| Given
that a resurgence of interest in nuclear fission as a source of
energy is emerging in many countries throughout the world as a result
of a growing demand for energy and the simultaneous concerns for
production of green house gases from conventional fossil-fuel power
plants, the Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference
(NSS-MIC) has reintroduced nuclear power as one of its topics after
an absence of several years. Nuclear power is a rapidly growing
element in the global energy mix, with some projecting the number
of nuclear power plants in the world to grow by a factor three,
to 1200 facilities by 2050.
A session on the topic of nuclear power was held on October 20,
2008, at the NSS in Dresden, Germany. The Nuclear Science Symposium
is an ideal forum to bring together scientists and engineers working
in fields that are highly relevant to development of future reactor
concepts, as well as those who are involved with the lifetime extension
of facilities. Nuclear fusion was not discussed in the session since
there was a plenary presentation on the International Thermonuclear
Experimental Reactor (ITER) project.
This nuclear power session was extremely successful, with more than
160 NSS-MIC participants attending the session. The session started
with an overview talk by H. Paillere from CEA Saclay, France, on
the role of nuclear power for future energy needs. The session also
featured contributions on dedicated instrumentation, as well as
recent results of thermohydraulic simulations inside the containment
of a nuclear power plant, presented by H. J. Allelein from RWTH
in Aachen, Germany. After most of the presentations, a lively discussion
developed, which continued even after the close of the session.
Sessions on nuclear power are planned to be part of the standard
program for future NSS-MIC conferences, with expanded sessions on
this topic in the future. Participants working in the field of nuclear
power will also benefit from the scientific contributions presented
in the other well-established and relevant NSS sessions on Nuclear
Measurements and Monitoring Techniques, Neutron Instrumentation,
Radiation Damage Effects, Safety Instrumentation, and Homeland Security,
among others. The nuclear power sessions will offer scientists and
engineers from the nuclear industry a broad forum to present their
achievements in instrumentation, control systems, and radiation
hardness of materials used in nuclear power plants, to name just
a few. The reintroduced nuclear power session can already be considered
well embedded into the program of the NSS, providing a complement
to dedicated nuclear power community conferences. The planning for
the nuclear power sessions at NSS-MIC 2009 in Orlando, Florida is
already under way.
This report was prepared by Christoph Ilgner who can be reached
at Christoph.Ilgner@physik.tu-dortmund.de
and Dick Kouzes, who can be reached at richard.kouzes@pnl.gov.
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