nuclear power Articles
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A review of uranium economics
The recent increase in the demand for power for commercial use, the challenges facing fossil fuel use and the prospective of cheap nuclear power motivate different countries to plan for the use of nuclear power. This paper reviews many aspects of uranium economics, which includes the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power, comparisons with other sources of power, nuclear power production ...
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The 'threat' of radioactivity: how environmental education can help overcome it
For environmentalists, nuclear power and environmental preservation are two antagonistic ideas. They cannot accept that nuclear power is capable of supplying huge amounts of energy with the least impact on the planet. As a result, the public is misled by environmental Cassandras who prognosticate doom for a world with nuclear reactors. Inevitably, other nuclear projects, like research reactors ...
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Public risk perception of nuclear waste
Nuclear waste has emerged as a very salient issue in the nuclear power debate. In the present study, a broad range of risk perception and attitude dimensions concerned with nuclear waste was investigated. It was found that most respondents from the general public were not willing to accept a local high-level nuclear waste repository in their home region. Nuclear waste was seen, by the public, as ...
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The role of tacit knowledge and the challenges in transferring it: a case study at the Finnish NPPs
Explicit knowledge and implementation of proper IT systems have been of concern of many organisations which recognise the importance of managing knowledge for safety operation and sustainable competitive advantage. Data and document management systems have been implemented to capture, store and distribute explicit knowledge. However, recently also awareness of the existence of tacit knowledge in ...
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Looking through the prism of international environment and human rights law - International Civil Nuclear Liability Law and a call for Indian exceptionalism
As the spectre of climate change and competition over fossil fuels have led energy–hungry states towards nuclear power, liability rules for nuclear damage have acquired increased significance. However, many of the core common elements of the existing international legal regimes on civil nuclear liability - channelling of liability, quantum and temporal limits, definition of harm, etc. - are not ...
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The road not chosen
Analysis of data for historical consumption of the most important energy sources and carbon emission leads to a method to calculate the carbon emission with another fuel mix than the actual one. It is shown that a continued growth of nuclear power could have replaced the whole Kyoto process.Keywords: economy, ecology, nuclear power, nuclear energy, Kyoto protocol, carbon emissions, road not ...
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Accident consequence assessment and its implications for emergency planning of the pilot commercial HTR plant in China
An effort has been launched in China to construct a pilot commercial plant using high temperature reactors. This paper presents the major results of accident consequence assessment performed in the framework of a preliminary environmental impact evaluation. Based on this, the implications of this consequence calculation for emergency planning are discussed. Finally, the current regulatory ...
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Reliability analysis of digital feedwater regulating valve controller system using a semi–Markov process model
A semi–Markov process model is developed for the reliability analysis of Main Feedwater Valve (MFV) controller system that is used for regulating the water level in a steam generator. The proposed model is generalisation of a Markov process model reported in the literature and allows the use of non–exponential distribution for various state transition times.Keywords: digital instrumentation, ...
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50 years of radiation protection and nuclear power in Switzerland: a brief history
This article presents a short history of research in nuclear physics as well as of 50 years of nuclear power and radiation protection in Switzerland. After the International Conference 'Atoms for Peace' held in 1955 in Geneva the first research reactor was installed in Switzerland. A national environmental radioactivity monitoring programme was started in 1956. Today some 40% of the electricity ...
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Radiation protection in Germany: structures, regulations and the LNT debate
Relatively little information is available in English about the current situation in this field in the world's third largest economy, in which nuclear power remains the largest supplier of electricity. Therefore, a brief review is provided concerning the structure, fields of activity and assessment of the relative role and influence of different governmental and non-governmental organisations on ...
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The impact of energy security on Australia's international relations
In this speech, the opposition minister for foreign affairs and trade discusses the key issues facing Australia's energy security. He notes Australia's position as a net energy exporter, the need for rational approaches to reducing climate change, and the possibility of nuclear power as an alternative source of energy. He emphasised the need for international cooperation in dealing with these ...
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Operational and decommissioning safety
The paper highlights the safety aspects during the operational and the decommissioning stages of a nuclear power station. It discusses the safety issues that must be taken into account starting from the design stage until the final restoration of the site. Also, the safety of the plant extension life is mentioned.Keywords: decommissioning safety, operational stage, plant life extension, exchange ...
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Global energy accumulation and net heat emission
The increase in the global air temperature is an inadequate measure of global warming, which should rather be considered in terms of energy. The ongoing global warming means that heat has been accumulating since 1880 in the air, ground and water. Before explaining this warming by external heat sources, the net heat emissions on Earth must be considered. Such emissions from, e.g., the global use ...
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Design study of long-life Pb-Bi cooled fast reactor with natural uranium as fuel cycle input using modified CANDLE burn-up scheme
This paper reports a conceptual design study of Pb-Bi cooled fast reactors with a fuel cycle that needs only natural uranium input. In this design, the CANDLE burn-up strategy is slightly modified by introducing discrete regions. The reactor cores are subdivided into several parts with the same volume in the axial directions. The natural uranium is initially put in region 1, after one cycle of ...
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Why does India require uranium through the 123 Agreement?
The government of India has taken a deliberate stand that nuclear power should be one of the components of the energy mix that the country should have for sustained economic growth. A base for this was laid in the 1960s to 1970s in collaboration with USA and Canada. However, a major part of the development, in recent decades, has been indigenous. This came about after international sanctions were ...
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Nuclear Iran facing the USA
Iran's efforts to endow nuclear capacities date back to the Shah's era, and were at that time developed through a close collaboration with the USA. Those plans were presented as civil programmes, but comprised, beyond any doubt, some military potentialities. As a first step, the 1979 Islamic Revolution completely interrupted any activity in this field. But more recently, uranium enrichment ...
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The UK's nuclear renaissance and its legal foundations
This paper addresses the proposed development of a new generation of new nuclear power stations in England and Wales. It explains the genesis of this nuclear renaissance and explores the legal changes which have been instituted to facilitate that programme. It explores some of the areas of likely legal controversy and conflict, for example in relation to how the wastes from new power stations ...
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The role of the public sector in technology development: generalisations from general purpose technologies
In the science and technology policy literature that emerged in the early 1980s, it was held that, while public support for science is appropriate, public support for technology development represents an unproductive use of public resources. The perspective that emerges in my recent book, Technology, Growth and Development: An Induced Innovation Perspective (Oxford, 2002) is quite different. ...
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What becomes of nuclear risk assessment in light of radiation hormesis?
A nuclear Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) is a scientific calculation that uses assumptions and models to determine the likelihood of plant failures and the corresponding releases of radioactivity. Estimated radiation doses are linked improperly to risks of cancer death. Using very pessimistic assumptions, PRAs indicate nuclear power plants are very safe compared to other generating options ...
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Nuclear regulatory processes in India: a review of public engagement
Public involvement is imperative in the nuclear regulatory process in India, owing to the nature of concerns arising out of processes for harnessing nuclear energy, as also the recent wave of democratic activism submerging India, evidenced by the protests against nuclear power plants in Kudankulam and Jaitapur and anti–corruption movements. India's nuclear regulatory authority does not provide ...
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