Why nuclear power will never ever supply the world’s energy needs
(PhysOrg. com) — The 440 industrial nuclear reactors in use around the world are presently assisting to lessen our intake of fossil fuels, but how much larger can nuclear power get? In an analysis to be published in a future problem of the Proceedings of the IEEE, Derek Abbott, Teacher of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Adelaide in Australia, has concluded that nuclear power can not be globally scaled to supply the worlds energy requires for many reasons. The results recommend that were most likely better off investing in other energy services that are truly scalable.
As Abbott notes in his research study, global power consumption today is about 15 terawatts (TW). Currently, the worldwide nuclear power supply capability is only 375 gigawatts (GW). In order to examine the large-scale limitations of nuclear power, Abbott estimates that to supply 15 TW with nuclear only, we would requirement about 15,000 nuclear reactors. In his analysis, Abbott explores the effects of structure, operating, and decommissioning 15,000 reactors on the Earth, looking at aspects such as the amount of land required, radioactive waste, accident rate, risk of proliferation into weapons, uranium abundance and extraction, and the exotic metals utilized to construct the reactors themselves.
A nuclear power station is resource-hungry and, apart from the fuel, utilizes numerous uncommon metals in its building and construction, Abbott informed PhysOrg. com. The dream of a utopia where the world is powered off fission or blend reactors is merely unattainable. Even a supply of as little as 1 TW stretches resources substantially.
His findings, some of which are based on the results of previous studies, are summarized below.
As Abbott notes, lots of of these very same issues would afflict combination reactors in addition to fission reactors, even though commercial blend is still likely a long way off.
Of course, not many nuclear advocates are calling for a complete nuclear utopia, in which nuclear power materials the entire worlds energy needs. However numerous nuclear advocates suggest that we need to produce 1 TW of power from nuclear energy, which may be feasible, at least in the brief term. Nevertheless, if one divides Abbotts figures by 15, one still discovers that 1 TW is hardly practical. Therefore, Abbott argues that, if this technology can not be basically scaled more than 1 TW, possibly the exact same financial investment would be better invested on a totally scalable technology.
Due to the cost, intricacy, resource requirements, and incredible issues that hang over nuclear power, our investment dollars would be more sensibly put in other places, Abbott stated. Every dollar that goes into nuclear power is dollar that has been diverted from helping the rapid uptake of a safe and scalable option such as solar thermal.
Solar thermal gadgets harness the Suns energy to produce heat that develops steam that turns a turbine to create electricity. Solar thermal innovation avoids lots of of the scalability problems dealing with nuclear technology. For instance, although a solar thermal farm requires a little more land location than the equivalent nuclear power infrastructure, it can be located in unused desert areas. It likewise uses much safer, more plentiful products. Many importantly, solar thermal can be scaled to produce not just 15 TW, however hundreds of TW if it would ever be required.
However, the most significant issue with solar thermal technology is cloudy days and nighttime. Abbott plans to examine a number of storage solutions for this intermittency issue, which also pesters other sustainable energy services such as wind power, in a future study. In the shift period, he recommends that the dual-use of natural gas with solar thermal farms is the pathway to building our future energy facilities.
More information:
Derek Abbott. Is nuclear power globally scalable? Proceedings of the IEEE. To be released.
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Why nuclear power will never ever supply the world’s energy needs (2011, May 11)
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