Can Nuclear Energy Thrive in a Carbon-Constrained World? - Findings from a new MIT study -
JacopoBuongiorno
TEPCOProfessorandAssociateDepartmentHead,NuclearScienceandEngineeringDirector,CenterforAdvancedNuclearEnergySystems(CANES)
MassachusettsInstituteofTechnology(MIT)
Harnessing the power of the atomic nucleus for peaceful purposeswas one of themost astonishingscientificandtechnologicalachievementsofthe20thcentury.Ithasbenefittedmedicine,security,andenergy. Yet, after a few decades of rapid growth, investment in nuclear energy has stalled inmanydeveloped countries and nuclear energy now constitutes a meager 5% of global primary energyproduction.
In the21st century theworld faces thenewchallengeofdrastically reducingemissionsofgreenhousegaseswhilesimultaneouslyexpandingaccesstoenergyandeconomicopportunityforbillionsofpeople.InthenewMITstudypresentedhere,wehaveexaminedthischallengeintheelectricitysector,whichhas beenwidely identified as an early candidate for deep decarbonization. Inmost regions, servingprojectedelectricityloadin2050whilesimultaneouslyreducinggreenhousegasemissionswillrequireamixofelectricalgenerationassetsthatisdifferentfromthecurrentsystem.Whileavarietyoflow-orzero-carbontechnologiescanbeemployed invariouscombinations,ouranalysisshowsthatexcludingnuclear energy as an option may significantly increase the cost of achieving deep decarbonizationtargets. The least-cost portfolios in our analysis include an important share for nuclear, and themagnitudeofthissharegrowssubstantiallyasthecostofnuclearenergydrops.Despitethispromise,prospectsfortheexpansionofnuclearenergyremaindecidedlydiminmanypartsoftheworld.
Inthisstudy,wehaveexaminedwhatisneededtoreversethattrend.Salientfindingsofthestudywillbepresentedinthefollowingfiveareas:
• OpportunitiesforNuclearEnergyintheU.S.andinternationally• NuclearPowerPlantCost• AdvancedReactorTechnologyEvaluation• NuclearBusinessModelsandPolicies• NuclearReactorSafetyRegulationandLicensing
ABOUTTHESPEAKER
Jacopo Buongiorno is the TEPCO Professor and Associate Department Head of Nuclear Science andEngineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he teaches a variety ofundergraduate and graduate courses in thermo-fluids engineering and nuclear reactor engineering.Jacopohaspublishedover80journalarticlesintheareasofreactorsafetyanddesign,two-phaseflowand heat transfer, and nanofluid technology. For his research work and his teaching atMIT he wonseveral awards, including, recently, theRuth and Joel SpiraAward (MIT, 2015), and the Landis YoungMember EngineeringAchievementAward (AmericanNuclear Society, 2011).He is theDirector of theCenterforAdvancedNuclearEnergySystems(CANES),whichisoneofeightLow-Carbon-EnergyCenters(LCEC) of theMIT Energy initiative (MITEI), aswell as theDirector of theMIT studyon the FutureofNuclearEnergy inaCarbon-ConstrainedWorld. Jacopo isaconsultant for thenuclear industry in theareaofreactorthermal-hydraulics,andamemberoftheAccreditingBoardoftheNationalAcademyofNuclear Training. He is also a member of the Naval Studies Board (National Academies of Sciences,Engineering,andMedicine), aFellowof theAmericanNuclearSociety (including serviceon its SpecialCommitteeonFukushima in2011-2012),amemberof theAmericanSocietyofMechanicalEngineers,andaparticipantintheDefenseScienceStudyGroup(2014-2015).
