Event Details
Fuel for the Next Millennia
Presenter: Dr. Daniel Meneley - Atomic Energy of Canada (AECL)
Supervisor:
Date: Thu, March 8, 2001
Time: 16:30:00 - 18:00:00
Place: (Murray and Ann Fraser) FRA 159
ABSTRACT
When considering the proper place of nuclear fission energy in the future energy mix of the world, one must ask the basic questions about fuel supply. As a second step, one must ask whether or not the present development directions can or cannot lead us toward a sustainable energy supply over the next centuries.
This lecture first presents an estimate of the situation regarding fossil fuel supply as the basis for examination of how the Canadian, and the world, nuclear energy system will be able to secure our long-term fuel supplies of nuclear fuel. This can be done by the ?nuclear alchemy? of converting stable heavy nuclei into unstable nuclei that will fission and release their stored energy. This fuel production can be carried out in the same reactors used to produce electricity.
Designing a system so that more fuel is produced than is used during operation leads to a coupled system in which there is an intimate relationship between the choice of industrial strategy for reactor development and the sustainability of the energy source in the long term. The lecture shows that it is possible, using only reasonable extensions of today?s reactor technologies, to provide nuclear fuel for centuries from conventional reserves. This energy resource can be extended even more by drawing upon the huge amount of uranium dissolved in ocean water. Given other inherent limitations on human populations, for practical purposes this ocean fuel reserve can be considered infinite.