Implementation Strategy of Thorium Nuclear Power in the Context of Global Warming

Abstract

The progress of global warming requires us to construct a sustainable society immediately. At the same time, energy demand in developing countries especially in Asian countries such as China and India is increasing rapidly and at a large scale. In the context of global warming, fossil fuels such as coal and oil should not be used as primary energy sources because they significantly increase concentration of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) in atmosphere. Therefore nuclear energy can be one of the candidates of carbon-free primary energy source. However, it is also true that there are concerns relating to the use of nuclear power such as nuclear proliferation, radioactive waste and possibility of severe accident. These concerns make it difficult to apply nuclear power widely in the world even though it does not emit CO2. We are now in the end of the first commitment period of Kyoto protocol. There are mainly three mechanisms to reduce CO2 emission from human activity. One of them is called “Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)”, which supports implementation of technology and finance for CO2 reduction in developing countries. Nuclear power is not confirmed as an option of CDM due to its concern of safety issue. On the other hand, there are many remarkable movements on another nuclear power, which utilizes “thorium” as fuel, in the world recently. Thorium nuclear power becomes to be discussed not only by nuclear specialists but also in the field of global warming. This is because thorium nuclear power has a potential to achieve both production of electricity without emitting CO2 and reduction of concerns of ordinary nuclear power at the same time. In this chapter, outline of thorium nuclear power will be introduced and its implementation scenario in the global scale from a view of global warming will be demonstrated. In addition, background of recent trend of global warming, which calls thorium nuclear power, will be shown. The focal point of above calculation is mass-balance of fissile materials because implementation amount of thorium nuclear power is mainly governed by supply amount of fissile materials.