Perspectives of Nuclear Energy for Human Development
- Electricite de France, Engineering Division, Cap Ampere 1, Place Pleyel, 93 282 Saint Denis Cedex (France)
In this period of expectation and short term viewing, everyone has difficulties to draw long term perspectives. A positive global world vision of sustainable development gives confidence in the preparation of energy future in a moving international context. This presentation proposes to share such a long term vision inside which energy scenarios for nuclear development take their right place. It is founded on a specific analysis of an index of countries global development which is representative of a country efficiency. Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite international index recommended and calculated every year since 1990 by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). This index is still very dependent of GNP, which ignores the disparities of revenues inside the country. That is why a Country Efficiency Index (CEI) has been defined to better represent the capacity of a country to utilize its resources for welfare of its inhabitants. CEI is a ratio of health and education levels to the capacity of the country to satisfy this welfare. CEI has been calculated for the 70 more populated countries of the world for the year 1997. CEI calculation has been also performed for European Countries, the United States, China and India on the period from 1965 to 1997. It is observed a growth of CEI. for France from 0.6 to 0.78, and from 0.7 to 0.85 for USA. In 1997, CEI of China was 0.46, and 0.38 for India. This index is a good tool to measure the progression of development of the countries and the related energy needs. Comparison of the evolutions of CEI of these different countries shows a similar positive trend with some delay between OECD countries and China or India. A positive scenario for the future is based on a similar curve for these developing countries with learning effect which produces development with less energy consumption. This simulation results however in energy needs that exceed fossil fuel today available resources in 2070. Ultimate fossil resources must be deployed together with the use of nuclear and renewables. CEI level is an indicator of the country structural soundness. A low level does not allow the industrial management of complex technologies such as nuclear or other complex energy systems. There is a limit for nuclear development which increases with the collective management capability of the country. But increasing efficiency index goes with more energy, which, for developing countries, means an economic access to fossil fuels. This necessitates that the fossil fuels access price, which almost entirely depends on imports from OECD countries, be low enough to allow a progression in the collective efficiency of the countries. This is where nuclear energy has a major function in lightening the burden on fossil fuels transactions by taking its full economic position in the countries with high efficiency index. The two messages of this presentation are that collective efficiencies of the countries steadily increase in the long term and that nuclear development in the most efficient countries is a necessity for efficient development of the other countries. (author)
- Research Organization:
- American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 21167865
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: ICAPP'02: 2002 International congress on advances in nuclear power plants, Hollywood, FL (United States), 9-13 Jun 2002; Other Information: Country of input: France
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Long-term tradeoffs between nuclear- and fossil-fuel burning
Outlook and Challenges for Chinese Coal