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nuclear power efficiency and reliability
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Is nuclear energy economically viable? |
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A series of events taking place during the last 50 years led to a re-evaluation of the role and importance of oil and nuclear in the global energy field. Some reasons explaining this phenomenon would be the 1970s' and 80s' price shocks as well as accidents such as those at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. The above 'incidents' were in fact the main reasons why nuclear energy utilisation was generally put to a halt in most countries up till today.
However, supply security, geopolitical sensitivity, pollution of the sea due to tanker accidents and off shore installations, prices instability, soil contamination in processing plants and emissions of SOx, NOx and CO2 responsible for acid rain and contributing to global warming, increased significantly the concerns regarding further utilisation of oil in the future energy generation scheme.
On the other hand, it seems that from recent research nuclear power alone won't get us where we need to be, but we won't get there without it. Despite its controversial reputation, nuclear power is efficient and reliable (Whitman, 2007) and the global nuclear electricity supply has moved on from holding a market share of 3% back in 1973 to 16.6% in 2002. ¹ | |
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