Research and Innovation in Reactor Technology
Chair: Marco Cepin, Jozef Stefan Institute, Slovenia
At present, the facts show that nuclear energy represents the highest growing source of primary energy worldwide (compared to other main sources such as oil, gas, coal, hydro), in spite of the fact that some other energy sources may receive more public attention at the moment.
The increased needs for production of more electric energy and expressed wishes for establishment of a cleaner environment has confirmed that nuclear energy is one of the most important sources of energy in the future. This has been proven:
- in Europe by plans of the Finnish government to build a new nuclear power plant,
- iin the United States by a recent nuclear research program “Generation IV”, which resulted in more than 100 new concepts of new reactor designs and by extended lifetimes of the existing nuclear power plants,
- in Asia (e.g. Japan, Korea, India) with intensive work for new reactors that are under construction and in firm plans,
- in South Africa, where the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor is firmly planned, although its new design (based on knowledge from decades ago) can still cause some difficulties for getting its regulatory acceptance,
- on an international level, where INPRO research program in the organization of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) integrates several national research programmes including the European Union,
- at IYNC2002 Congress in Korea, where the participants of the Congress and the speakers and the audience of the session on “Research and Innovation in Reactor Technology I” expressed their believe in the further worldwide increase of growth of nuclear energy in the near future.
