What does the President's Science and Technology Advisor say about expanding use of nuclear power?

[kristopher]

Holdren was one of the authors of the 2003 MIT report "The Future of Nuclear Power".

The nuclear option: size of the challenges
• If world electricity demand grows 2%/year until 2050 and nuclear share of electricity supply is to rise from 1/6 to 1/3...

–nuclear capacity would have to grow from 350 GWe in 2000 to 1700 GWe in 2050;

– this means 1,700 reactors of 1,000 MWe each.
• If these were light-water reactors on the once-through fuel cycle...

–enrichment of their fuel will require ~250 million Separative Work Units (SWU);

–diversion of 0.1% of this enrichment to production of HEU from natural uranium would make ~20 gun-type or ~80 implosion-type bombs.

-If half the reactors were recycling their plutonium the associated flow of separated, directly weapon-usable plutonium would be 170,000 kg per year;
•diversion of 0.1% of this quantity would make ~30 implosion-type bombs.

- Spent-fuel production in the once-through case would be...
•34,000 tonnes/yr, a Yucca Mountain every two years.

Conclusion: Expanding nuclear enough to take a modest bite out of the climate problem is conceivable, but doing so will depend on greatly increased seriousness in addressing the waste-management & proliferation challenges.

Mitigation of Human-Caused Climate Change
John P. Holdren

It is also important to the scale of the problem to know that 1/6th of electrical power = 2.4% of global energy consumption. Since much of that is in the form of petroleum for transport, and since that load will shift to electricity, these numbers should be considered a minimum.

[FBaggins]

1. So... in summary...

he's saying that if nuclear power is going to increase fivefold, we'll have to address what to do with the uranium?

Thanks MOTO.

[Dr.Phool]

2. Did he also say it's the most expensive power source on the planet?

[FBaggins]

3. Is that the standard you want?

If so, you get coal in more than just your christmas stocking.

[Statistical]

4. Why are you anti PV solar?

Despite being the most expensive form of energy every imagined PV solar has a place in the energy mix. :)

[Scuba]

5. What's the potential of wind and tides?????

[diane in sf]

6. massive... and cheap for wind, except for those dangerous windspills...