This chapter discusses leading problems linked to energy that the world is now confronting and to propose some ideas concerning possible solutions. Oil deserves special attention among all energy sources. Since the beginning of 1981, it has merely been continuing and enhancing the downward movement in consumption and prices caused by excessive rises, especially for light crudes such as those from Africa, and the slowing down of worldwide economic growth. Densely-populated oil-producing countries need to produce to live, to pay for their food and their equipment. If the economic growth of the industrialized countries were to be 4%, even if investment in the rational use of energy were pushed to the limit and the development of nonpetroleum energy sources were also pursued actively, it would be extremely difficult to prevent a sharp rise in prices. It is evident that it is absolutely necessary to pursue actively the development of coal, natural gas, and nuclear power if a physical shortage of energy is not to block economic growth.

World energy outlook

The Serpent Monte Carlo reactor physics burnup calculation code has been developed at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland since 2004, and is currently used in over 100 universities and research organizations around the world. This paper presents the brief history of the project, together with the currently available methods and capabilities and plans for future work. Typical user applications are introduced in the form of a summary review on Serpent-related publications over the past few years.

The Serpent Monte Carlo code: Status, development and applications in 2013

Contents: 1. Nuclear Power Development. 2. Natural Radioactivity and Radiation Exposures. 3. Neutron Reactions. 4. Nuclear Fission. 5. Chain Reaction and Nuclear Reactors. 6. Types of Nuclear Reactors. 7. Nuclear Fuel Cycle. 8. Nuclear Waste Disposal: Magnitudes of Waste. 9. Storage and Disposal of Nuclear Wastes. 10. Administrative and Policy Issues in Nuclear Waste Disposal. 11. Nuclear Reactor Safety. 12. Nuclear Reactor Accidents. 13. Reactor Safety and Future Nuclear Reactors. 14. Nuclear Energy and Weapons Proliferation. 15. Costs of Electricity from Nuclear Power. 16. The Prospects for Nuclear Power. Appendices.

Nuclear Energy: Principles, Practices, and Prospects

Corrosion rate prediction of 3C steel under different seawater environment by using support vector regression

Nuclear Desalination: A State-of-the-Art Review

Support vector regression model for the estimation of γ -ray buildup factors for multi-layer shields

Annealing strategies for loading pattern optimization.

Promises and limitations of nuclear fission energy in combating climate change

The potential of fission nuclear power in resolving global climate change under the constraints of nuclear fuel resources and once-through fuel cycles

Revised guidelines with the support of computational benchmarks are needed for the regulation of the allowed neutron irradiation to reactor structures during power plant lifetime. Currently, US NRC Regulatory Guide 1.190 is the effective guideline for reactor dosimetry calculations. A well known international shielding database SINBAD contains large selection of models for benchmarking neutron transport methods. In this paper a PCA benchmark has been chosen from SINBAD for qualification of our methodology for pressure vessel neutron fluence calculations, as required by the Regulatory Guide 1.190. The SCALE6.0 code package, developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, was used for modeling of the PCA benchmark. The CSAS6 criticality sequence of the SCALE6.0 code package, which includes KENO-VI Monte Carlo code, as well as MAVRIC/Monaco hybrid shielding sequence, was utilized for calculation of equivalent fission fluxes. The shielding analysis was performed using multigroup shielding library v7_200n47g derived from general purpose ENDF/B-VII.0 library. As a source of response functions for reaction rate calculations with MAVRIC we used international reactor dosimetry libraries (IRDF-2002 and IRDF-90.v2) and appropriate cross-sections from transport library v7_200n47g. The comparison of calculational results and benchmark data showed a good agreement of the calculated and measured equivalent fission fluxes.

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Dubravko Pevec

Papers

Support vector regression model for the estimation of γ -ray buildup factors for multi-layer shields

Annealing strategies for loading pattern optimization.

Promises and limitations of nuclear fission energy in combating climate change

The potential of fission nuclear power in resolving global climate change under the constraints of nuclear fuel resources and once-through fuel cycles

Modeling of the ORNL PCA Benchmark Using SCALE6.0 Hybrid Deterministic-Stochastic Methodology