"This study analyzes what would be required to retain nuclear power as a significant option for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and meeting growing needs for electricity supply. Our analysis is guided by a global growth scenario that would expand current worldwide nuclear generating capacity almost threefold, to 1000 billion watts, by the year 2050. Such a deployment would avoid 1.8 billion tonnes of carbon emissions annually from coal plants, about 25% of the increment in carbon emissions otherwise expected in a business-as-usual scenario.
"In 2003 MIT published the interdisciplinary study The Future of Nuclear Power. The underlying motivation was that nuclear energy, which today provides about 70% of the “zero”-carbon electricity in the U.S., is an important option for the market place in a low-carbon world. Since that report, major changes in the U.S. and the world have taken place as described in our 2009 Update of the 2003 Future of Nuclear Power Report. Concerns about climate change have risen: many countries have adopted restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, and the U.S.
"Nuclear power has long been controversial; consequently, the debate about its reemergence requires a fresh assessment of the facts about the technology, its economics and regulatory oversight, and the risks and benefits of its expansion. In the past year, the Keystone Center assembled a group of 27 individuals (see the Endorsement page for a list of Participants) with extensive experience and unique perspectives to develop a joint understanding of the “facts” and for an objective interpretation of the most credible information in areas where uncertainty persists.
<strong>This is a summary report. The full report is <a href="https://curie.ornl.gov/content/future-nuclear-fuel-cycle-interdisciplin…;
Russia and Norway have signed contracts worth 100 million rubles ($2.9 million) to develop a system to deal with radioactive waste at the Andreeva Bay storage facility near Murmansk, the Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom said Tuesday.
Dealing with the problems posed by nuclear waste management is a major issue confronting continued use of the nuclear fuel cycle. Large amounts of radioactive wastes have already been generated as a result of past nuclear reactor operations, but these wastes are being temporarily kept in aboveground storage facilities awaiting a government policy decision on final disposition. Although research on various technologies to dispose of radioactive wastes is given high priority, a commercial waste disposal facility is not expected to be in operation before 1985.
This research brief presents the economic development associated with the laboratory for a deep geological repository for high activity radioactive waste situated in the municipality of Bure. It has been described in the framework of the first topic in the project COWAM In Practice (CIP), i.e. the sustainable territorial development associated with radioactive waste management.
GNEP Presentation to 2008 ECA Annual Conference
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (the Act), established a step-by-step process for the siting of the nation's first repository for high-level radioactive waste and spent fuel. The Act gave the Department of<br/>Energy (DOE) the primary responsibility for conducting this siting process.
This paper is a response to a request from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) for CoRWM’s advice on the 2011 review of options for accelerating the geological disposal programme carried out by the Radioactive Waste Management Directorate (RWMD) of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).
CoRWM’s remit is to provide independent scrutiny and advice to Government on the long-term management, including storage and disposal, of radioactive wastes and materials that may be declared to be wastes. This is the first of three reports to be produced in 2009 that describes the results of the Committee’s scrutiny work in 2008 and the first part of 2009 and provides advice to Government.
This is the seventh CoRWM Annual Report. It summarises the outcomes of CoRWM’s scrutiny and advice work during the year. It also contains the Committee’s views on the current status of arrangements and plans for the long-term management of higher activity radioactive wastes in the UK. All the Committee Members have contributed to this Report and I am grateful to Marion Hill and the Secretariat for all their hard work in compiling it.
This is the eighth CoRWM Annual Report. It summarises CoRWM’s scrutiny and advice for the financial year ending on 31 March 2012. It also contains the Committee’s views on the status of arrangements and plans for the long-term management of higher activity radioactive wastes in the UK at June 2012.
Explanation of Radioactivity and Radioactive waste
The objective of the National Insights was to develop as far as possible “a historical and strategic vision of the radioactive waste governance” for participants of a same country. While decision-making processes in radioactive waste management very often remain technically driven, there is a need to put forward and give substance to a more open and inclusive decision-making process. The notion of governance is often used to label this type of decision-making process.
The purpose of COWAM2 Work Package 4 (WP4) on "e;long term governance"e; was to identify, discuss and analyse the institutional, ethical, economic and legal considerations raised by long term radioactive waste storage or disposal on the three interrelated issues of: (i) responsibility and ownership of radioactive waste over long term, (ii) continuity of local dialogue between stakeholders and monitoring of radioactive waste management facilities, and (iii) compensation and sustainable development.
The long-term governance of radioactive waste is complex socio-technical issue. The disposition of radioactive waste is decided on ethical grounds, having to take into account a variety of other dimensions (society, economy, ecology, politics, time, space, and technology). Thereto, a study of variants is required. Decision theory, in principle, takes diverse options as a starting point begin as the basis of a decision.
This document develops further the questions offered to stakeholders in the Berlin Meeting (see Appendix). It describes mechanisms that local stakeholders can use to influence national decision-making processes in radioactive waste management.
CIP (Community Waste Management In Practice) is a research action gathering a wide spectrum of stakeholders from five European countries, interested in how society should manage the radioactive wastes that result from nuclear power production and/or from medical, military or industrial applications.
The purpose of COWAM2 Work Package 4 (WP4) on "e;long term governance"e; was to identify, discuss and analyse the institutional, ethical, economic and legal considerations raised by long term radioactive waste storage or disposal on the three interrelated issues of: (i) responsibility and ownership of radioactive waste over long term, (ii) continuity of local dialogue between stakeholders and monitoring of radioactive waste management facilities, and (iii) compensation and sustainable development.
The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), launched in February, 2006, proposes to introduce used nuclear fuel recycling in the United States (U.S.) with improved proliferation-resistance and a more effective waste management approach. This program is evaluating ways to close the fuel cycle in a manner that introduces the most advanced technologies of today and builds on recent breakthroughs in U.S. national laboratories while drawing on international and industry partnerships.
As nuclear power assumes an increasingly important role in meeting the nation's requirements for electrical energy, the quantity of radioactive wastes will also increase. The wastes of primary concern -<br/>designated "high-level" and "alpha" wastes - contain radioactive nuclides that decay so slowly as to require that they be isolated from the biosphere for thousands of years.
Geologic repositories for radioactive waste are evolving<br/>from conceptualization to the development of specific<br/>designs. Estimates of long-term hazards must be based<br/>upon quantitative predictions of environmental releases<br/>over time periods of hundreds of thousands of years and<br/>longer.
19th Annual Symposium-Geological Disposal of Nuclear Waste
