Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	EP/C549465/1
Title:	Keeping the Nuclear Option Open
Principal Investigator:	Grimes, Professor RW
Other Investigators:	Smith, Professor D Lee, Professor W Edwards, Professor L Goddard, Professor AJ Hewitt, Professor GF Allen, Professor R Marrow, Professor J Biggs, Professor SR Scruby, Professor CB Hutchings, Professor G Cotton, Dr MA Walker, Dr S Sherry, Professor AH Livens, Professor F Laurence, Professor D Marsden, Professor BJ Milestone, Dr NB
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:	BNFL
Department:	Materials
Organisation:	Imperial College London
Scheme:	Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts:	01 October 2005	Ends:	31 March 2010	Value (£):	6,114,715
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Energy - Nuclear
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Energy
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Summary on Grant Application Form
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 adopt a 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 and extending 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 and technologies, 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.
Key Findings
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Potential use in non-academic contexts
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Organisation Website:	http://www.imperial.ac.uk