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In the push for climate change, countries across Europe are looking to go nuclear power to end their reliance on coal and gas from Russia for energy, according to a report.
Countries like Poland, Britain, and France have all expressed interest in building nuclear power stations in their clean-power effort, The New York Times reported. The paper said more than half of the countries in Europe plan to build new reactors that will cost a “fraction of the price of standard nuclear plants.”
The report said supporters say the key selling point is the price tag and safety standards of the new facilities. These plants are expected to cost about $3 billion to build, compared to conventional nuclear plants that can cost about $25 billion.
They also say that solar panels and wind farms will not provide enough energy.
Kirsty Gogan, a member of Britain’s Nuclear Innovation Research and Advisory Board, told the paper that nuclear power will be going “mainstream.”
“This is a critical decade and I think we’re going to see real change,” she said.
The Trends Journal has reported on the rise of nuclear power as countries try to turn away from fossil fuels. (See “FRANCE EARMARKS BILLIONS FOR NUCLEAR AND ‘GREEN’ ENERGY; INVESTORS BULLISH ON URANIUM,” “AHOY! NUCLEAR POWER MINI-PLANTS ARE FLOATING YOUR WAY,” and “UPDATE: CHINA READY TO LAUNCH NEW NUCLEAR POWER INDUSTRY.”)
Not all countries in Europe agree that nuclear power is the answer. Germany—citing the disaster at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011—is concerned about more reactors on the continent and the radioactivity that could be produced, the paper reported.
Berlin’s Green Party has been critical of a project in Poland and said if there was an accident it would contaminate Germany. The report pointed out that it could take 10 smaller plants to produce the power of one standard facility.
There is also concern that it could take a decade before these facilities will be up and running due to regulations.
The countries in favor of nuclear power want the EU to consider investments in nuclear power as a “sustainable” investment so there could be new investments in the technology.
The World Wide Fund for Nature has said that classifying nuclear as sustainable “would allow the greenwashing of billions of euros of financing for these activities, despite the high emissions from fossil gas and the radioactive waste produced by nuclear power,” CNBC reported.
One new plant could power one million homes, the report said.
Henning Gloystein, director for energy, climate and resources at consultancy group Eurasia, told CNBC in an email that “the core problem for critics is that there is no solution for long-term storage of nuclear waste. All current solutions are temporary.”
TRENDPOST: French President Emmanuel Macron has been a top proponent of the need to “take risks” in order to achieve success in his plans; absent was any mention by the Presstitutes and Macron of the risk of another Chernobyl, Three Mile Island or Fukushima.
He’s earmarked a billion Euros for “disruptive innovation,” which includes designing small nuclear reactors with “improved waste management.”
This might allude to the nuclear technology that uses thorium as fuel instead of uranium; see “NUCLEAR POWER ON THE RISE” (19 Sep 2018) and “A NEW PATH TO CLEAN NUCLEAR ENERGY” (13 Oct 2020).
It is said that thorium is in many ways far safer than uranium, and the waste it produces doesn’t present the disposal challenges of nuclear waste from uranium, nor does it lend itself to being re-processed into nuclear weapons.