Is There Any Hope Left For Nuclear Energy?
Can nuclear help avoid the worst effects of climate change?
The International Energy Agency recently provided a roadmap for nuclear power, detailing how the technology could help keep global temperature increases within a 2-degree scenario. According to the IEA report, between 2015 and 2050 total installed nuclear power capacity around the world would need to more than double from 396 gigawatts (GW) to 930 GW.
To get there, the IEA says that the world will need to see an additional 20 GW of new nuclear capacity each year, a scenario that from today’s vantage point seems highly unlikely. The IEA admits as much, and says several key things must happen in order for the industry to ramp up in such a rapid fashion.
The need to train a skilled workforce, greater standardization, more public acceptance, and a resolution to long-term nuclear waste storage feature among the key objectives. There are good reasons to believe that these problems could theoretically be addressed, albeit with great political difficulty.
Related: China’s Nuclear Power Gamble Is Mind-Boggling
Critically, however, the IEA notes that the nuclear industry is going to need to demonstrate that it can build new power plants on time and within budget. On this objective, the industry is failing miserably. Nuclear power plants have often suffered from cost overruns and delays, one factor (among many) that put the industry into a decades-long lull beginning in the early 1980’s. The so-called “nuclear renaissance” was thought to put an end to these problems with a new generation of designs and modular construction. So far, it hasn’t played out that way.
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