Rapidly escalating natural gas prices have brought on a resurgence in the nuclear industry, which could have the next generation of nuclear power plants up and running by 2014, industry executives and engineers said Tuesday.
The nuclear industry is celebrating its 50th anniversary in Pittsburgh this week at the 50th annual meeting of the LaGrange Park, Ill.-based American Nuclear Society, which is being billed as "A Golden Anniversary -- A Golden Opportunity." Yesterday, officials talked about opportunities to increase the industry's 20 percent share of the domestic energy generation market with new technologies.
"There are forecasts that the world's population could double in the next 50 years, and that means energy demand could double, or even triple, during that time," said Dan Keuter, a vice president with Entergy Nuclear. "We're probably going to use more energy in the next 50 years than we have in all of mankind's history."
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Central to NuStart's new plant design will be Westinghouse's AP 1000 reactor, an update of the company's reactor technology that is in widespread use around the world. Jack Allen, a senior vice president for Westinghouse, said the new reactor increases output by 80 percent but cost by only 20 percent when compared to its predecessor.
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