NUCLEAR AND ENVIRONMENTAL SAFETY OF WORLD NUCLEAR ENERGY AT THE STAGE OF THE FOURTH GLOBAL ENERGY TRANSITION

Abstract

For world nuclear energy, the current global energy transition has become the most difficult test stage in its entire history. It was caused by modern global demographic processes. Starting from 2011, in the global nuclear power industry, the design terms of operation of old nuclear power units (NPPs) are being extended, old NPPs are being modernized and new NPPs are being built. But the problems of technological, operational and nuclear-environmental safety of the modern development of world nuclear energy remain largely unexplored. Therefore, the work analyzes the state and prospects of ensuring the nuclear and environmental safety of the world nuclear power complex (NEC), based on the peculiarities of its evolution in the current era of the fourth global energy transition. The biggest threat to the future existence of the world's NPP is the human factor and beyond-design nuclear accidents and catastrophes, which have always been the result of extremely unlikely combinations of initial emergency events unforeseen by projects. To eliminate the consequences of these accidents, the personnel did not have the appropriate training and equipment. In the next 20-30 years, only North America, Europe, the countries of the former USSR and the developed countries of Asia will be able to maintain the contribution of nuclear energy to the total world electricity generation, more than 10%, but with a possible reduction of this indicator to 6-4%. Global nuclear energy continues to exist and develop in the presence of a considerable list of unresolved problems of its nuclear and environmental safety, together with the absence of technologically guaranteed reliable and safe nuclear energy technologies among the entire pool of existing and new projects under development, that remain unresolved both today and in the future for decades. The IAEA and the world's leading experts, based on the current situation in the world's nuclear energy, emphasize the need to create its absolute nuclear and environmental safety.