The United States critically lagged behind Russia in the field of nuclear energy
According to American experts, the US atomic energy industry, which previously held leading positions in the world, lost the competitive struggle of Russia and China, which is gaining momentum. But the loss of world markets is not the only problem. The archaic nuclear power industry in the United States itself requires extensive modernization, and funds will only be enough to preserve old reactors
Russia belongs to the pioneers in the development of nuclear energy. The world's first nuclear power plant was built in the city of Obninsk in 1954. The first floating nuclear power plants appeared in America, but they also received the greatest development in the USSR and Russia. Our country is also a pioneer in the development of fast and neutron reactors, experts say the site Dailycaller. At least until 2028, Russia plans to commission at least one new large reactor per year. The World Nuclear Association believes that the development of nuclear technologies and infrastructure are priorities for the Russian leadership.
America, according to many American experts, is critically lagging behind Russia in the development of nuclear energy. The US energy industry pays special attention to the efficiency and speed of work of the Russian colleagues. It often takes less than two years to obtain permits for the construction of new reactors. It may take up to ... 25 years to obtain permission from the American Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to build a new reactor. Another ten years took the construction of the reactor itself. Scandals, bureaucracy and problems with environmental protection have led to the construction of the last nuclear reactor in Watt Barre, Tennessee, stretched, according to Dailycaller, to the fantastic 43 of the year!
In Russia, the Federal Target Program “Nuclear power technologies of a new generation for the period 2010-2015 and for the future up to 2020 of the year” is currently in operation. Among its goals are the development of new generation energy technologies based on fast neutron reactors with a closed nuclear fuel cycle and an increase in the efficiency of using natural uranium and spent nuclear fuel. One of the important tasks of the program is to research new ways to use the energy of the atomic nucleus.
36 nuclear reactors are operating in Russia. Another 20 reactors are under construction and are intended for sale abroad.
Nuclear power is a completely profitable power industry not only from the point of view of the economy, but also of finance. Riyadh, for example, intends to purchase 2030 nuclear power plants from Moscow before 16. The first reactor should start generating nuclear energy already in the 2022 year. The cost of the entire mega-deal is estimated at about 100 billion dollars. In Saudi Arabia, they are ready to develop nuclear energy at an accelerated pace despite terrorist threats. Riyadh states that Saudi nuclear power plants built by Rosatom, the state-owned nuclear energy corporation Rosatom, will not only generate energy, but also supply energy to water desalination plants. All this, according to Saudi economists, should very significantly reduce domestic oil consumption in the kingdom and allow more to sell it abroad.
New nuclear reactors are planning to build with the technical assistance and financing of Russia or China and other politically unstable Muslim countries in which there is a terrorist threat: Algeria, Iran, Pakistan and Egypt.
Beijing is also rapidly developing its own nuclear energy program. China, according to specialists of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), should overtake the US in this important energy sector in the next decade. Moreover, in the People's Republic of China they hope to produce by the 2030 year already one and a half times more nuclear energy than America, and they want to invest 1 trillion dollars by the middle of the century. Particularly high hopes in China lay on the latest reactors on molten salts.
As for the American atomic energy, it is badly harmed, according to Dailycaller, too much lack of regulation. Only in order to simply comply with all the numerous rules and regulations of the authorities, American NPPs have to spend on average about 22 million dollars annually. The following figures speak eloquently about the slow development of American atomic energy: according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the nuclear power capacity of the entire planet will increase by 2040% by 60 and by only 16% by American over the same period. Of the 59 new nuclear reactors currently under construction around the world, only 4 are being built in America. They are enough only to compensate for the closure of old reactors, the life of which is rapidly coming to an end.
The average lifetime of nuclear reactors in America is 35 years. By modern standards and standards, such a period is considered to be very obsolete, because it is very close to the end of the validity of nuclear power plant licenses, equal to 40 years. Meanwhile, 16 nuclear reactors operating at 61 American nuclear power plants, more than 42 years. At each nuclear power plant in the United States, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), there are highly skilled workers from 400 to 700, each power plant brings an average of about half a billion dollars a year to the American economy.
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