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Advanced Nuclear Technologies and Its Future Possibilities

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Small Modular Reactors for Electricity Generation

Abstract

Employment and supporting the use of nuclear energy for electricity generation suffered a significantly reduction in several countries after Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident occurred in March 2011 in Japan due to the fear to a new nuclear disaster. Nowadays, nuclear energy has demonstrated that it is a secure energy source and it use for electricity generation is free of CO2 emissions. It is also a mature technology that can assures an energy supply when needed and without interruption. For all that, nuclear energy has become again a secure energy source for many countries in all regions of the world. In order to increase the safe operation of nuclear power plants, there are now three lines of investigation for the development of new type of nuclear power reactors. These are: (a) European Pressurised Reactor (EPR), a Generation III+ reactor; Generation IV reactors with six different types of designs (GFR, LFR, SCWR, VHTR, MSR and SFR); and the so called “Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)”, with tens of different concepts and designs at various stages of development in several countries.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    These countries are: France, United Kingdom, United States, China, Japan, Canada, South Africa, Republic of Korea, Russia and Switzerland. The group has today 14 members with the incorporation of Argentina, Australia, and Brazil. The European Union is also a member of the GIF. The European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) is the implementing organisation for development of nuclear energy within the European Union.

  2. 2.

    A Technology Roadmap for Generation IV Energy Systems (GIF 2002).

  3. 3.

    Energy Multiplier Modular is an advanced modular reactor expected to produce 265 MWe of power at 850 °C and be fully enclosed in an underground containment structure for 30 years without requiring fuel.

  4. 4.

    Note with some plants modifications, 100% of the core could be composed of MOX fuel assemblies.

  5. 5.

    It is important to underline that co-generation is not unique to SMRs. However, the SMR power range corresponds well to the infrastructure requirements for non-electrical products (e.g. district heating) (Kuznetsov and Lokhov 2011).

  6. 6.

    In 2011, members of B&W and Bechel Power Corporation entered into a formal alliance called “Generation mPower to design, license and deploy mPower modular nuclear power plant”.

  7. 7.

    The EBR-II was a significant fast reactor prototype at Idaho National Laboratory.

  8. 8.

    There are others possibilities, but the conditions are more demanding to produce nuclear fusion reaction. These possibilities are: deuterium-deuterium reaction and deuterium-3 helium. In the latter, it is necessary tenfold temperature for deuterium-tritium reaction.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thanks Ambassador Jorge Morales Pedraza (editor) for give me the opportunity to collaborate with him, and for his assistance in the elaboration of my Chapter.

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Morales Pedraza, J. (2017). Advanced Nuclear Technologies and Its Future Possibilities. In: Small Modular Reactors for Electricity Generation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52216-6_2

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