Safer Nuclear Power?

In an earlier post, I made a case for using more nuclear.

The basic argument was: We need to dramatically cut our carbon emissions and intermittent renewables like solar, wind, tidal and wave are not going to be sufficient. We need more 'base-load' to replace the thousands of coal and gas fired stations and the only real choice is nuclear.

The trouble is, nuclear stations can be dangerous when they go wrong (ask the Japanese), have a reputation for being expensive to build and run, and then there's all that radioactive waste when they finish their useful lives.

So, basically, nuclear power is the lesser of two evils. After all, future generations wouldn't thank us for leaving them with an uninhabitable world just because we didn't want to leave them with a whole load of nuclear waste to deal with.

The good news is that there's a type of nuclear reactor that considerably reduces most of these problems:

Integral Fast Reactors (IFRs)

IFRs extract way more energy (95%) from their fuel than the traditional reactors (5%). They therefore need considerably less fuel and the radioactive life of the resulting waste is a few centuries rather than tens of thousands of years.

IFRs can use the waste, including plutonium, from existing reactors as their fuel source. Turning a problem into an asset.

The combination of increased efficiency and the use of existing waste means that nuclear reactors have enough fuel available for centuries.

These reactors run at lower pressures so there's considerably less chance of explosions.

Crucially, if the cooling system fails for some reason, the higher temperatures have the effect shutting down the reactor, meaning no melt-downs.

Reduced risk of explosions and no melt-downs means that IFRs are cheaper to build.

Finally, the radioactive material is relatively difficult to weaponise and, since IFR waste never leaves the site, it can't be stolen/diverted by terrorists.

So, they're cheaper to build, they're a lot safer, they can run off nuclear waste, and they have enough fuel available for centuries to come. Nuclear power looks a whole lot more attractive.

Here's a blog entry from George Monbiot on IFRs. He's an environmentalist and journalist for the Guardian newspaper.

More about Integral Fast Reactors.