Nuclear power today

Nuclear reactors are characterised by high capital cost and low fuel costs. Economic solutions have been found to the particular problems imposed by radioactivity, and the pattern of future development will be aimed at reducing the cost of electricity by using larger reactors, improved components and more advanced fuels. In the late 1970s, fast reactors will burn and produce plutonium and therefore operate with very low fuel costs, but thermal reactors may well still be built in the 1980s to provide the plutonium needed for the expanding fast-reactor system.