Nuclear Power Debate - Future of The Nuclear Industry

Future of The Nuclear Industry

See also: Nuclear renaissance and Anti-nuclear movement

As of May 15, 2011, a total of 438 nuclear reactors were operating in 30 countries, six fewer than the historical maximum of 444 in 2002. Since 2002, utilities have started up 26 units and disconnected 32 including six units at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. The current world reactor fleet has a total nominal capacity of about 372 gigawatts (or thousand megawatts). Despite six fewer units operating in 2011 than in 2002, the capacity is still about 9 gigawatts higher. The numbers of new operative reactors, final shutdowns and new initiated constructions according to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in recent years are as follows:

Year	New connections		Shutdowns		Net change			Construction initiation
	# of reactors	GW	# of reactors	GW	# of reactors	GW		# of reactors	GW
2004	5	4.8	5	1.4	0	+3.4		2	1.3
2005	4	3.8	2	0.9	+2	+2.9		3	2.9
2006	2	1.5	8	2.2	−6	−0.7		4	3.3
2007	3	1.9	0	––	+3	+1.9		8	6.5
2008	0	––	1	0.4	−1	−0.4		10	10.5
2009	2	1.0	3	2.5	−1	−1.4		12	13.1
2010	5	3.8	1	0.1	+4	+3.6		16	15.8
2011	7	4.0	13	11.4	−6	−7.4		2	0.9

Stephanie Cooke has argued that the cost of building new reactors is extremely high, as are the risks involved. Most utilities have said that they won't build new plants without government loan guarantees. There are also bottlenecks at factories that produce reactor pressure vessels and other equipment, and there is a shortage of qualified personnel to build and operate the reactors, although the recent acceleration in nuclear power plant construction is drawing a substantial expansion of the heavy engineering capability.

Following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the International Energy Agency halved its estimate of additional nuclear generating capacity to be built by 2035. Platts has reported that "the crisis at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plants has prompted leading energy-consuming countries to review the safety of their existing reactors and cast doubt on the speed and scale of planned expansions around the world". In 2011, The Economist reported that nuclear power "looks dangerous, unpopular, expensive and risky", and that "it is replaceable with relative ease and could be forgone with no huge structural shifts in the way the world works".

In September 2011, German engineering giant Siemens announced it will withdraw entirely from the nuclear industry, as a response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. The company is to boost its work in the renewable energy sector. Commenting on the German government's policy to close nuclear plants, Werner Sinn, president of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, stated: "It is wrong to shut down the atomic power plants, because this is a cheap source of energy, and wind and solar power are by no means able to provide a replacement. They are much more expensive, and the energy that comes out is of inferior quality. Energy-intensive industries will move out, and the competitiveness of the German manufacturing sector will be reduced or wages will be depressed."

In 2011, Mycle Schneider spoke of a global downward trend in the nuclear power industry:

The international nuclear lobby has pursued a 10-year-long, massive propaganda strategy aimed at convincing decision-makers that atomic technology has a bright future as a low-carbon energy option... however, most of the high-flying nuclear plans never materialized. The historic maximum of reactors operating worldwide was achieved in 2002 with 444 units. In the European Union the historic peak was reached as early as 1988 with 177 reactors, of which only 134 are left. The only new projects underway in Europe are heavily over budget and much delayed.

As Time magazine rightly stated in March, "Nuclear power is expanding only in places where taxpayers and ratepayers can be compelled to foot the bill." China is building 27 -- or more than 40 percent -- of the 65 units officially under construction around the world. Even there, though, nuclear is fading as an energy option. While China has invested the equivalent of about $10 billion per year into nuclear power in recent years, in 2010 it spent twice as much on wind energy alone and some $54.5 billion on all renewables combined.

In contrast, proponents of nuclear power argue that nuclear power has killed by far the fewest number of people per terawatt hour of any type of power generation, and it has a very small impact on the environment with effectively zero emissions of any kind. And this even taking into account the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents, in which few people were killed directly and few excess cancers will be caused by releases of radioactivity to the environment. Some proponents acknowledge that most people will not accept this sort of statistical argument nor will they believe reassuring statements from industry or government. Indeed, the industry itself has created fear of nuclear power by pointing out that radioactivity can be dangerous. Improved communication by industry might help to overcome current fears regarding nuclear power, but it will be a difficult task to change current perceptions in the general population.

But with regard to the proposition that "Improved communication by industry might help to overcome current fears regarding nuclear power", M.V. Ramana says that the basic problem is that there is "distrust of the social institutions that manage nuclear energy", and a 2001 survey by the European Commission found that "only 10.1 percent of Europeans trusted the nuclear industry". This public distrust is periodically reinforced by safety violations by nuclear companies, or through ineffectiveness or corruption on the part of nuclear regulatory authorities. Once lost, says Ramana, trust is extremely difficult to regain. Faced with public antipathy, the nuclear industry has "tried a variety of strategies to persuade the public to accept nuclear power", including the publication of numerous "fact sheets" that discuss issues of public concern. Ramana says that none of these strategies have been very successful.

In March 2012, E.ON UK and RWE npower announced they would be pulling out of developing new nuclear power plants in the UK, placing the future of nuclear power in the UK in doubt. More recently, Centrica (who own British Gas) pulled out of the race on 4 February 2013 by letting go its 20% option on four new nuclear plants. Cumbria county council (a local authority) turned down an application for a final waste repository on 30 January 2013 — there is currently no alternative site on offer.