Power Engineering - Analysis predicts favorable future for nuclear power

4-April-2007 -- High fossil fuel prices, energy security and climate concerns have converged to improve nuclear power's position relative to other power generation options, wrote Jone-Lin Wang, senior director at Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA). Wang, along with co-researcher/author Christopher Hansen, CERA's associate director, recently released a new report, Is the Nuclear Renaissance Real? In this report, the researchers/authors conclude that it is indeed.

The CERA analysis looks at the global nuclear energy industry, reporting that governments and businesses around the globe have moved beyond talking to real action to renew development of nuclear power, and have created "good prospects for a major nuclear expansion over the coming decades." It points out that in the United States, where no new reactor has been ordered in 28 years, three key trends along with the current generating fleet's excellent performance record and financial incentives included in the 2005 Energy Policy Act have led to a race to develop new nuclear power reactors. New reactor construction never stopped in Asia, but recently several countries have upped their target for new nuclear capacity, the report says. In Western Europe, a new reactor in under construction (in Finland) for the first time in more than a decade and a second one is not far behind.

In the near-term, the report says that limits on nuclear component manufacturing capacity and skilled personnel could constrain the industry's growth over the next several years, but it points out that these are short term growing pains. Longer-term issues identified by Wang and Hansen involve spent fuel storage and the risk of proliferation.

The analysis includes global political, environmental, economic and business trends, and explains that they are favorable for expansion beyond the current 369 GW of electricity generating capacity worldwide. Twenty-eight additional units with 23 GW of capacity are currently under construction globally.

The critical milestones for the first wave of new plants in the United States are:
1. Construction and operation license (COL) applications must be submitted in late 2007 through 2008.
2. Long lead-time components, such as large forgings, must be ordered in 2007 and 2008.
3. COL approval, final board decisions, site preparation and major component orders must occur around 2010.
4. First concrete must be poured after 2010.

The CERA report concludes that policy debates in North America, Europe and Asia all reflect the common recognition that nuclear power plants contribute carbon-free and reliable base-load supply while diversifying the fuel mix.

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