Nuclear Power - Deployment, Operation and Sustainability

Abstract

We are fortunate to live in incredibly exciting and incredibly challenging time. The world is rapidly growing; country economies developing at accelerated growth rates, technology advances improve quality of life and become available to larger and larger populations. At the same time we are coming to a realization that we are responsible for our planet. We have to make sure that our continuous quest for prosperity does not backfire via catastrophic irreversible climate changes, and depleted or limited resources that may challenge the very existence of future generations. We are at the point in our history when we have to make sure that our growth is sustainable. Energy demands due to economic growth and increasing population must be satisfied in a sustainable manner assuring inherent safety, efficiency and no or minimized environmental impact. New energy sources and systems must be inherently safe and environmentally benign.These considerations are among the reasons that lead to serious interest in deploying nuclear power as a sustainable energy source. Today's nuclear reactors are safe and highly efficient energy systems that offer electricity and a multitude of co-generation energy products ranging from potable water to heat for industrial applications. At the same time, catastrophic earthquake and tsunami events in Japan resulted in the nuclear accident that forced us to rethink our approach to nuclear safety, design requirements and facilitated growing interests in advanced nuclear energy systems, next generation nuclear reactors, which are inherently capable to withstand natural disasters and avoid catastrophic consequences without any environmental impact. This book is one in a series of books on nuclear power published by InTech. It consists of six major sections housing twenty chapters on topics from the key subject areas pertinent to successful development, deployment and operation of nuclear power systems worldwide: