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Progress in Nuclear Energy 50 (2008) 92e96www.elsevier.com/locate/pnucene

Innovative Nuclear Energy Systems and the Future of Nuclear Power

Gail H. Marcus

OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, Le Seine Saint-Germain, 12, boulevard des Iles, 92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux, France

Abstract

There is a renewed interest in nuclear power worldwide. The interest is sparked by concerns about global warming and security of energysupplies. In addition to the growing interest in building more reactors in countries that already have nuclear power, future demands for nuclearpower are likely to include applications in countries that do not presently use nuclear power and applications beyond large-scale electricity gen-eration. This paper will discuss some of the characteristics that future reactors will need to have to meet such demands, as well as other measuresrequired to facilitate a nuclear renaissance. In addition, the emergence of new international nuclear initiatives and their potential roles will bedescribed.� 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Nuclear renaissance; International nuclear cooperation

1. The elephants in the room

Japan’s Center of Excellence for Innovative Nuclear En-ergy Systems (COE-INES) is undertaking its efforts ata very propitious time in the history of the development of nu-clear power. After a long period of stagnation in the industry,the prospects for nuclear power have brightened, as docu-mented in studies by MIT (2003), IEA (2006) and others.

It is instructive to look at the underlying reasons for this re-naissance to determine how robust and enduring the demandfor it might be. Upon doing so, one can only think of the ex-pression about ‘‘the elephant in the room.’’ The elephant in theroom is a fact that is so large and so significant, it cannot pos-sibly be ignored. In this regard, it would seem that there aretwo elephants in the room right now: global warming and se-curity of supply.

Looking first at global warming, in recent years, concernshave grown worldwide about the fact that the world seemsto be in the midst of a warming trend and that manmade car-bon emissions may be contributing to that trend. Although noteveryone agrees with either of these assertions, the public atlarge and many of the world’s governments do believe inboth of them, and nations are increasingly examining their

E-mail address: ghmarcus@aol.com

0149-1970/$ - see front matter � 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.pnucene.2007.10.009

energy policies and actions to decide how to respond to the po-tential threat of global warming.

To a large extent, it may make very little difference ifglobal warming is real or not, or if it is manmade or not. Inthe first place, the public and the governments of the worldare already moving toward a course of action based on the pre-sumption that both are real. In the second place, most of theactions that one can envision arising from national and inter-national concerns about global warming can generally be sup-ported on other grounds as well. After all, any action thatresults in a reduced use of fossil fuels tends to reduce the gen-eration of particulates and other pollutants, in addition to re-ducing the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere.Any action that results in a reduced use of fossil fuels also con-serves the relatively limited supply of these resources for non-energy needs (for which there may be fewer options), and forfuture generations. Naturally, there may be some other issuesthat will need to be addressed, since alternative energy re-sources may have higher costs or other impacts, but in general,the reduction of the use of carbon-emitting resources appearsto be beneficial in other respects as well.

Regarding security of supply, it should be noted that thereare really two aspects of security of supply. When the term se-curity of supply was used in the past, it tended to refer to rel-atively short-term disruptions on the supply side. The classicexample was the oil embargo by the Middle East countries

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in the early 1970s, but other examples include, or could in-clude, the damage to US oil refineries in the Gulf of Mexicoduring Hurricane Katrina in 2005, or possible terrorist attackson oil pipelines.

At present, it seems the greater concern is the potential forlonger-term competition for available supplies due to thegrowing demand in developing countries such as China and In-dia. So the perception of the problem has shifted from a short-term, supply-side issue to a longer-term, demand-side issue.

It is useful to keep this distinction in mind, as the nations ofthe world need to continue to address both security of supplyproblems, and in some respects, the solutions may differ. How-ever, it does appear at this point in time that the longer-termissue will be the more important, and more difficult, one to ad-dress. Nuclear power may be a useful tool in addressing boththese areas, as it provides stability against short-term disrup-tions in supply, and the potential for a replacement, in the lon-ger-term, for increasingly scarce fossil fuels for manyapplications. While there may be alternative options to nuclearpower in dealing with short-term disruptions (the role of theOECD’s International Energy Agency during the aftermathof Hurricane Katrina is one such example), there are fewer ef-fective options to nuclear power in the case of long-term de-mand growth.

2. The role of nuclear power

For these reasons, interest in nuclear power around theworld is suddenly burgeoning. All the usual indications arefavorable:

� public opinion on nuclear power has shifted from negativeor neutral to positive in many countries, as the public rec-ognizes the elephants in the room and the limited optionsto deal with them;� new plants are under construction or on order in several

countries;� around the world, more ‘‘predecisional’’ activities are un-

derway, including reviews by governments of their nuclearpolicies, analyses by companies to determine if they wantto build new nuclear power plants, and other pre-licensingactivities;� R&D efforts on advanced nuclear power plants and related

technologies are increasing; and� the number of international collaborative efforts, both on

R&D and in other areas, has grown.

One of the most interesting phenomena has been the growthin the number of countries expressing interest in nuclear poweror taking proactive steps toward the building of new nuclearpower plants. There are several distinct categories of countriesnow considering nuclear power or actively engaged in effortsto develop or increase nuclear power in their countries.

First, of course, are those countries, like Japan and France,that have always had national policies supporting nuclearpower and have continued to build nuclear power plants whileinterest in other countries stagnated. These countries have not

changed their direction, but in some cases, their efforts havegained new vitality; one example is the recent decision inFrance to move forward with the construction of an EPR atFlamanville. In this regard, it should be noted that Finlandhas moved forward, not only with a new reactor (also anEPR), but with initiating development of a high-level waste re-pository for commercial nuclear fuel, making it an example tothe world in achieving public consensus on such a facility.

Second are those countries, like the United States, wherenuclear power development has been stagnant for many years.The passage of the Energy Policy Act in 2005 and other recentactions in the US have generated a significant increase of in-terest among utilities and other corporations in starting tobuild new nuclear power plants again, and many activitiesare now underway to explore new nuclear power plants. Whileno utility or consortium has yet made an actual commitment topurchase a new nuclear power plant, it is noteworthy that com-panies are devoting significant funding to obtaining early sitepermits, to evaluating the economic case for nuclear power intheir service areas, and even to making some commitments tomanufacturers for the purchase of large, long-lead time com-ponents. These actions are significant and are expected tolead to orders for new plants in the next year or two.

Third, and perhaps more interesting are those countries,like Turkey, that previously considered and rejected the ideaof building nuclear power plants. While no decisions havebeen made to date, the interest in reopening such reviews,which were often controversial, is significant.

Fourth, and equally interesting, is that a number of coun-tries, like Viet Nam, that have not seriously explored the useof nuclear power in the past, have now announced their inter-est in doing so. The countries in the third and fourth categoriesinclude a number of countries with characteristics that are verydifferent from the developed economies that have supportedmost of the world’s nuclear power plants to date. The rangeof technological readiness of these countries, the differencesin grid size and robustness, and the availability of administra-tive and personnel infrastructure raise new and interesting is-sues as to how to match the technology to the conditions inthese countries, how to assure they have the infrastructure toassure safe operation of nuclear power plants, and how to ad-dress fuel cycle needs.

Fifth, it appears that even countries, like Sweden, that haveofficial phase-out policies applicable to their operating reac-tors, may now be considering the possible re-examination ofthose policies. Once again, this suggests a growing willingnessto reopen difficult and controversial decisions.

At present, it is difficult to provide a definitive list of all thecountries contemplating new nuclear power, as some have notas yet made their intentions publicly known, and new countriescontinue to express their interests. However, all told, there areat least 30 countries now looking seriously at new nuclearpower plants or at initiating programs to bring nuclear powerto their countries. Clearly, some countries may complete theirexaminations with a decision against the near-term deploy-ment of nuclear power. Nevertheless, enough countries haveindicated an interest that it seems reasonably certain that the

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coming years will see a significant growth spurt in the numberof new nuclear power plants, and that some of this develop-ment will be in countries that are entering the nuclear agefor the first time.

3. The role of innovative nuclear technologies

With all these positive indications and all the current inter-est, it is useful to remember that the road ahead for nuclearpower still has some significant potential hurdles. The first ofthese is that, as has long been said, an accident anywhere isan accident everywhere. Current operating plants all aroundthe world must continue to be operated safely and economi-cally, and the public must be convinced that new plants willhave equal or improved safety. The second issue is that ofwaste disposal. Even though it may be the case that radioac-tive wastes from nuclear power plants can be stored safelyfor many years in interim storage, public opinion has de-manded the identification of a reasonable path forward forthe permanent disposition of wastes. Third, the rise in terror-ist activities has raised public concerns about the possibleproliferation risks associated with the expanded use of thenuclear fuel cycle. And finally, even if all other signals arepositive, the initiation of new nuclear power in a country re-quires a combination of factors that include a positive polit-ical climate, a sound and reasonable regulatory framework,and the availability of mechanisms to address the potential fi-nancial risks to the first utilities to undergo licensing andconstruction activities.

Innovative nuclear technologies can help in addressing allthese potential hurdles to new nuclear power plants. As otherpapers describe in detail, advanced nuclear energy systemshave a number of features that improve safety, economics, pro-liferation resistance and waste management. They employ pas-sive designs and other features that improve the safety ofoperations; they have simpler systems that will reduce con-struction costs, thereby helping minimize financial risks;they have features such as sealed, long-life cores that help re-duce proliferation risks; and they employ fuel cycles that allowfor more complete use of the energy value of the fuel, reducethe ultimate burden of long-term waste disposal, and avoidhaving separated plutonium.

Innovative nuclear technologies also introduce the possibil-ity of new applications of nuclear power, and therefore helpfurther address global warming and other concerns. The appli-cation of nuclear power in support of transportation has beendiscussed a great deal. Going beyond the direct use of electric-ity to charge batteries in vehicles, there is considerable poten-tial to use nuclear power more efficiently and for a broaderrange of transportation needs by using it as an energy sourceto produce fuel, particularly hydrogen, for transportation.While a number of developments are needed to make thelarge-scale production of hydrogen feasible and economic,the potential to reduce a very large use of fossil fuels and elim-inate the carbon emissions from those fuels makes this an ex-citing potential application.

The use of nuclear power for the generation of process heatfor use in industrial processes also has considerable potential.In this area, the technology is essentially available; the mainobstacles would seem to be institutional ones relating to theeconomics of such a facility, and to who builds, owns and op-erates it.

Finally, one interesting area of applications that hasemerged is for nuclear power to be used to supply electricity,and perhaps heat, in remote locations off the grid. There is cur-rent interest in such a solution to the energy needs of smallcommunities in remote parts of Alaska. Several communities,including Galena, Alaska, have initiated discussions withToshiba regarding the potential for Toshiba’s 4S reactor tobe used, and have engaged the services of a legal firm inWashington to discuss some of the implications of such an ar-rangement with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

While there are many novel issues that would have to beaddressed before such a reactor application could become a re-ality, the motivation is clear. Communities like Galena have noroads to the outside world and there are no power lines con-necting Galena to a power plant elsewhere. Diesel fuel arrivesby barge on the river and can be transported only during thefew months of the year that the river is thawed. Thus, theirfuel supply is several times more expensive than in communi-ties in the continental United States. The community has donestudies and found that options such as wind will not meet theirneeds, and the sun does not shine much of the year. A 5 or10 MW nuclear power reactor that could operate for a numberof years with little intervention would be a perfect solution totheir energy needs.

Clearly, such an application raises both technical and insti-tutional issues. First, the 4S and other reactors that could fillsuch needs still require development before they can be oper-ationally deployed. Equally important, a small community likeGalena has neither the financial resources nor the technical ex-pertise to develop and finance the license application for sucha plant. New models would have to be found for the ownershipof small reactors deployed in such communities. Further, cur-rent rules about such matters as staffing and inspecting a nu-clear power plant are designed for large-scale, complexfacilities that need constant attention. New requirementswould have to be developed for such facilities. Security re-quirements would also have to be addressed.

Nevertheless, if these problems can be resolved, the potentialis enormous. There are many other similarly remote, small, off-grid communities in Alaska, and doubtless, around the world. Inaddition, for many of the same reasons, nuclear power could beuseful for remote industrial applications such as mines. This po-tential has been identified by some mining companies, and in ad-dition to the Galena initiative, at least one mining company innorthern Canada is similarly exploring the option of using nu-clear power to meet their energy demands. This company wishesto use nuclear power for mining oil shale and tar sands, so it isplausible that the future will see enhanced fossil fuel productionbeing enabled by nuclear power.

Of course, such applications will not be realized for someyears, so some of those first expressing interest may have to

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turn to more conventional sources to meet near-term needs.However, given the significant potential application, it appearsuseful to continue the technological development of such op-tions under programs such as COE-INES while simulta-neously exploring the institutional issues with regulatorybodies and others.

4. The path forward

The path forward is much like a three-legged stool. It re-quires three things for stability: actions by countries, by theirindustries, and by the international community.

The roles of national programs and policies, and of industryinitiatives are clear, and a number have already been men-tioned above. Countries need to have in place such measuresas: a stable and reliable regulatory regime that industry can ex-pect not to change unpredictably or unnecessarily during theperiod of licensing, building, and operating a nuclear powerplant; mechanisms to provide needed economic incentives,particularly for the first few plants to be built; and provisionsfor addressing the ultimate disposal of the radioactive wastesgenerated by nuclear reactors. In addition, as many countriesconsider what measures they should take to try to reduce car-bon emissions, it is useful to note that any national or interna-tional program that properly accounts for the cost of carbongeneration would create a very favorable environment for nu-clear power development. Naturally, carbon taxes and otherways of dealing with carbon emissions should not be promotedsimply to support nuclear power. They should be promoted toreflect properly the true costs of all energy sources and therebyassure that rational decisions are made. When the true costs in-corporate externalities such as carbon emissions, the logicalresult will naturally be a shift away from carbon-intensive en-ergy sources and towards such measures as conservation, re-newables and nuclear power.

The role of industry includes, first of all, the continued safeoperation of existing nuclear power plants. Any diversion ofthe attention of operators that leads to degraded performance,or worse yet, a significant accident anywhere in the world,would likely deal a dramatic setback to current expectationsfor nuclear power. Beyond this, however, industry can and istaking many steps that will facilitate efforts to begin construc-tion of new nuclear plants. Some of these steps include thepre-construction initiatives already noted above. These are of-ten country specific, and in the US, for example, include earlysite permit applications, a concept that does not exist in mostother licensing regimes. But other measures, such as economicstudies, are measures that can be taken in many countries. Inaddition, depending on the economics and the incentives avail-able, it may also be useful to put in place, in advance of anynew construction, partnerships or consortia involving otherutilities, vendors, architect-engineers, and others.

It may not be as obvious that international actions are a nec-essary component of this three-legged stool. Perhaps in a pastage the combined actions of a country and its industry wouldhave been enough to move nuclear power forward in thatcountry. In today’s environment, that seems less likely. In

the first place, with the ease of travel and communications to-day, the citizens of any country planning nuclear power canreadily look to what others in the world community are doing.Issues and concerns raised anywhere are likely to affect viewsand attitudes elsewhere. In the second place, the magnitude ofcost and effort to review new designs and to develop new tech-nologies are so large that even the largest countries have con-cluded that they are less likely to succeed e or even toundertake certain efforts e alone. Thus, over the past fewyears, the largest countries have been among the most aggres-sive in seeking partnerships with other countries. And in thethird place, some important issues, such as nuclear fuel cycleissues, inevitably require multinational actions to solve.

5. International initiatives

In this regard, it is useful to look at the number and range ofmultinational programs in place to deal with various nuclearissues. Even looking just at multinational (as opposed to bilat-eral), government-sponsored (as opposed to private sector) ini-tiatives, at least six major programs can be mentioned. Five ofthem have started since the year 2000. Briefly, in order of ini-tiation, the six are:

� NEA Joint Projects: each of these research projects in-volves a group of countries that have a desire to work to-gether in an area of research, and usually, to share a researchfacility located in one of the countries. This obviates theneed for each country to duplicate the same type of facilityand allows the countries to take advantage of the expertise ofall the members of that project. There are over a dozen suchprojects underway at present, and the oldest of these is about50 years old. The NEA serves as the Secretariat for thesejoint projects and helps coordinate the activities of each pro-ject. Most of the NEA Joint Projects to date have been toconduct research on safety issues, but the model applies toother types of research as well.� Generation IV International Forum (GIF): this program,

proposed by the US Department of Energy in 1999 andinitiated in early 2000, is aimed at the joint developmentof a new generation of nuclear power reactors. It includescountries with a significant commitment to nuclear powerand to nuclear R&D. NEA serves as the Secretariat forGIF, and research efforts are beginning for several Gener-ation IV design concepts.� International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and

Fuel Cycle (INPRO): this project, proposed late in 2000by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),involves well over 20 countries representing the full spec-trum of nuclear involvement, from active nuclear pro-grams to none at all. Thus, most of INPRO’s efforts todate have addressed decision-making methods and infra-structure needs especially useful for countries adoptingnuclear power for the first time.� World Nuclear University (WNU): WNU was inaugurated

in 2005 with the first Summer Institute, a 6-week programfor nuclear students and young professionals to help

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broaden their view of nuclear issues. The Summer Institutecontinued in 2006 and another is planned for 2007. Addi-tional educational activities are anticipated in the future.� Multinational Design Evaluation Program (MDEP): this

initiative was proposed in 2005 by the US Nuclear Regu-latory Commission for the purpose of coordinating re-views of new reactor designs. It consists of several phases.The first phase currently involves the US, France andFinland and is focused on the EPR. The second phaseis a true multinational effort and was kicked off in2006 with the selection of the NEA as the Secretariatand the identification of several pilot efforts to test thefeasibility of working together on licensing reviews. Indi-vidual countries will still be responsible for their ownlicensing.� Various initiatives for fuel cycle assurance in response to

a proposal by IAEA for such mechanisms: the broadestof these is the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP)proposed by the United States. GNEP would involvemultiple initiatives, including a new fast burner reactor,a fuel reprocessing center, and small reactors for devel-oping countries. Other proposals include the InternationalFuel Cycle Centers (IFCC) proposed by Russia that envi-sion joint involvement in a facility by a number of usercountries. All the proposals would provide assurance ofsupply to countries that do not have a full fuel cycle.All of them are very new and still under development.

6. Conclusion

While there are still uncertainties ahead, it seems quitelikely at this point that, in the near-term, new nuclear powerplants will be built, both in countries that already have sub-stantial nuclear programs and in new countries. Thus, the num-ber of countries with nuclear power plants will increase, andsince some of these countries have small grids and limited in-frastructures, it is likely that smaller reactors will be used tomeet some of these needs. In the near-term, nuclear powergrowth will likely be met by existing technologies and thosetechnologies for which substantial development has alreadyoccurred.

Nuclear power development will not be the only source ofpower to meet growing energy demands and growing concernsabout global warming. The near term is also likely to see thedevelopment and deployment of more renewable power of cur-rent or evolutionary design, and possibly of clean coal technol-ogy. Other options, such as increased conservation and the

deployment of more energy efficient end-use technologies,will also be exploited.

In the longer term, more advanced nuclear power plants,such as the Generation IV power plants, will likely be de-ployed. These will be able to meet a more diverse range of en-ergy needs than the current generation of large, centralizedelectricity-generating power plants can meet. Possible applica-tions include process heat for industrial applications, the gen-eration of fuels such as hydrogen for transportation, anda variety of possible off-grid applications.

Likewise, other energy-generating technologies will con-tinue to develop and will be deployed as appropriate. In themuch longer term, these could potentially include fusion power.If that is successful, it could ultimately replace some of thetechnologies of today, including perhaps nuclear fission power.

However, most experts still would regard such an eventualityas very long term and not assured. Thus, in the foreseeable fu-ture, the need for the development and deployment of more ad-vanced versions of today’s energy production technologies willcontinue, and all promising technologies should be pursued. Itis likely that different technologies could be favored in differentcircumstances. These circumstances could be based on a varietyof factors, including national policy, regulatory and other mech-anisms in different countries, and geopolitical situations (re-moteness, availability of particular resources, etc.). Globally,it appears that the world is likely to need substantial new con-tributions from all sources, particularly those capable of supply-ing significant amounts of clean, low-carbon energy. Nuclearpower is one of the most promising of these sources.

Therefore, the work of COE-INES and other such programsis very important, and has significant potential to contribute toa future where there is adequate energy to meet the growingdemand worldwide without increasing the global emissionsof carbon.

References

MIT, 2003. The Future of Nuclear Energy: An Interdisciplinary MIT Study.

<http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/>.

Generation IV International Forum, <http://gif.inel.gov/>.

Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, <www.gnep.energy.gov/>.

International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycle,

<www.iaea.org/INPRO>.

Multinational Design Evaluation Program, <http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/

doc-collections/commission/secys/2007/secy2007-0039/2007-0039scy.html>.

NEA Joint Projects, <www.nea.fr/html/jointproj/>.

IEA, 2006. World Energy Outlook 2006. International Energy Agency.

p. 343e384.

World Nuclear University, <www.world-nuclear-university.org/>.