CITRIS Research Exchange: Current and Future Activities For Nuclear Energy in the United States

• October 11, 2006: 11:00am - 12:00pm
• Contact: Yvette Subramanian
• Location: 290 Hearst Memorial Mining Building, the Maria & Dado Banatao Conference Room, UC Berkeley

Current and Future Activities For Nuclear Energy in the United States

Per Peterson, Professor of Nuclear Engineering at UC Berkeley,

12:00 p.m. noon on Wedensday, October 11 in 290 HMMB, UC Berkeley

Part of the CITRIS Research Exchange at UC Berkeley. The complete schedule for the fall semester is online at RE-fall2006.

Watch talk online  ||  View presentation (ppt)


Abstract
Currently, nuclear energy provides 70 percent of all non-fossil energy produced in the United States. Nuclear plants operate in base load and compete directly with environmentally problematic coal electricity production while wind--the most rapidly expanding source of renewable energy--is intermittent and dominantly displaces a fraction of clean natural gas consumption that would otherwise occur. Strong competition has emerged at the local and state levels for hosting new nuclear power plants, and, to date, construction license application plans for 26 new nuclear power plants have been announced by U.S. utilities. This talk will review these recent activities, as well as other issues of importance in evaluating the potential future role of nuclear power in the U.S.

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