WNN reports that nuclear power supports the socio-economic development of any country thanks to a combination of advantages over other fuels that goes beyond the supply of electricity, industry leaders agreed yesterday. Ten of the nuclear sector prominent decision-makers spoke at the plenary session on the first day of the VII Atomexpo conference and exhibition held in Moscow this week.
Talks with customers for plant projects now cover the entire life cycle, he said, from reactor design to the cost of equipment and services, from the ability to offer maintenance and fuel supply, to decommissioning and the storage of radioactive waste, from the development of longer-lasting materials to the price of a kilowatt hour of electricity, from the creation of jobs to the development of industrial infrastructure and the training of specialists, from regulation and legislation to international safety standards.
Daniel Poneman, president and CEO of Centrus, formerly known as United States Enrichment Corp, said cooperation in the industry had no better example than the Megatons to Megawatt program - a 1993-2013 agreement between the USA and Russia to convert soviet-era nuclear weapons into fuel for US nuclear power plants.
The reliability of nuclear power to meet one-third of Japanese electricity prior to the Fukushima accident means the country is determined to overcome the situation it has endured since the shutdown of all of its 43 reactors and gradually to return to its use of the fuel, said Takuya Hattori, president of the Japanese Atomic Industry Forum.
There are 250,000 jobs directly linked to the nuclear industry in France, Proglio said, with another 400,000 jobs in other industries that would not be as competitive were it not for their use of cheap and reliable nuclear power.
The industry needs to address the challenges of ill-advised and politically motivated opposition to nuclear power and deregulated markets that ignore the benefits of nuclear power.
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