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Nuclear energy has a half of a century contributing to the generation of electricity in the world. The way has not been easy, since risk perception on part of the public opinion has not remained totally favorable to this technology, as some issues like accidents and waste management have been misused by detractors. However, as security of energy supply, climate change, and profitability have raised as concerning issues in energy planning, the generation of electricity by nuclear means has started to be on the table again, and a renaissance seems to be close. This article intends to provide with a brief description on the current situation of Nuclear Energy, and their perspectives, pointing out its main characteristics that can be advantageous in order to be included in the fuel mixings of the future.

Despite energy saving efforts and improved efficiency of energy production, projections of the World Energy Council indicate a significant increase in global energy consumption in the medium and long term due to a further growing world population and rising prosperity. On the other hand, the energy supply is connected with a threatening of the earth’s environmental and climate system. The present share of fossil fuels of 80 % in the world’s energy consumption is hardly expected to change in the short and medium term. Continuation of the extended use of natural resources of coal, oil, and natural gas, however, carries the danger of over-stressing the environment. In addition, strongly fluctuating energy prices, the dependence of many countries on energy imports from politically unstable regions, and the uncertainty about how long oil and gas reserves will last, are raising fears of supply security. This all urgently calls for political and technological counteractions.

The economic viability of the energy sector is fundamental for the development of Mexico. The main objective of the economic sectors is to reduce the cost of energy production. The application of the nuclear and renewable energy sources can be developed in Mexico with a limitless potential for the electricity production, heat, hydrogen and seawater desalination, without Greenhouse Gases (GHG’s) emissions and under acceptable economic conditions. For the future development of this potential, it is required to make deep institutional changes by state promotion and with the public acceptance. However, it is at present when we most settle down the bases for a new energy politics by means of appropriate clear objectives. In order to attain such goals, the participation of the universities, institutions, public administration and companies is required. The proposed energy program until the year 2030 includes expansion mainly for the period 2007–2015 of the electrical sector using the renewable energy resources, hydro, geothermal, biomass and wind, for being more competitive for the country instead of a gas-based combined cycle plant. This paper analyses the benefits to develop the power sector mainly using High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors (HTGR’s), in 2015-2030, adding to renewable power technologies.

Recent construction technique developments and technology evolution have made the nuclear option a cost competitive option with other load base technologies such as coal and combined cycle facilities based on natural gas. Construction period, from first concrete to commercial operation, is around five years, as it has been confirmed by the most recent reactors built in Asia (e.g. Japan and China). At present, the cost for a new nuclear power plant has dropped overnight and is lower than in the past. The different reactors suppliers are offering new plants between 1200 and 1600 USD/kW with an output power between 1100 and 1600 MWe. In this work different scenarios of electricity generation using combined cycles by using natural gas and nuclear power stations are assessed from an economical point of view. The scenarios considered comprise three different discount rates, 5 %, 8 % and 10 %.

The public acceptance of an increase program of nuclear energy requires an openly and straight forward discussion, in an understandable way of the main issues against nuclear energy as: nuclear accidents, proliferation of nuclear weapons and safety storage of nuclear waste. Regarding this last issue, there are doubts concerning stability of geological sites to storage nuclear waste as well as possible leakage and migration of radioactive waste from containers, which potentially could contaminate underground aquifers. Technical explanations about safety designs of those nuclear waste storages do not convince general public because of the thousand of year half-life of the radioactive generating material from uranium fuel.

Nature has contributed to present us a wonderful example concerning immobility of nuclear waste, not in a period of thousand of years, but thousands of million of years. This paper describes the discovery of several Nuclear Reactors (NRs) that operated two thousand of million years ago, in the Republic of Gabon, Africa.

The discovery of at least 17 NRs in Oklo uranium mine in Gabon was possible from the analysis of the nuclear waste that remaining undisturbed in that mine for nearly two thousand of million years. The reactors were very small of about ten centimeters in diameter and had a power of around 100 kilowatts and were intermittently operating during 150,000 years.

Xenon gases generated from the reactors were kept in the crystalline matrix of aluminium phosphate glasses. Recent analysis of the whole production and trapping process of xenon gasses permitted to know that reactors were intermittently operating in cycles of about 30 minutes and additionally aluminium phosphate glasses showed the capability of trapping xenon gasses in its crystalline matrix for nearly two thousand of millions years.

This paper presents the “design”, functioning and safety storage of nucl waste of NRs that were performed by interdisciplinary work by nature in Oklo, long before man appeared on earth.

Nuclear power set off commercially in the 50’s, with very high hopes in Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States among others. Under the oil crisis, France started a very aggressive program to generate about 70 % of its electrical production from nuclear power. However, in the eighties, as a result of the Three Mile Island accident, several safety concerns were raised, resulting in considerable construction and operation delays. Many planned reactors were left behind and after the Chernobyl accident, reactor construction was stopped in the western world. However in the meantime, the Industry made improvements in safety measurements and performance of its nuclear power facilities. The capacity factor of nuclear plants grew to be around 90 %. The operation licensees of many units were renewed for another 20 years after their first 40 years of operation. Today there are new expectations for nuclear power not only because its economical competitiveness but its potential to produce electricity without greenhouse gas emissions consequently making feasible to achieve Kyoto protocol goals to alleviate global warming. This paper shows the potential of nuclear power as a clean, safe and innovative energy.

This paper reviews the current situation and the future prospects for the application of renewable energy in Mexico. It shows that, in spite of the abundance of renewable energy resources, generation of electricity and other non-electric applications are minimal. Opportunities to use renew-ables as part of the Mexican energy mix are many, and could bring a number of benefits, social, economic, political and environmental, among others. Barriers to do so are also many and are outlined here. It is concluded that Mexico is lagging behind other countries of similar economic capacity with respect to the development of its renewable energy resources, and that a concerted action among different sectors of the economy is necessary to alter the present situation. Otherwise, the opportunity ahead will be lost and Mexico will remain a net importer of new energy technologies.

The sustainability of the energy sector in México, as in many countries of Latin America will depend on decisions that have to be taken now in order to expand the use of clean and renewable energy sources. The use of solar, wind, biomass, as well as other renewable energy sources, will provide México with the diversification of energy resources that will help to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels and decrease CO and other emissions. The increased role of renewable energy sources in Europe and specifically in Germany will have an impact on México, where the development of clean energies needs collaboration between the two countries to accelerate its use.

The generation of electric power for supplying the populations of large cities is effected at an elevated cost, given that this cost does not include solely the price of generating the electric power itself, i.e., production, storage, labor, maintenance of installations, distribution, etc., but, in addition, bears the associated costs of damage to the environment due to the production of residual pollutants, and the consequent damage to the health of humans, and to the flora and fauna.

Mexico is located in the Earth’s sunbelt, where solar energy is plentiful for potential applications of solar energy conversion systems. According to several estimations (), the average insolation over the country’s surface amounts to 5 kWh/day, which puts Mexico in a privileged situation for the deployment of solar energy technologies. Other renewable energy sources such as: wind, biomass, geothermal, large and small hydrological, the ocean, play a role in the national energy supply system or have the potential for being an important factor, but none of them has the potential of solar energy, which could easily satisfy all of the country’s energy requirements. In spite of this, the development of solar energy in México is still marginal. There are several small industries that have been producing and installing flat plate solar collectors for household hot water production and swimming pools for several decades, and the installed capacity has been growing steadily for some years now (68,725 m of collectors were installed during 2004). Also, PV panels are imported and installed in a regular basis but not in very large quantities (9,923 kW were installed during 2004) ().