ABSTRACT
The production of nuclear energy in a controlled manner, which materialized with the Chicago pile built by the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi and his co-workers in December 1942, is one of the major scientific and technological achievements of last century, opening the way to the pacific utilization of nuclear energy. This discovery has acquired even more significance in light of growing concerns about the anthropogenic release of CO2 in the atmosphere, the primary source of which is the fossil fuel fired power plants. However, even though presently there are about 450 nuclear power plants operating around the world, present-day public perception of nuclear energy is controversial: on the one hand, it is an economical form of bulk energy that can offer a decisive relief from global warming, and that is suitable to deliver power to both “emerging” and “developed” countries, and, on the other hand, by a sense of distrust in the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant accident. Mainly due to political reasons related to this sense of public distrust, the renaissance of nuclear power promoted at the beginning of the new century as the awareness of the global climate problem was growing has not materialized on a global scale, with many countries freezing or even phasing out from nuclear industrial operation. Aggressive nuclear programs are however underway in emerging new powers such as China and India, and new nuclear units are under construction in those countries that traditionally have pointed to nuclear energy for strategic reasons (e.g. Russian Federation, United States, France). This contribution presents a comprehensive introduction to nuclear power generation and to the characteristics of the new generation of reactors currently under construction, focusing on their innovative aspects. The latter provide a decisive, if not final, improvement on those problematics (safety, sustainability, economics, and proliferation resistance) the satisfactory solution of which is required before Fermi’s achievement could turn into a widely accepted form of safe and sustainable energy production.
