This paper discusses and presents figures about the future power consumption in the world and,\nespecially in Brazil, based on the current world and Brazilian�s energy scenarios. Emphasis is given\nto the scenarios of nuclear power and uranium resources demand. A discussion on the future\nroles of thorium and uranium fuels in the replacement of the traditional resources like oil and gas\nis also presented, as it is the role of the new nuclear power plants, planned to be built in a short\nterm time horizon. This paper considers two different indexes for future projections, and the results\nobtained indicated a strong dependence on them. The time horizon for the analysis was fixed\non the time estimated for Brazil to reach its maximum in population, and parameters evaluated\nwere taken from the Brazilian�s governmental and world data on the population growth, energy\nconsumption and energy consumption per capita. Calculations show that the power consumption\nprojections for Brazil, for the adopted time horizon and working with global indexes, become\noverestimated, when compared with the results considering the national indexes. According to\nour approach, power consumption estimates using global indexes becomes approximately 4.5\ntimes higher than the estimates presented by the Brazilian indexes. This was the motivation to the\ndiscussion between the Brazilian and world energy demand scenarios, and also the roles of nuclear\nenergy in the future transition from the current conventional to alternative sources.
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