Issue 2.4: Nuclear power renaissance or demise?

摘要

This paper attempts to explore the progress, innovation and renaissance of Nuclear Power that the world has seen in the past 70 years. In the middle of the 20th century right after World War II ended the world saw an emergence in a technology which was so powerful that its opponents feared it because of the dangers associated with it. The horrors which were evident after the destruction in Hiroshima and Nagasaki due to Nuclear Power could not be forgotten. But at the same time Nuclear scientists and physicists around the world had started to explore the possibilities that Nuclear Power could add to the energy mix in the world and solve the energy problems of the than emerging Industrialized world. It was decided that a Nuclear non Proliferation treaty will be formed under which countries will be subjected to restricted use of Nuclear technology for building war heads but this also meant that Nuclear Power plants could be built all around the world. But then the catastrophe of first the Three Mile Island in the USA and then Chernobyl in USSR led to the death of the emerging nuclear Power Industry. These two incidents shaped the image around the world that Nuclear Power generation is dangerous and should not be explored any longer and there were no new Nuclear generating Station built anywhere in the world after the incident of Chernobyl. But after primarily utilizing Fossil fuels for power generation; the world has seen the emerging issue of global warming and reduction in the sources of Fossil fuels. The world has once again started to brain storm about environmentally sustainable solutions for power generation and this has been the primary reason and focus for the renaissance of Nuclear Power. The factors that have contributed to the emergence of Nuclear Power once again are the environmental feasibility that Nuclear Power provides as opposed to other forms of generation, advances in Technology and at the same time the renovation in nuclear fuel production, reprocessing and disposal.