Monday July 10, 2006

Asia going nuclear amid rising oil prices, global warming concerns

peakoil.com -> planetsave.com :

18 reactors - about 70% of the world's total under construction - are going up in Asia, and another 77 are planned or proposed, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. China plans to increase its nuclear capacity from 6.6 GW to 40 GW by 2020 with the addition of 30 nuclear plants. India intends to go from under 3 GW to 20 GW by 2020 with 31 plants. Japan plans to double its nuclear capacity by 2050. Australia wants to build its first plant, and even Indonesia has vowed to go nuclear, despite earthquakes, floods and landslides.

Every 1,000 megawatt reactor, the Nuclear Energy Institute says, saves 7.9 million barrels of oil or 3.4 million tons of coal a year and eliminates 34,000 tons of polluting sulfur dioxide and 11,000 tons of nitrogen oxide. Asia's biggest problem isn't new reactors, but what to do with the spent fuel. Britain, France, Russia and Japan have opted for fuel reprocessing, which can extract plutonium and combine it with uranium to create oxide fuel, or MOX. But the extracted plutonium can be weaponized and is vulnerable to theft for misuse.

See also :

1. Vietnam is going nuclear
2. Nuclear power renaissance in Europe
3. Hitachi, GE plan to build nuclear plant in US
4. Russia plans atomic energy expansion

(2006-07-10 07:26:06 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

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