Nuclear energy policy
[5][6][7][8] Thirty-one countries operate nuclear power stations, and there are a considerable number of new reactors being built in China, South Korea, India, and Russia.
[12] However, increasing energy demand was believed to require new sources of electric power, and rising fossil fuel prices coupled with concerns about greenhouse gas emissions (see Climate change mitigation) have sparked heightened interest in nuclear power and predictions of a nuclear renaissance.
[citation needed] Nuclear power has been relatively unaffected by embargoes, and uranium is mined in "reliable" countries, including Australia and Canada.
[19][21] Many commentators have criticized Germany's Energiewende policy to shut down its world-class nuclear fleet after the Fukushima disaster and rely instead on renewable energy sources, which in the interim has made them heavily dependent on Russian gas.
[22] Responding to Russia's attempt to exploit this dependency by shutting off natural gas supplies, Germany is ramping up coal production,[23] while maintaining two nuclear plants in reserve.
In 1973 and 1974, the International Atomic Energy Agency predicted a worldwide installed nuclear capacity of 3,600 to 5,000 gigawatts by 2000.
Moreover, construction costs have often been much higher, and times much longer than projected, failing to meet optimistic projections of “unlimited cheap, clean, and safe electricity.”[29] Since about 2001 the term nuclear renaissance has been used to refer to a possible nuclear power industry revival, driven by rising fossil fuel prices and new concerns about meeting greenhouse gas emission limits.
[35][36][37][38][39] 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".
[40] China, Germany, Switzerland, Israel, Malaysia, Thailand, United Kingdom, Italy[41] and the Philippines have reviewed their nuclear power programs.
[5][6][7][8] Countries such as Australia, Austria, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Portugal, Israel, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Norway remain opposed to nuclear power.
In October 2021 the Japanese cabinet approved the new Plan for Electricity Generation to 2030 prepared by the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (ANRE) and an advisory committee, following public consultation.
Prime minister Fumio Kishida in July 2022 announced that the country should consider building advanced reactors and extending operating licences beyond 60 years.
[61] In 2018 the IPCC provided advice to policymakers giving four illustrative model pathways to limit warming to 1.5 degrees.
[62] In 2021 the European Union Joint Research Centre issued the results of its study on whether nuclear power generation meets the criteria of its Green Taxonomy.
The analyses did not reveal any science-based evidence that nuclear energy does more harm to human health or to the environment than other electricity production technologies already included in the EU Green Taxonomy as activities supporting climate change mitigation.
[63] As a result of this assessment, the EU Parliament voted to include nuclear energy in its Green Taxonomy.
Some of these companies include ARC Nuclear[66] in Canada, CNEA in Denmark, Areva TA in France, Toshiba and JAERI in Japan, OKB Gidropress in Russia, and OPEN100[67] and X-energy[68] in the United States.
