accumulation of the weapons resistant isotopes 240, 238, 241 and 242. Such a course demands that attention be paid to the advanced fuel cycles being developed around the world and that these cycles be commercially tested under international auspices

We simply must go back to the ideas first proposed by Neils Bohr (and many others) at the dawn of the nuclear age, which is to place nuclear energy under international law and international supervision carefully administered by the community of nations for the benefit of the whole human race. These ideas were seen as naive at the time, but in fact they were prescient and wise and highly moral, like practically everything else Bohr did in his lifetime. Under these conditions, we can at least hope for a safe, secure, and peaceful world for our descendents. These concepts are by no means a theoretical concept proposed in a kind of rarefied philosophical or academic ether. On the contrary, events like those in North Korea and Iran have - on the bright side - raised the issue to the level of diplomatic negotiation. The internationalization of the fuel cycle was the subject of considerable attention at the September meeting of the IAEA, the Nobel Peace Prize winning organization headed by a Nobel Peace Laureate, the indefatigable Mohamed El Baradei.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/news/nl_sep-oct2006.htm

The session was convened to begin addressing the many practical and diplomatic questions still surrounding the idea and its implementation. The private US organization Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) pledged to contribute $50 million seed funding for a fuel bank to be administered by the IAEA. NTI said that the offer was conditional on the fuel bank plan moving forward within two years and other donors putting in $100 million or an equivalent value of uranium.

This follows the announcement a year ago that the US Department of Energy would provide 17.4 tonnes of highly enriched uranium to a domestically-held bank, to be blended down into reactor fuel. That quantity and grade of uranium is estimated to be worth around $500 million. In addition, the USA has proposed its own vision of a future nuclear fuel cycle, the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), which would see nuclear fuel manufacture and reprocessing limited to about ten 'fuel-cycle nations' which would guarantee to serve the rest.

The other key country pressing for international fuel cycle centres is Russia, which has surplus enrichment capacity and has even made an offer to Iran to cooperate on an enrichment program within Russian borders. President Putin sent a message to the IAEA conference reminding delegates of Russia's proposals for fully international uranium processing and enrichment centres, which had been outlined at the WNA Annual Symposium in London on 7 September. The head of Russia's Rosatom, Sergey Kirienko, said Russia was proposing to establish a system where interested countries would become stockholders in an international nuclear fuel centre with access to all business information and an income stream from the "very profitable" uranium enrichment business. He said that the only limitation to participation in this market-oriented and liberal business would be on access to the sensitive enrichment technology. Furthermore, Russia would be able to provide the facilities to launch such a project by the end of this year (see story below).

A number of other countries have expressed support for the general concept of international fuel supply. In particular, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy suggested the world should "act strongly on the world nuclear market" and create an international nuclear fuel bank under the control of the IAEA. The German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier supports the idea and will apparently push it when it takes over the rotating presidency of the European Union in January 2007.

For the long term, I personally believe that through careful integration of a thorium based fuel cycle, it should be possible to dispense with enrichment altogether while still maintaining access to the full potential of uranium and thorium resources for many thousands of years, should humanity survive global climate change. This would eliminate the primary "dual use" technology that overlaps with weapons production represented by enrichment. Previously the world intended to rely solely on Pu-239 for breeding, but an excellent technical case can be made for the use of U-233 and even Pu-241 (in the case of the development a fast molten salt pyroprocessing fuel scheme). The fast fissioning of Pu-241 in a continuous plutonium recycle scheme - before it decays into Am-241 -would have another important benefit inasmuch as it would extend actinide resources as well as eliminate the primary source of long term actinide radiotoxicity - that associated with the 241 series decay daughter, Neptunium-237. The use of U-233 allows for the use of thermal reactors for breeding purposes and will, over the long term, provide for an inventory of U-236 that can be used in such a way as to prevent the manufacture of weapons grade plutonium in the most likely essential CANDU type reactor. Under these circumstances the enrichment of U-235 will be completely unnecessary.

I suddenly feel so hopeful that I feel like crying. That's not like me, being hopeful.