324 Engineering Response to Climate Change
of new fuel cycles and reactor technologies requires demonstration of new
reactor concepts and their economic viability, as well as regulatory reviews
and approvals. The realization of these efforts will require long-term com-
mitments and time.
For the most part, only advanced LWRs are being considered for deploy-
ment in the near term. Considering that LWRs have a lifetime of 60 years,
and potentially up to 80 years (NRC/DOE 2008), they will remain as the bulk
of the global nuclear energy system well into the twenty-rst century. While
some nations are phasing-out or are not further extending existing licenses,
they represent only a small portion of the total global nuclear capacity. For
this reason, ...