US Needs ‘Coordinated R&D Effort’ To Prepare For New Build
Written by NucNet
Thursday, 19 February 2009
A new report published in the US has outlined the research that is needed in an effort to deploy nuclear energy in the decades ahead and to make sure it has a prominent role in meeting the nation’s energy needs.
The report, ‘A Strategy for Nuclear Energy Research and Development’, co-authored by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the Idaho National Laboratory, details how nuclear energy research, development, demonstration and deployment can help reduce US carbon emissions and bolster energy security.
It says nuclear energy R&D should be focused in three technical areas: light water reactors and advanced light water reactors (ALWRs); high-temperature reactors; and fast reactors and advanced fuel cycles.
Funding from the government and industry needed to carry out this research, covering an initial five-year period from 2010 to 2015, would be about 3.5 billion US dollars (2.7 billion euro).
The report says today’s nuclear fleet of light water reactors should be significantly expanded with ALWRs. Non-electric applications for high-temperature reactors should be developed, and safe, long-term used fuel management should be made a priority.
The government and the nuclear industry should address “infrastructure shortfalls” that could limit ALWR deployment in large numbers, enabling new plant build rates in the US of five or more per year by 2020, the report says.
Because of the scale, cost, and time involved, sustaining and increasing nuclear energy’s share of the energy mix will require “a coordinated research effort” combining the efforts of industry and government, and supported by innovation from the research community.
The report’s authors said the US is facing “unprecedented challenges” in climate change and energy security, with presi¬dent Barack Obama calling for a reduction of CO2 emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, with a further 80 percent reduction by 2050. Meeting these aggressive goals while gradually increasing the overall energy supply requires that “all non-emitting technologies” must be advanced.
In 2008 the EPRI said the nuclear industry and the US government should establish a cost-sharing partnership for research and development into ALWRs.
