On a nuclear power strategy of Russia to 2050

Abstract

Relying on fundamental and applied research performed at the National Research Center Kurchatov Institute, historical experience, and modern mathematical apparatus for systems modeling, experts offer their own view of a strategy for developing nuclear power in Russia. The basic provisions of their strategy for developing nuclear power to 2050, which were developed at the end of 2010 -beginning of 2011, are presented. Regular systems evaluations of the place and role of atomic energy in world and domestic energy future is a tradition which I. V. Kurchatov ingrained in the Institute named after him and has remained throughout its entire history. In a report at the World Energy Congress in 1968 A. P. Aleksandrov summarized the fundamental view of the role and structure of nuclear power in the future. The prospects for developing nuclear power as a whole and its individual directions including based on model studies performed with the participation of leading experts at the Institute and other organizations were periodically published in the form of experts' assessments. These assessments are reviewed in [1].The strategy for energy development in our country is subject to periodic adjustments in the course of the actual world and national economic development. This is also applies to its integral part -nuclear power.The development of a strategy for the advancement of nuclear power to 2050 began in 2007. A group of experts at the National Research Center Kurchatov Institute prepared and published a draft of such a document in 2008 [1]. Subsequently, the principal indicators of the energy strategy for our country and the growth rates of energy production, including its atomic component, were substantially adjusted toward more moderate values. Because it is precisely the scale of the development of nuclear power that is the decisive factor for evaluating the resources, structure, and time tables for adopting new technologies it became necessary to adjust and refine previous studies taking account of the new realities.This article presents the basic provisions of a strategy for developing nuclear power in our country up to midcentury that a group of experts proposed to the Scientific Council of the Kurchatov Institute and that the Institute approved on September 28, 2011. The provisions rely on historic experience, fundamental and applied research conducted at the Kurchatov Institute on energy production, and modern mathematical systems-modeling apparatus. This research includes the basic provisions of the Energy Strategy of Russia to 2030 [2], which the government approved, and special federal programs for the advancement of the atomic energy-industrial complex.The energy production complex of the country now holds important positions in the world and is subject to the same evolutionary trends as world energy production, of course, taking account of the particulars of the resource base and the present status of the domestic economy.

A scenario study on the transition to a closed nuclear fuel cycle using the nuclear energy system modelling application package (NESAPP)

“…The two-component NES at various stages of its development may include thermal reactors (VVER type) with uranium oxide fuel, thermal reactors with partial or full loading of mixed uranium-plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel, and sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFR) with MOX fuel (Fig. 1) [1][2][3][4].…”

Multi-criteria evaluation and ranking of potential scenarios for the development of Russian two-component nuclear energy system with thermal and sodium-cooled fast reactors

“…In the Russian Federation, deployment of a two-component NES based on combined operation of thermal water-cooled water-moderated reactors and sodium-cooled fast reactors is looked upon as one of the possible ways to address the nuclear power challenges. There has been an extensive discussion of potential configurations for such a NES which may include, at different evolution stages, thermal reactors with uranium oxide fuel, thermal reactors with a partial or complete load of mixed uranium-plutonium oxide fuel (MOX), and sodium-cooled fast reactors with MOX fuel (Alekseev et al 2011, 2016, 2017, Gulevich et al 2018. All reactors in the system can be interlinked through a single closed NFC in which the products from reprocessing of SNF from one reactors are used to produce new fuel for the other reactors.…”