Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Improving nuclear power
New generations in nuclear fission
The fact that researchers are now developing what they call the fourth
generation of nuclear reactors will come as a surprise to many people who
will ask: what happened to the first three? Well, actually they are mostly
still with us - apart from the first generation, the original power reactors
built after World War II, which have all been withdrawn from service.
Weapon worries - a constraint on civil
nuclear power
The growing concern about Iran and North Korea acquiring the bomb-making
know-how and capacity for nuclear warheads is making it harder for nuclear
newcomers to embark on civil nuclear power programmes. The concern is
clearly justified. North Korea has
boasted that it has made several bombs. Iran
insists that its nuclear programme - including its efforts to master the full cycle
of uranium fuel enrichment - is purely peaceful. But the suspicion is increased
by the fact that the expensive business of trying to enrich uranium makes little
economic sense for a country such as Iran, with just one half-built Russian reac-
tor, unless bomb-making is an eventual aim.
On a political level, Iran and North Korea have devalued the Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT), which came into force in 1970 to stop any further spread of
nuclear weapons beyond the “big five” - the US, Russia, China, Britain and
France - which already had them by that date. Both Iran and North Korea
signed the NPT, in contrast to three - Israel, India and Pakistan - which never
signed and decided to retain and exploit their diplomatic freedom to build
nuclear weapons.
The likelihood of a world-wide increase in civil nuclear power, for climate rea-
sons, will inevitably create concern about weapons proliferation, and nowhere
more so than in areas of tension such as the Middle East. A number of Arab
and Gulf states now want nuclear power in order to desalinate water and to
conserve domestic gas for higher-value purposes such as raw material for
petrochemicals.
The country that has advanced furthest down this road is the United Arab
Emirates, led by Abu Dhabi, even though it is the UAE's main oil producer. Abu
Dhabi has signed various international nuclear cooperation agreements; they
contain a promise by Abu Dhabi that it will not enrich nuclear fuel or reproc-
ess nuclear waste, but instead import enriched fuel from abroad and return
the waste abroad - as the international community would like Iran to do. In
November 2009, Abu Dhabi signed a contract with a South Korean-led consor-
tium for the construction of its first reactor.
