Not many people know the existence of the Sustainable Nuclear Energy Technology Platform SNETP and its links with the EU. The same occurs with the “sustainable nuclear energy” concept.
A good clue to know about SNETP is a 2007 European Commission (Directorate General for Research. Euratom) report: «The Sustainable Nuclear Energy Technology Platform. A vision report».
According to EU, three objectives characterize the sustainability of nuclear energy:
These objectives are achievable through Generation IV reactors´ technologies coming for commercial use around 2030. These have mainly to do with:
- The use of low-enrichment fuels, useless for military technologies
- A hundred to three hundred times more efficient fuels
- Reduction of the nuclear waste life, from millennia to a few hundred of years
- Closed nuclear fuel cycle: consumption of nuclear waste in the production of electricity
If these objectives become real and considering that:
- Fossil fuels cause, every year, thousands of premature deaths by heart and lung diseases in Europe.
- Nuclear energy is free-carbon.
- Unlike to renewable sources, nuclear technology guarantees a constant around-the-clock production of energy.
Could, sustainable nuclear energy, be considered an option to complete renewable energies? EU seems to do it.