Ch En 310
Reading
Questions for Class 11
From Boyle et
al., Chapter 11
Topic: The Future of Nuclear Energy
(I found the reading on pages 460-468 to be
a bit tedious; skim this part)
1.
Please comment on which countries have
significant uranium reserves vs. which countries produce the most nuclear
power. For the
http://www.worldenergy.org/publications/survey_of_energy_resources_2007/uranium/671.asp
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/reserves/uresst.html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/electricitygeneration.html
(electric generation by nuclear power stations)
2.
Find the amount of power produced in the
different countries of the world, and comment. Also, look at the major producers over the
last few years and comment on the direction they seem to be headed. (You may also want to comment on if the world
cares about what the
http://www.iaea.org/programmes/a2/index.html (click “world summary” then “Operational and
Under Construction, by country”)
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/forecast/gencap.html
ftp://eia.doe.gov/pub/pdf/international/0484(2003).pdf#page=114&zoom=100
3.
What are the three main reasons that people
do not want to use more nuclear power?
4.
Discuss what happened at the Three Mile
Island and
(a) the web site in the book for Three Mile Island
(b) http://www.uic.com.au/nip22.htm for
5.
Compare the installed cost per kW for
nuclear, coal, and natural gas. Comment
and/or speculate on what the real costs are after considering fuel, operation,
maintenance, and disposal costs. The
following websites may be useful:
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/nuclearnow.html
http://www.uic.com.au/nip08.htm
6.
How soon will the world run out of uranium
reserves?
7.
Please discuss the arguments for and
against increasing our use of nuclear power.
Where do you stand?
Write a question that will help the next
class better study an important
point
in this chapter, or that will serve as a good discussion topic.