Energy issues and multi-purpose use of nuclear reactors

As a part of the measures to get rid of petroleum, the utilization of heat in nuclear reactors for the other fields than electric power has come to the fore together with the expansion and promotion of nuclear power generation. The steam below 300 deg C produced in light water reactors is used as the heat sources for chemical reactions, sea water desalting, regional room heating and so on. For the high temperature region from 850 to 1000 deg C, the high temperature gas reactor system is suitable, which uses coated pellet fuel, graphite as the moderator and helium gas as the coolant. The breakdown of the primary energy supply in Japan in 1977 showed 27% for electric power and 73% for the other purposes, while the total quantity was 412 million kl calculated in terms of petroleum. The demand of heat sources and fuels seems to depend on petroleum, coal and natural gas still in 2020. It is necessary to adopt the nuclear heat with nuclear reactors to reduce the rate of fossil fuel dependence and to diversify energy sources. The status of the utilization of low temperature and high temperature nuclear heat in the world is explained. In Japan, the plants utilizing nuclear heat, such as iron making, coal gasification, coal liquefaction, and hydrogen production, were investigated. A multi-purpose high temperature gas reactor system has been studied by the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute. (Kako, I.)