Many of the world’s largest short-term decarbonisation efforts have been accomplished using nuclear energy. While all forms of energy production have potential downsides, nuclear energy’s reliability, density, and versatility make it well suited as a part of a global clean energy system.

No energy source is always available, but nuclear energy gets pretty close. In the United States, nuclear power plants regularly operate for more than 90% of the year, providing “baseload” clean energy. In the developing and developed world, the availability of clean energy is critical to reducing humanity’s long-term impact on the environment and population.

Nuclear power plants provide clean energy during disastrous weather events and require infrequent refueling, contributing to their high reliability. Nuclear energy’s high capacity factor, a measurement of how much of the time an energy source is generating electricity, makes it ideally suited to providing energy in situations when weather and other resources may not be reliable.

Electricity is only part of the story.
Electricity production accounts for less than 40% of the energy usage and carbon emissions in the United States. Around the world, nuclear power plants are currently used to heat homes and create fresh water in addition to providing electricity. Transportation and industrial energy use, which are heavily reliant on fossil fuels, make up half of total energy usage in the United States and will need to be decarbonized. Nuclear energy has long been seen as a viable replacement for fossil fuel-based heat in many industrial processes and can be used to create electricity and zero-carbon fuels, like hydrogen, for use in decarbonized transportation.

Nuclear fuel, usually made from uranium, is one of the most dense fuel sources available. A single pellet of uranium fuel, weighing just six grams, has about as much energy available in today’s fission reactor as 3 barrels of oil (42 gallons each), 1 ton of coal, or 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas.

For more than fifty years, the nuclear fuel cycle has contributed to clean energy in the United States and around the world. The nuclear fuel cycle relies on uranium, a relatively common and abundant element, and consists of the processes and industrial operations required to extract usable energy from uranium. When reprocessing and recycling of used nuclear fuel (UNF), also known as spent nuclear fuel, is included as a part of the fuel cycle, a truly repeatable loop is created.

1.     Recovery (mining and milling) – up until several decades ago, most uranium was recovered using open pit mining. Now, in-situ recovery is the predominant form of uranium recovery. Chemicals that dissolve uranium are pumped into bore holes. The solution is then pumped to the surface. This process reduces worker exposure to the uranium and lowers costs. The recovered uranium is processed in a mill into a uranium oxide (U₂O₃) concentrate, sometimes called “Yellow Cake.”

2.     Conversion – uranium oxide is converted into uranium hexafluoride (UF₆) in preparation for enrichment.

3.     Enrichment – two isotopes of Uranium, U-235 and U-238, make up the majority of all uranium ores found in nature. Of these two isotopes, U-235 drives the fission reactions in nuclear reactors and makes up less than 1% of natural uranium. Compared to natural uranium, enriched uranium has more U-235; depleted uranium has more U-238. Light water reactors in the United States and around the world use low-enriched uranium, around 3-5% U-235. Enrichment processes usually use centrifuges or gaseous diffusion. The difference in weight between the isotopes separates them.

4.     Fuel Fabrication – reactor fuel can take many forms but traditionally takes the form of ceramic uranium dioxide (UO₂). Pellets of fuel are stacked within sealed metal tubes, which are then assembled into a bundle of steel rods, called a fuel assembly.

5.     Energy Generation – the fuel is put into the reactor core, where it can be used for varying amounts of time based on design and operation. Most fuel spends around 4 or 5 years generating energy within a reactor core. The used fuel assemblies are then removed from the core.

6.     Interim Storage – used nuclear fuel remains both hot and radioactive after operation within a reactor. Large pools of water--fuel pools--are used to cool and shield the fuel; they usually hold fuel for about 10 years. In the United States, this is where the nuclear fuel cycle currently ends. As fuel assemblies cool, they are moved to dry casks--huge sealed concrete containers--for storage and air cooling at the reactor site.

7.     Reprocessing* – used nuclear fuel still contains about 95% of its original uranium and the overall U-235 content has only slightly decreased. Reprocessing can extract the useable uranium and plutonium (created in the fissioning process), which can then be recycled as new fuel for current and future reactors. By reprocessing and recycling, waste volumes and their longevity can be drastically reduced.

8.     Vitrification - any liquid waste from reprocessing is heated to powder and the immobilized in glass. This glass can then be poured into long-term storage canisters for transport or storage.

9.     Long-term Isolation - whether reprocessing or not, some byproducts of the nuclear fuel cycle, known in the United States as high level waste (HLW), will require final disposal. Currently, geologic isolation, where the byproducts are placed in stable rock formations hundreds of feet below ground, is the final disposal plan for many nations. Numerous nations are constructing or siting such repositories

Hyperloop is a completely new mode of fastest transportation and it is firstly proposed by Elon Musk and a team of engineers from Tesla Motors and the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation in August 2013. Existing Conventional mode of transportation of people consists of four unique types: rail, road, water, and air. These modes of transport tends to be either relatively slow (e.g., road and water), expensive (e.g., air), or a combination of relatively slow and expensive (i.e., rail). A hyperloop comprises a sealed tube or system of tubes through which a pod may travel free of air resistance or objects at speed while being very efficient. Hyper loop consists of a low pressure tube with capsules that are transported at both low and high speeds throughout the length of the tube. The capsules are supported on a cushion of air, featuring pressurized air and aerodynamic lift. Passengers may enter and exit hyperloop at station located either at the end of the tube, or branches along the tube length. It quickly becomes apparent just how dramatically the hyperloop could change transportation, road congestion and minimize the carbon footprint globally. With the hyperloop, extremely fast, inexpensive intercity travel would be widely accessible. If both people and goods can move more quickly and comparatively cheaply, rapid growth is a logical outcome.