Summary of ' Nuclear power's new dawn'

In face of the global energy crisis, human beings are now paying more attention on a set of new energy, among which nuclear power is the most controversial.

In the article, Nuclear power's of new dawn, however, the author seems quite optimistic. An imaginary description of Generation Four is given at the very beginning. But go back to reality, the horrible memories, like the 1986 accident at Chernobyl in Ukraine, have shown that to make use of the nuclear, the public will take some convincing.

Compared with fossil fuels, nuclear is not a source of carbon dioxide. It can be treated as "safe, abundant, reliable, inexpensive and proliferation resistant" only if technical hurdles can be overcome. That is to say, a renaissance to nuclear power is badly needed.

In the second part of the article, the author mainly introduced two GIF concepts, Very-High-Temperature Reactor(VHTR) and Supercritical-Water-Cooled Reactor(SWCR). The VHTR is the most efficient concept so far. Meanwhile hydrogen can be split as a beneficial biproduct. The SWCR, on the other hand, come up with a quite effective solution deal with the new coolants which play a vital role in the high temperature reactor.

Next comes the core issue. The author pointed out that large amounts of defects exist in the pebble bed reactor which is not accepted for a modern reactor. Still costs must be cut by a quarter so that substantial numbers of new plants will be built.

To draw a conclusion, technological challenges are great to make nuclear cheaper, cleaner and safer. In addition, this newly industry has to adapt to the rapidly changing global environment. It is like the early morning jogging before new nuclear dawn. Hope exists.