Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactors

A study of future energy requirements and of the potential of various energy sources (coal, oil, gas, nuclear power, hydropower and solar energy) indicates that the contribution to be made by nuclear fission, now competitive with conventional energy sources, will grow steadily over the next few decades. Whereas the amount of fuel which has to be fabricated each year for the operation of a nuclear power plant is reckoned in dozens of tonnes, coalfired power stations generating electricity each consume in a year millions of tonnes of fuel, and the world's reserves of fossil fuel, especially coal, while vast, are not unlimited The potential capability of nuclear power in its present state of development to satisfy the world demand for electricity would depend, to a large extent, on world reserves of natural uranium and the possibility of obtaining uranium-235 as nuclear fuel at reasonable prices. The relatively small percentage of this isotope in natural uranium is however a limitation on the development of nuclear power if it were to be based solely on existing light-water reactors which, with their low conversion ratio, can not utilize more than 2% of the energy potentially available in natural uranium. Thus, the advantages of nuclear power in the long term may not be fully realized unless further sizeable reserves of natural uranium are found or until significant progress is made in more effectively utilizing uranium.