Developing Roadmaps to Enhance Nuclear Energy Sustainability: Final Report of the INPRO Collaborative Project ROADMAPS

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• Publisher: International Atomic Energy Agency
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9789201084217
• Topic: Tecnología e ingeniería
• Subtopic: Ingeniería mecánica

This publication presents the outputs of the INPRO collaborative project ROADMAPS. It introduces the concept of roadmapping for enhanced nuclear energy sustainability, which has been developed over the course of several collaborative projects within INPRO. The principal products of the ROADMAPS collaborative project are the roadmap template and the ROADMAPS-ET tool. ROADMAPS-ET is an analytical decision support tool for structuring, unifying and visualizing data on issues related to long term nuclear energy planning and nuclear energy system sustainability enhancement. It is supplemented by an approach for the bottom-up integration of national roadmaps. The publication includes case studies which are trial applications of the roadmap template. The studies address national or cooperative long term nuclear energy deployment scenarios with evolutionary as well as with innovative nuclear energy technologies. Examples of possible roadmap aggregation for analysis at regional and global levels are also provided.

1. Introduction

1.1. Background

This publication documents the scope and outputs of the International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles (INPRO) collaborative project Roadmaps for a Transition to Globally Sustainable Nuclear Energy Systems (ROADMAPS). The ROADMAPS project was implemented between 2014 and 2019 by experts nominated by Armenia, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, China, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Romania, the Russian Federation, Thailand, Ukraine, the United States of America and Viet Nam, who acted as participants or observers in different project tasks.

INPRO was established in 2000 to help ensure that nuclear energy is available to contribute to meeting the energy needs of the twenty-first century in a sustainable manner. It is a mechanism for INPRO members to collaborate on topics of joint interest. The results of INPRO’s activities are made available to all IAEA Member States.

INPRO has introduced the concept of a sustainable nuclear energy system (NES) [1–3]. This concept is based on the United Nations definition of sustainable development [4] as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” which is categorized into nuclear specific technical and institutional areas by the INPRO methodology for NES assessment [3]. The INPRO Task 1, entitled Global Scenarios, has the objective to develop, based on scientific and technical analyses, global and regional nuclear energy scenarios leading to a global vision of sustainable nuclear energy in the twenty-first century. By developing those scenarios, INPRO helps both newcomers and existing nuclear countries to understand the key issues in a transition to future sustainable NESs and the role that innovations and collaboration among countries could play in such a transition.

Existing NESs, which are almost entirely based on thermal reactors operating in a once-through nuclear fuel cycle, will continue to be the main contributor to nuclear energy production for at least several more decades. However, the results of multiple national and international studies [1] show major enhancements of nuclear energy sustainability cannot be achieved without major innovations in reactor and nuclear fuel cycle technologies or without collaboration among countries.

New reactors, nuclear fuels and fuel cycle technologies are under development and demonstration worldwide. Combining different reactor types and associated fuel chains creates a multiplicity of NES arrangements potentially contributing to the global sustainability of nuclear energy. Cooperation among countries in the nuclear fuel cycle would be essential to bring sustainability benefits from innovations in technology to all interested users. In order to create viable cooperation among countries, it is becoming clear that national strategies will have to be harmonized with regional and global nuclear energy architectures to make national NESs more sustainable.

A number of INPRO collaborative projects have examined these issues over the last decade, building up to the enveloping project ROADMAPS. The project was implemented by experts nominated by several Member States representing countries with large, well established nuclear programmes that export reactors and conduct active research and development (‘technology holder’ countries), countries with smaller programmes not including export (‘technology user’ countries) and countries that do not yet have nuclear energy but are considering or are in the process of starting a nuclear programme (‘newcomer’ countries).

1.2. Objective

The objective of this publication is to present the major outputs of the INPRO collaborative project ROADMAPS, which are as follows:

— A roadmap template representing a structured approach for globally enhancing nuclear energy sustainability, providing models for international cooperation and a framework for documenting actions, scope of work and timeframes for specific collaborative efforts by particular stakeholders;

— An approach for the bottom-up integration of national roadmaps to derive a regional or global projection of a pathway towards enhanced nuclear energy sustainability;

— The ROADMAPS tool (a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, also called ROADMAPS-ET), which is a spreadsheet realization of the roadmap template that supports the practical application of the abovementioned approaches and the analysis and visualization of the results of such applications;

— Examples of a trial application of the roadmap template and the integration approach in a series of case studies performed by project participants.

This IAEA Nuclear Energy Series publication is intended for decision makers and technical experts from Member State institutions, nuclear industry and utilities, researchers and technical experts from universities and R&D institutions, working in the area of planning and implementation of a national nuclear power programme with provisions for cooperation with other countries.

1.3. Scope

This publication introduces the concept of roadmapping for enhanced nuclear energy sustainability, which has been developed over the course of several collaborative projects within INPRO and presents the outputs of the INPRO collaborative project ROADMAPS. The outputs are presented in line with the structure specified in Section 1.2. This publication focuses on sustainability issues associated with nuclear energy. The sustainabilit...

Table of contents

• 1. Introduction
• REFERENCES
• INTRODUCTION TO THE SUPPLEMENTARY FILES
• ABBREVIATIONS
• CONTRIBUTORS TO DRAFTING AND REVIEW