LIGHT WATER REACTOR SUSTAINABILITY PROGRAM: INTRODUCTION
The Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) Program is the primary programmatic activity that addresses Objective 1 described in the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy’s 2010 Research and Development Roadmap. For the purpose of the LWRS Program, “sustainability” means the prudent use of resources – in this case, our nation’s commercial nuclear power plants. Sustainability is defined as the ability to maintain safe and economic operation of the existing fleet of nuclear power plants for a longer-than-initially-licensed lifetime. It has two facets with respect to long-term operations: (1) manage the aging of plant systems, structures, and components so that nuclear power plant lifetimes can be extended and the plants can continue to operate safely, efficiently, and economically; and (2) provide science-based solutions to the industry to implement technology to exceed the performance of the current labor-intensive business model.
Extending the operating lifetimes of current plants beyond 60 years and, where practical, making further improvements in their productivity is essential to realizing the administration’s goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by the year 2050.
The following LWRS Program research and development pathways address Objective 1 of the 2010 Nuclear Energy Roadmap:
- Materials Aging and Degradation
- Advanced Light Water Reactor Nuclear Fuels
- Advanced Instrumentation, Information, and Control Systems Technologies
- Risk-Informed Safety Margin Characterization
Projected nuclear energy contribution to the domestic generating capacity. If current operating nuclear power plants do not operate beyond 60 years (and new nuclear plants are not built quickly enough to replace them), the total fraction of generated electrical energy from nuclear power will begin to decline. The oldest commercial plants in the United States reached their 40th anniversary in 2009.
