nuclear-news

Developing world is losing its faith in nuclear power

Globally nuclear power is unpopular and has become even more so after Fukushima. A 24 country public opinion study carried out in May 2011 by IPSOS Mori found that 62% of those asked now opposed it, with opposition is some developing countries being very high, and similar to that in much of Europe.

Nuclear power and the developing world, Environmental Research Web, 20 Feb 12,  “…….There seems to be a belief in the region, similar to that that existed in the 1970s in Japan, that buying in advanced nuclear technology is the way ahead. It may then have come as a shock when, after the major nuclear disaster at Fukushima in March 2011, Japan decided to abandon its nuclear expansion plans, and high tech Germany launched a nuclear phase out programme- both of them backing renewables instead. So did Switzerland. Italy too backed off nuclear, thus joining Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Norway, Portugal and Greece as non-nuclear states.

China is also reassessing its nuclear programme. It currently gets under 2% of its electricity from nuclear and had planned to expand that to around 4% by 2020. That may be a small percentage, but given the size of the country it represents a very large programme. However it may be cut back to 63 GW, compared to the current official 2020 target of 80 GW. But to put that in perspective, China is aiming to get 15% of its total energy (not just electricity) from renewable and other low carbon options by 2020. Its wind potential is huge – 1000 GW or more.

Elsewhere in SE Asia, Taiwan and S Korea are also reassessing their nuclear programmes and Thailand and Malaysia have backed off theirs, although Vietnam has decided to push ahead with its plan for 14 nuclear plants by 2030. However the Philippines have decided to back off, and plan to rechannel resources to renewables.

South Africa already gets 6% of its electricity from nuclear and was planning to expand that, but the recession has led it to abandon its programme and also its advanced pebble-bed reactor project. However it has said it wants to expand nuclear, although it sees renewables as making an even larger contribution.

That message ought to be even more relevant in North Africa and the Middle East . There are already some large-scale solar projects underway or planned for example in Morocco, Algeria, and Egypt, as well as in Jordon and the UAE. Interestingly, Kuwait has now indicated that it no longer wanted to develop nuclear power. Qatar similarly.

India represents something of a special case. As a non-signatory to the NPT it has sometimes found it hard to access uranium from abroad, which is one reason why it has been exploring the thorium option- it has large reserves. The NPT rules have been softened recently so allowing the US (and Russia) to provide India with technological help with its nuclear programme- although it has to be said that it is massively unpopular. Police opened fire on a recent anti-nuclear demonstration killing one protestor and injuring several others.

Conclusions

Globally nuclear power is unpopular and has become even more so after Fukushima. A 24 country public opinion study carried out in May 2011 by IPSOS Mori found that 62% of those asked now opposed it, with opposition is some developing countries being very high, and similar to that in much of Europe. For example 81% of those asked in Mexico were against nuclear, 52% of them strongly. In Argentina opposition was at 72%, in Brazil 69%. Opposition was also strong in Indonesia (67%), South Korea (61%), South Africa (60%), China (58%) and Saudi Arabia (58%). Within the developing world only in India was there a majority in support (61%)……

The industry although chastened by Fukushima, as it was by Chernobyl, will re-group and continue to push ahead where it can. However there have been some internal debates about where its efforts were best put. For example Steve Kidd from the World Nuclear Association, writing in Nuclear Engineering International’s Newsletter suggested that nuclear ‘may not for some years be suitable for many countries that do not have the developed institutional framework to cope with it. Such a description must apply to most of the Middle Eastern countries currently looking at nuclear power. Maybe it would be far better for them to specialise in developing solar power and other renewable solutions, combined with developing their power grids to cope with diffuse and sometimes intermittent technologies.’ It is hard not to agree.  http://environmentalresearchweb.org/blog/2012/02/nuclear-power-and-the-developi.html

February 21, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, opposition to nuclear