艾德思：Science重新审视核能

A fresh look at nuclear energy

重新审视核能

we are running out of time, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned last October in a special report, Global Warming of °C. National commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement are only the first step toward decarbonization, but most countries are already lagging behind. It is time to take a fresh look at the role that nuclear energy can play in decarbonizing the world's energy system. 

去年十月,联合国政府间气候变化专门委员会(IPCC)在一份关于全球变暖°的专题报告中警示,我们的行动迫在眉睫.虽然各国签署2015年<巴黎协定>并承诺履行只是实现"低碳化'的第一步,但大多数国家未能履约,已经落后于其他国家.现在,在世界能源系统脱碳方面,我们是时候重新审视核能在其中所起的作用.

Nuclear is already the largest source of low-carbon energy in the United States and Europe and the second largest source worldwide (after hydropower). In the September report of the MIT Energy Initiative, The Future of Nuclear Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World, we show that extending the life of the existing fleet of nuclear reactors worldwide is the least costly approach to avoiding an increase of carbon emissions in the power sector. Yet, some countries have prioritized closing nuclear plants, and other countries have policies that undermine the financial viability of their plants. Fortunately, there are signs that this situation is changing. In the United States, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York have taken steps to preserve their nuclear plants as part of a larger decarbonization strategy. In Taiwan, voters rejected a plan to end the use of nuclear energy. In France, decisions on nuclear plant closures must account for the impact on decarbonization commitments. In the United Kingdom, the government's decarbonization policy entails replacing old nuclear plants with new ones. Strong actions are needed also in Belgium, Japan, South Korea, Spain, and Switzerland, where the existing nuclear fleet is seriously at risk of being phased out.

核能已成为美国和欧洲最大的低碳能源,以及全球第二大能源(继水力发电之后).麻省理工学院能源倡议(MITEI)于9月发布的 <碳约束世界中核能的未来>报告表明,延长全球现有核反应堆的寿命可以避免电力部门碳排放增加,并且是耗费最低的方式.然而,一些国家优先关闭核电厂,而其他国家则发布政策以削弱其核电站的资金使用.幸运的是,有迹象表明这种情况正在改变.美国的伊利诺伊州,新泽西州和纽约州已采取措施保护核电厂,为更宏大的脱碳战略作出努力.在台湾,选民对终止使用核能一项计划予以拒绝.在法国,关闭核电厂的决策必须要考虑对国家履行脱碳承诺的影响.在英国,政府的脱碳政策要求必须用新的核电厂取代旧的核电厂.比利时,日本,韩国,西班牙和瑞士也需要采取强有力的行动,因为这些国家现有的核电很可能会被逐步淘汰.

What about the existing electricity sector in developed countries—can it become fully decarbonized? In the United States, China, and Europe, the most effective and least costly path is a combination of variable renewable energy technologies—those that fluctuate with time of day or season (such as solar or wind energy), and lowcarbon dispatchable sources (whose power output to the grid can be controlled on demand). Some options, such as hydropower and geothermal energy, are geographically limited. Other options, such as battery storage, are not affordable at the scale needed to balance variable energy demand through long periods of low wind and sun or through seasonal fluctuations, although that could change in the coming decades. Nuclear energy is one lowcarbon dispatchable option that is virtually unlimited and available now. Excluding nuclear power could double or triple the average cost of electricity for deep decarbonization scenarios because of the enormous overcapacity of solar energy, wind energy, and batteries that would be required to meet demand in the absence of a dispatchable low-carbon energy source.

那么,发达国家现有的电力部门怎么样才能完全脱碳?在美国,中国和欧洲,最有效以及成本最低的途径就是将不同的可变可再生能源技术进行融合——比如那些随时间或季节波动的技术(如太阳能或风能)和低碳可调度源(根据需求控制电网输出功率).像水电和地热能这类技术,在地理上是有限制的.其他选项,例如蓄电池,通过长时间的低风和日晒或季节性波动,在平衡可变能源需求所需的规模上是难以承受的,尽管这可能在未来几十年内发生变化.核能作为一种低碳可调度能源,几乎是无限的,而且目前可用.若需要深度脱碳,放弃核电可能使平均电力成本增加一倍或两倍,这是因为,在没有低碳可调度能源的情况下,用于满足需求的太阳能,风能和电池会出现巨大的产能过剩.

One obstacle is that the cost of new nuclear plants has escalated, especially in the first-of-a-kind units currently being deployed in the United States and Western Europe. This may limit the role of nuclear power in a low-carbon portfolio and raise the cost of deep decarbonization. The good news is that the cost of new nuclear plants can be reduced, not only in the direct cost of the equipment, but also in the associated civil structures and in the processes of engineering, licensing, and assembling the plant. The implication is that a large impact on the cost of new nuclear plants may come from several sources: improvements in project management practices; innovations in the serial construction of standardized designs to minimize reengineering and maximize learning; adoption of modular construction, to shift labor from construction sites to productive factories and shipyards; advanced concrete solutions to reduce the need for reinforcement steel formwork at the site; and seismic isolation to protect the plant against earthquakes, which simplifies the structural design of the plant.

目前有一个障碍是:新核电站的成本不断上升,特别是目前在美国和西欧部署的第一类核电站.这可能会限制核电在低碳能源组合中的作用,而且还会提高深度脱碳的成本.好消息是,新核电站的成本可以得到降低,不仅仅是设备的直接成本,相关的土木结构以及工程,许可和装配过程中的成本也可以降低.这意味着大大影响新核电厂成本的因素可能来自几个方面:项目管理实践的改进;标准化设计及工程建设的创新,以最大限度地减少再造工程以及最大化学习;采用模块化结构,将劳动力从建筑工地转移到生产车间和造船厂;用先进的混凝土以减少现场对钢筋模板的需求;采用隔震技术,以保护核电站免受灾害,这简化了核电站的结构设计.

It's time to transform our thinking. Renewable and nuclear energies are not mutually exclusive, but complementary. We should preserve existing nuclear power plants and reimagine how new plants can be delivered

是时候变通我们的想法了.可再生能源和核能并不是互斥的,而是互补的.我们应该保护现有的核电站,并重新设想怎样搭建全新的核电站.

更多科研论文服务，动动手指，请戳 论文润色、投稿期刊推荐、论文翻译润色、论文指导及修改、论文预审！

语言不过关被拒？美国EditSprings--专业英语论文润色翻译修改服务专家帮您！