SETR 06: Nuclear Technologies
SETR 06: Nuclear Technologies
NUCLEAR
TECHNOLOGIES
75
fissionable nuclei, resulting in a chain reaction. If converted from nuclear reactors are released as heat
the chain reaction is uncontrolled, what happens is to the environment. This energy could be harnessed
a nuclear explosion. But a tightly controlled nuclear to use for heat demands in other industrial pro-
chain reaction can produce a continuous release of cesses, notably in desalination plants, metal refin-
energy at low levels that can generate electricity. ing, and hydrogen generation. These use cases are
still in the process of development, with the Depart-
Fission-driven power generation was first demon- ment of Energy (DOE) supporting US nuclear energy
strated in 1951.1 Nuclear (fission) reactors can pro- companies.
duce electric power in vast amounts without carbon
emissions, but the reaction also produces radioac- Commercial nuclear energy is used exclusively for
tive by-products that must be safely managed for electricity generation. In 2020, nuclear energy pro-
tens of thousands of years. vided 10 percent of global electricity generation,
making it the second-largest source of low-carbon
The spread of fission reactors can also raise con- electricity, behind hydroelectricity.2 In the United
cerns about the spread of nuclear weapons, since States, nuclear power contributes 18.2 percent of
knowledge and infrastructure to design, build, and electricity generation, the largest source of carbon-
operate a nuclear power plant overlap substantially free electricity.3
with what is needed to build nuclear weapons. In
this view, research on new nuclear reactors white- Research and development in nuclear energy
washes the nuclear power–nuclear weapons connec- focuses on new reactor designs that may reduce
tion. Others believe that the proliferation risks can nuclear fuel requirements, provide improved safety,
be minimized to the extent that fission reactors are a and be less expensive to build and operate. R&D is
viable option for emissions-free energy. also exploring approaches to disposal and long-term
management of radioactive waste resulting from
Overall, in the last couple of years, the global capac- reactor operation.
ity for nuclear reactors to generate electric power
has declined slightly. The new nuclear reactors
coming online, mostly in Asia, are unable to replace
the capacity loss due to aging nuclear reactors being
decommissioned in the West.
Key Developments: Fission
In addition, the United States does not offer compet-
New Reactor Designs
itive exports of nuclear power plants. Although there
are some exports from the United Arab Emirates and Advanced reactors could potentially offer a variety
South Korea, Russia dominates the global market of benefits for:4
for nuclear reactor exports. South Korea has a single
design and more expertise in industrial manufac- ° Safety Advanced reactors could offer passive
turing, allowing it to maintain low costs. Russia’s safety features that do not require direct human
state-owned Rosatom nuclear energy corporation intervention to be activated or reactor opera-
has better financing and offers a more complete fuel tion at lower pressure that can reduce the risk of
provision and waste disposal. explosion.
Commercial reactors offer other potential appli- ° Industrial decarbonization Some advanced
cations as well, since two-thirds of the energy nuclear reactors can generate enough heat for
06 Nuclear Technologies 77
can take a few years or decades to decay, while
high-level waste can take upward of tens of thou-
sands of years. Over the Horizon: Fission
Managing nuclear waste requires answering two Impact of New Reactor Designs
primary questions: how to store it and where to
Generation IV nuclear reactors are proposed reac-
store it. Low-level nuclear waste is most often
tors that are more advanced than the Generation III
stored in metal drums; high-level waste is by law
and III+ reactors in use today. Generation IV reactors
turned into glass, or vitrified, to immobilize it and
seek to improve sustainability, economics, safety and
then stored in containers. But by far the most con-
reliability, proliferation resistance, and physical pro-
troversial issue in waste management is where to
tection. Some of the technical goals of such reactors
store it.
include increased efficiency of electricity generation;
generation and capture of process heat to be used
After cooling for years in water, low-level waste is
in other thermal applications, such as the production
moved to dry storage aboveground. High-level
of hydrogen; increased safety; and reduced produc-
waste requires deep underground repositories to
tion of waste materials.
isolate it for thousands of years. However, identi-
fying suitable sites is highly contested, despite a
broad consensus that such waste should be stored Generation IV reactors are characterized by their
underground (as opposed to burying it at sea, for coolants, which can be water, helium, liquid metal, or
example). Because it must be stored for so long, molten salt, and by whether they operate with mod-
a geologically stable environment is needed to erated (slower) or unmoderated (faster) neutrons.
ensure that earth movements do not disturb the Reactors using moderated (or thermal) neutrons can
waste repositories, and a dry environment is needed operate with low-enriched uranium fuel, which pres-
to ensure that running water does not leach away ents a lower risk of nuclear weapons proliferation.
waste and transport it from the disposal site. This is Reactors using unmoderated (or fast) neutrons must
a possibility because long-lived fission products and use HALEU but are able to generate more power per
some activation products have geochemical prop- unit of fuel.
erties that prevent them from binding onto the sur-
faces of minerals that would otherwise immobilize According to the US National Academies of Sciences,
them in place. Engineering, and Medicine, “advanced nuclear tech
nologies likely will not be able to markedly contrib-
Finally, the idea of transmuting the radioactive ele- ute to electricity generation until the 2030s at the
ments in nuclear waste into less dangerous elements earliest.”12 Nevertheless, they may compete with
is occasionally floated. Natural transmutation for other energy technologies in the long term.
nuclear waste materials occurs over time but takes
hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Speeding
Challenges of Innovation
up this process entails subjecting the nuclear waste
and Implementation
elements to some other nuclear process to effect a
transformation and has been demonstrated on the Bridging the gap between innovation and implemen-
atomic scale in the laboratory—but never on a scale tation remains a challenge for advanced Generation IV
necessary to deal with the 86,000 tons of high-level reactors. The design for such reactors has been on
radioactive waste now being stored temporarily in the books for many years, and the scientific theory
aboveground sites. of nuclear power generation and the engineering
06 Nuclear Technologies 79
All in all, a twelve-year period from initiation of the The confinement problem refers to the challenge of
approval process to grid connection does not seem keeping a fusion fuel—typically a mix of hydrogen
excessive. isotopes like deuterium and tritium—at the neces-
sary high temperatures and pressures long enough
Fuel supply For fission in new nuclear reactors, for a significant number of nuclear fusion reactions
the only commercial source of HALEU today is to occur. Because fusion involves “fusing” two nuclei
Russia, and the security and reliability of Russia as together, the fusion reaction must overcome the
a source is not assured. Although the US govern- repulsive forces between two charged nuclei—and
ment is undertaking research that might result in the only known way to do that is to have the nuclei
the availability of a domestic supply, environmental moving at very high speeds, corresponding to being
and other land-use issues might inhibit the devel- at a very high temperature.
opment and deployment of facilities to produce
HALEU. One way to confine the fuel is to use powerful mag-
nets to trap a high-temperature plasma of deuterium
and tritium, a process known as magnetic confine-
ment fusion (MCF). These magnets keep the hot
plasma away from the containment vessel walls,
Overview: Nuclear Fusion aiming to maintain the necessary high temperatures
and densities for the fusion reactions to occur in suf-
Technology ficient frequency. The engineering challenge is to
ensure stability of the plasma and maintain confine-
Fusion is another physical process that produces ment conditions sufficiently long enough (several
massive amounts of energy from atoms. Instead of seconds) for a net positive energy output, as plasma
splitting atoms like fission, fusion occurs when two instabilities can disrupt this process.
atomic nuclei collide together to form a heavier
nucleus. Substantial amounts of energy, several A second way—inertial confinement fusion (ICF)—
times greater than fission, are released without any calls for the very rapid compression of a fuel pellet
long-lived radioactive waste. Fusion is the source of using lasers or ion beams, causing the fuel pellet to
energy in a thermonuclear bomb—and the sun. As implode. The beams hit the pellet’s surface simulta-
with nuclear fission, the hope is that fusion can be neously, causing the pellet’s outer layer to explode,
controlled to drive electrical generators. thus driving the rest of the pellet toward its center.
The beams are very powerful but illuminate the pellet
Fusion energy comes from the fusion of deute- for a short time, around 20 nanoseconds, during
rium (D) and tritium (T), both isotopes of hydro- which the pellet is compressed. When an adequate
gen. Deuterium is common in seawater, but tritium degree of compression has been achieved, ignition
is radioactive and, because of its short half-life of of the fuel begins, and for an even shorter time of
twelve years, is not found in nature and thus must about 100 picoseconds, the compressed fuel—now
be manufactured. The D-T reaction produces a a very hot plasma—does not have a chance to move
helium-4 nucleus and a fast neutron. very much because of its own inertia—hence the
name inertial confinement. Here, the engineering
Fusion energy is still in the R&D stage. There are two challenge is ensuring that the beams hit the pellet
approaches in serious fusion research today, and simultaneously in a symmetrical manner, and the
both attempt to solve what is known as the confine- rate at which pellets can be dropped and imploded
ment problem.21 determines the rate at which energy is released.
06 Nuclear Technologies 81
° Availability of tritium Because tritium is not that the experiment suggested that practical fusion
found in appreciable amounts in nature, it must energy was “just around the corner.” Even the most
be manufactured. Tritium can be produced in optimistic private investors in fusion do not believe it
fission nuclear reactors by subjecting lithium is any closer than ten to fifteen years away.
to neutron irradiation in the reactor’s core. The
United States has not needed to produce tritium
Policy, Legal, and Regulatory Issues
for several decades, but if fusion power becomes
commercially viable, it will have to obtain suffi- Nuclear proliferation Fusion power plants will gen-
cient supplies. erate fast neutrons in addition to producing useful
heat. These neutrons can be used in principle to
° Fabrication of fuel Fusion reactors require the transmute certain elements into material that can
preparation of the D-T mixture into geometric be used to make fission weapons. One study on this
forms that easily absorb the energy needed to topic acknowledges some proliferation risk but con-
push the nuclei together. cludes that “proliferation risk from fusion systems can
be much lower than the equivalent risk from fission
° Materials The physical structures housing systems, provided commercial fusion systems are
fusion reactions are subject to damaging bom- designed to accommodate appropriate safeguards.”26
bardment, since most proposed fusion reactions,
including deuterium-tritium, release high-energy Waste management The primary waste products
neutrons. New materials are needed that are from nuclear fusion are the materials irradiated by
more neutron resistant. the intense neutron radiation produced in the fusion
reaction. The neutrons serve to transmute the ele-
ments in the original materials into other elements,
Challenges of Innovation and
and often these “activation products” are radioac-
Implementation
tive. However, they generally do not remain danger-
Some press accounts of the genuine breakthrough in ous for nearly as long as the waste products from
achieving scientific breakeven gave the impression fission reactors.
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06 Nuclear Technologies 83