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Nuclear industry declining world-wide

Nuclear decline set to continue, says report
Nuclear Engineering 27 August 2009
Nuclear will continue to decline according to a new report. At this point there is no obvious sign that the international nuclear industry could turn the decline into a promising future, it says.

“The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2009” by independent consultant, Mycle Schneider, professor for energy policy Steve Thomas, consultant Antony Froggatt and Doug Koplow, was released on 27 August. Commissioned by the German federal ministry of environment, nature conservation and reactor safety, it gives facts on the nuclear power plants in operation, under construction and in planning phases throughout the world. It also assesses the economic performance of past and current nuclear projects including Calvert Cliffs, Flamanville and Olkiluoto.

The report says that there seems to be a “widening gap” between the industrial reality with its current trends and the “perception of some sort of nuclear renaissance”…………..
“With extremely long lead times of 10 years and more, it will be practically impossible to maintain, let alone increase the number of operating nuclear power plants over the next 20 years,” the report says…….The future’s not looking promising for new nuclear countries either.”For practically all of the potential nuclear newcomers it remains unlikely that fission power programmes can be implemented any time soon within the required technical, political, economic framework”, the report notes. None of the potential new nuclear countries has proper nuclear regulations, an independent regulator, domestic , maintenance capacity, and the skilled workforce in place to run a nuclear plant. It might take at least 15 years to build up the necessary regulatory framework in countries that are starting from scratch……..

 

Nuclear Engineering International

August 28, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1, 2 WORLD, business and costs | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, radioactive, uranium