Nuclear power debate
[8][9] In the 2010s, with growing public awareness about climate change and the critical role that carbon dioxide and methane emissions plays in causing the heating of the Earth's atmosphere, there was a resurgence in the intensity of the nuclear power debate.
They argue that use of nuclear power provides well-paying jobs, energy security, reduces a dependence on imported fuels and exposure to price risks associated with resource speculation and foreign policy.
[12] Some proponents also believe that nuclear power is the only viable course for a country to achieve energy independence while also meeting their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to reduce carbon emissions in accordance with the Paris Agreement.
[33] The successful use of civil disobedience to prevent the building of this plant was a key moment in the anti-nuclear power movement as it sparked the creation of other groups, in Germany and around the globe.
[34] Pro-nuclear power groups, however, have increasingly pointed towards the potential of nuclear energy to reduce carbon emissions, arguing that it is a safer alternative to means of production such as coal and the overall danger is an exaggeration by the media.
[35] Nuclear power output globally saw slow but steady increase until 2006 when it peaked at 2,791 TWh,[36] and then dropped to historic lows in 2012, mostly as result of Japanese reactors being offline for a full year.
Droughts and extended periods of high temperature can "cripple nuclear power generation, and it is often during these times when electricity demand is highest because of air-conditioning and refrigeration loads and diminished hydroelectric capacity".
[71] In Eastern Europe, a number of long-established projects are struggling to find financing, notably Belene in Bulgaria and the additional reactors at Cernavoda in Romania, and some potential backers have pulled out.
[76] In 2019 a heated debate happened in the European Union on creation of a "green finance taxonomy" list intended to create investment opportunities for zero-emission energy technologies.
[89][90] In July 2020 W. Gyude Moore, former Liberia's Minister for Public Works, called international bodies to start (or restart) funding for nuclear projects in Africa, following the example of US Development Finance Corporation.
In 1982, a Sandia National Laboratories study concluded that depending on the reactor size and 'unfavorable conditions' a serious nuclear accident could lead to property damages as high as $314 billion while fatalities could reach 50,000.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recognizes nuclear as one of the lowest lifecycle emissions energy sources available, lower than solar, and only bested by wind.
[118] In July 2020 Good Energy Collective, the first women-only pressure group advocating nuclear power as part of the climate change mitigation solutions was formed in the US.
Detailed technical analysis was delegated to the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) which looked at all potential issues of nuclear power from scientific, engineering and regulatory point of view and in March 2021 published a 387-page report which concluded:[26] 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 Taxonomy as activities supporting climate change mitigation.The EU tasked two further expert commissions to validate JRC findings—the Euratom Article 31 expert group on radiation protection and SCHEER (Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks).
[127] In February 2022 European Commission published the Complementary Climate Delegated Act to the taxonomy, that set specific criteria under which nuclear power may be included in sustainable energy funding schemes.
Predictions estimate that even with draconian emission reductions within the ten years, the world will still pass 650 ppm of carbon dioxide and a catastrophic 4 °C (7.2 °F) average rise in temperature.
European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton described shutting down of operational nuclear power plants as depriving Europe of low-carbon energy capacity.
[159] This is partly because the timeframes in question when dealing with radioactive waste range from 10,000 to millions of years,[160][161] according to studies based on the effect of estimated radiation doses.
Presently, there is broad scientific and technical consensus that disposal of high-level, long-lived radioactive waste in deep geologic formations is, at the state of today’s knowledge, considered as an appropriate and safe means of isolating it from the biosphere for very long time scales.In March 2013, climate scientists Pushker Kharecha and James Hansen published a paper in Environmental Science & Technology, entitled Prevented mortality and greenhouse gas emissions from historical and projected nuclear power.
[22] EU JRC study in 2021 compared actual and potential fatality rates for different energy generation technologies based on The Energy-Related Severe Accident Database (ENSAD).
[198] The battle to contain the contamination and avert a greater catastrophe ultimately involved over 500,000 workers and cost an estimated 18 billion rubles, crippling the Soviet economy.
[216][217][218] The accident crystallized anti-nuclear safety concerns among activists and the general public, resulted in new regulations for the nuclear industry, and has been cited as a contributor to the decline of new reactor construction that was already underway in the 1970s.
[224] A case-control study looking at nuclear workers in Belgium, France and UK exposed to alpha-emitters found strong evidence for associations between low doses of alpha radiation and lung cancer risk.
Again in 2001, the Florida Bureau of Environmental Epidemiology reviewed claims of increased cancer rates in counties with nuclear plants, however, using the same data as the claimants, they observed no abnormalities.
It has been established "partly as a result of an earlier study by Körblein and Hoffmann[235] which had found statistically significant increases in solid cancers (54%), and in leukemia (76%) in children aged less than 5 within 5 km (3.1 mi) of 15 German nuclear power plant sites.
"[236] In 2011 a new study of the KiKK data was incorporated into an assessment by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) of the incidence of childhood leukemia around British nuclear power plants.
China's fast-expanding nuclear sector is opting for cheap technology that "will be 100 years old by the time dozens of its reactors reach the end of their lifespans", according to diplomatic cables from the US embassy in Beijing.
[259] 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".
[260] 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".
[278] In October 2020, the U.S. Department of Energy announced selecting two U.S.-based teams to receive $160 million in initial funding under the new Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP).
