Nuclear Power Generation – Past, Present and Future

JOHN WALLS

ABSTRACT

In this paper we outline the origins of the nuclear power industry in the nuclear weapons programme of the Second World War, and chart the growth of the nuclear industry through the 1950s and 1960s, and its subsequent decline during the 1970s and 1980s as a result of increasing costs and economic crisis, coupled with high profile accidents at nuclear plants at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. We then explore the claim that we are witnessing a "nuclear renaissance", characterised by a growth in the construction of new nuclear plants in the West but particularly in Asia. Three main factors have led to arguments for nuclear energy gaining greater traction: concerns over climate change and the need to promote low carbon energy technologies; the need to enhance energy security; and the need to meet large increases in demand for electricity particularly in developing countries. We then outline six variables that have the potential to impose limits on any large scale expansion of nuclear energy. Finally we explore to what extent the March 2011 disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan is likely to negatively impact the "nuclear renaissance".

1 Introduction

Up until a few years ago, it appeared that nuclear power no longer had a place in the energy future of the West. In the aftermath of the accident at Three Mile Island and the Chernobyl disaster, as well as the problem of significant cost overruns for new nuclear plants, and the continuing problem of nuclear waste disposal and spiralling decommissioning costs, nuclear appeared to be an industry with no viable future. However in recent years we have seen the return of nuclear power as an attractive option given the urgent need to meet the increased demand for electricity, especially in developing countries, as a potential mitigation strategy against climate change and to bolster energy security. With 55 nuclear reactors currently under construction and many more ordered we frequently hear talk of a "Nuclear Renaissance". Enthusiasm for new nuclear build at present is concentrated in Asia and Russia with a much slower development in Europe and North America.

In this paper, we outline the origins of the nuclear energy industry in the nuclear weapons programme of the Second World War; discuss the expansion of nuclear energy into the post war period and its role in the modernisation and industrialisation process; then chart the declining fortunes of the industry and its contemporary resurgence as a potential means of mitigating climate change. We suggest that whilst new nuclear plants will come on line in increasing numbers over the next few decades, they will be built at a much smaller pace than desired and anticipated, due to a range of factor which we explore below. Nonetheless nuclear power will continue to play a role in the energy systems of many developed and developing countries, as they try and move toward more sustainable energy systems. The extent of this role will depend on the ability of nation states to navigate the challenges that face plans for new nuclear plants.

2 Origins of Nuclear Power: The Nuclear Weapons Programme

The first nuclear reactors in what were to become the world's first nuclear powers, namely the United States, UK and the USSR, were all designed to produce plutonium for their respective nuclear weapons programmes. These initial reactors were of rudimentary design, graphite blocks into which uranium fuel was placed and plutonium chemically extracted from the spent fuel to be used in atomic bombs. The world's first nuclear reactor, built as part of the Manhattan project), achieved criticality in December 1942. Following this, a number of reactors were subsequently constructed at the Hanford nuclear site in Washington State, in order to produce plutonium for the first atomic bombs. The Manhattan project mobilised over 100 000 people and in today's money cost $22 billion.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the allure of "the bomb" was strong, appearing to be the ultimate trump card reflecting a nation's prowess. Such geopolitical reasoning remains strong to the present day, witness a number of developing countries' desire to acquire nuclear weapons in order to project regional and global influence.

As a result of the research conducted during the Manhattan project, scientists in the West and the USSR realised that the heat generated from nuclear fission could be harnessed to generate electricity for power hungry nations, as well as to provide propulsion for submarines and aircraft carriers. The first nuclear reactor to produce electricity (albeit a trivial amount, enough for four light bulbs) was the small Experimental Breeder Reactor (EBR-1) in Idaho, USA, which started up in December 1951. It was, like a number of reactors in the years following the end of the war, a prototype "fast breeder reactor" designed to run on plutonium, itself extracted from spent fuel from a standard reactor. The plants were designed to produce electricity whilst "breeding" more plutonium, thus, in theory at least, they would continually produce all the fuel they needed.

From the beginning, it was recognised that military and peaceful applications were intricately linked:

"The development of atomic energy for peaceful purposes and the development of atomic energy for bombs are in much of their course interchangeable and interdependent".

So reads a passage from a seminal report written by the then US Secretary of State, Dean Acheson in 1946, which became known as the Acheson–Lilienthal Report. It proposed transferring ownership and control of the nuclear fuel cycle from individual nation states into the hands of the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission. In principle both the USA and the USSR backed the idea, initially mooted in discussions between the allied powers during 1945. Niels Bohr, one of the leading researchers on the Manhattan project, became increasingly convinced during the war that atomic research should be shared between the USA and the USSR, primarily as a means of reconciling the two countries, even suggesting they share details of the Manhattan project be shared between the two countries.

The remarkable proposition was that the UN commission would in effect...