Keeping the Nuclear Option Open

Completed

Nuclear Fission and Fusion(Nuclear Fission)

Basic and strategic applied research

PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Chemistry)
PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Physics)
PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Metallurgy and Materials)
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Electrical and Electronic Engineering)
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (General Engineering and Mineral & Mining Engineering)
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Civil Engineering)
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering)

Not Cross-cutting

Professor RW Grimes
Materials
Imperial College London

Standard

EPSRC

01 October 2005

31 March 2010

54 months

£6,114,715

Energy

London

Energy -- Energy Research Capacity

Professor RW Grimes, Materials, Imperial College London

Professor R Allen, Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Sheffield
Professor SR Biggs, Inst of Particle Science & Engineering, University of Leeds
Dr M Cotton, Environment, University of York
Professor AJ Goddard, Department of Earth Sciences, Imperial College London
Professor GF Hewitt, Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London
Professor GJ Hutchings, Chemistry, Cardiff University
Professor D Laurence, Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, University of Manchester
Professor B Lee, Materials, Imperial College London
Professor F Livens, Chemistry, University of Manchester
Dr TJ Marrow, Materials, University of Oxford
Professor BJ Marsden, Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, University of Manchester
Dr NB Milestone, Engineering Materials, University of Sheffield
Professor CB Scruby, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College London
Professor AH Sherry, Materials, University of Manchester
Professor D Smith, Mechanical Engineering, University of Bristol
Dr S Walker, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College London

Project Contact, British Nuclear Fuels plc

The Towards a Sustainable Energy Economy Programme is aimed at 'giving the UK access to a secure, safe, diverse and reliable energy supply at competitive prices while meeting the challenge of global warming. (http://www.nerc.ac.uk/funding/programmes/sustenergy/) The Engineering and Physical Science Research Councils, the Economic and Social Research Council and the Natural Environment Research Council jointly have funding of 28 million for the programme. This research programme will adopta whole-systems approach demanding, a truly interdisciplinary treatment. It includes several mechanisms for supporting research - for example UKERC (the UK Energy Research Centre, http://www.ukerc.ac.uk ) - and Consortia, Research Groups and Networks.The first Consortium programme to be announced was 'Keeping the Nuclear Option Open' (KNOO) - planned in response to the commitment in the Energy White Paper. The research challenges in fission R&D span areas as diverse as maintaining andextending the life of existing generating plant; management of the current and future fission waste legacy; technology for future fission power generation and research that can contribute to an open and informed debate on the current and future role of nuclear power in the UK's energy supply. In making the call for proposals three main topics were emphasised: maintaining current generating capacity; fission within a sustainable energy economy and future fission power -with the anticipated scope of research cutting across the three topics.'The KNOO research Consortium is planned to bring together academic centres, users and stakeholders in the research process and the objective is to build a critical mass in a strategic areas of technology. The potential research priorities are broad and will reflect the ethos of TSEC - and may include novel reactor concepts, fuel cycles and fuel management, waste management and storage, decommissioning technologies,materials science andtechnologies, as well has issues such as public acceptability of the nuclear option. Following a call for Expressions of Interest in late 2003, a consultation meeting was organised by EPSRC in March 2004 and this was followed by the selection by EPSRC of a group of Partners charged with preparing the Consortium research proposal. The interim Coordinator of this proposal is Prof Tony Goddard of Imperial College (a.goddard@imperial.ac.uk). If the proposal is approved,the Consortium will begin work - with a budget over four years of approximately 6M - in the Spring of 2005

01/01/07