Core Issues: Dissecting Nuclear Power Today

Nuclear power offers affordable, secure and climate-friendly electricity to an energy-hungry world. But in order to deliver on its promises, the nuclear industry must address several complex challenges including political, commercial, environmental, logistical as well as technological.

Core Issues: Dissecting Nuclear Power Today by Steve Kidd analyses the challenges faced by the nuclear power sector, and provides a practical overview of where the industry is today, where it is heading, and how it can overcome the many obstacles in its path to get there.

Chapter 1, Nuclear around the world explains how the experience of nuclear power (and its prospects) differ considerably from country to country. Nuclear power now accounts for almost 16% of world electricity generation, but the last 15 years have been characterised by relative stagnation. Now there are renewed prospects for further reactors in both established nuclear countries and some new ones too. The major developing counties, China and India, are particularly important. Yet there remain significant anti-nuclear forces in several European countries, notably Germany.

Chapter 2, Nuclear new build and economics highlights that, despite the increased attention now being paid to nuclear for environmental and security of energy supply reasons, it s clear that new nuclear plants must prove their economic credentials in the power markets of today. If it can be shown that a new nuclear plant will provide the cheapest baseload electricity over the long term, this is a very powerful argument in favour of selecting it.

Chapter 3, Public acceptance shows that the roots of opposition to anything to do with nuclear run very deep and are an essential element of the environmental movement, which found the industry a relatively easy target. It was helped by an initial poor response from its advocates and some structural weaknesses within the industry itself. Experience has shown that gaining public approval is best accomplished at the local level, by letting people visit nuclear facilities and ask lots of questions. For the industry, the best approach is to carry on doing what it does best, which is running the facilities well, both safely and economically.

Chapter 4, Nuclear fuel explains that just because the low cost of nuclear fuel and its relative stability over time has always constituted a prime economic advantage of nuclear power, this doesn t mean that the fuel sector is unimportant or lacking in interest. Indeed, the opposite is very much the case, partly because the front end of fuel cycle is, in itself, quite complex, with individual markets for each of uranium, conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication.

Chapter 5, Trade and the back end of the fuel cycle discusses the significant international restrictions on knowledge transfer and trade that are important in nuclear commerce and also important issues in the management of used fuel. The constraints are very much bound up within the provisions of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and its policing by the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

Chapter 6, The big picture puts nuclear within the context of wider world energy developments. These have now returned as a subject of popular debate, after many years on the sidelines following the world oil crises of the 1970s. Yet nuclear proliferation remains as a very live issue and could conceivably threaten prospects of a nuclear revival. Amongst other issues, this is addressed by initiatives such as the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) proposed by the United States and alternative (largely complementary) suggestions by other countries.

Steve Kidd is Director of Strategy & Research at the World Nuclear Association (WNA), the international association for nuclear energy based in London.

After reading economics at Queens College Cambridge and a brief period teaching and researching at Sheffield University, he followed a career as an industrial economist with leading UK companies. He practised as an independent consultant from 1990 and then joined the former Uranium Institute as Senior Research Officer in 1995. He assumed his present position when the Institute changed its name to the World Nuclear Association in 2001.

He acts as Secretary to many WNA working groups, notably those preparing incisive reports such as the biennial treatise on the global nuclear fuel market. He authors many articles on the commercial aspects of nuclear and is a frequent speaker at conferences and meetings around the world, particularly those targeted at non-specialists. Finally, he organises and teaches at training courses for nuclear professionals in developing nuclear countries, on behalf of the World Nuclear University (WNU).