The IEA supports nuclear power, BUT realises that its future prospects are poor
 The Week in Energy, Ft.com, 2 June 19, ”………..The IEA this week published a report titled “Nuclear Power in a Clean Energy System”, its first on the industry for more than 20 years, because it is so concerned about the wave of nuclear plant closures across the developed world.
………(The IAEA) acknowledges that the outlook is “highly uncertain”. The Chernobyl disaster of 1986, now being vividly recreated in a television drama series from HBO, put a brake on investment in new reactors in western countries for two decades, and then just as there was talk of a “nuclear renaissance” emerging in the 21st century, the Fukushima disaster of 2011 dealt another blow to public confidence. The IEA argues that the most important reason for the collapse of investor appetite for new nuclear plants in Europe and the US, however, has been the industry’s failure to deliver projects on time and on budget. At a time when the costs of renewable energy have been plunging, the cost of nuclear power has been soaring. The estimated cost of the EPR reactor that French utility EDF is building at Flamanville in Normandy, for example, has soared from €3bn to €11bn. François de Rugy, France’s environment minister, said this week that the start date for the reactor was still uncertain. Such stories are the rule rather than the exception for new nuclear plants built in Europe and the US over the past 15 years.
As a result, investing in new nuclear plants is very difficult for the private sector. Of 54 under construction worldwide today, 47 are being built by state-owned companies, and six of the seven in the private sector have price regulation in place to give them some certainty about their revenues. But beyond that, even keeping existing plants running is becoming increasingly difficult …..
The IEA suggests a range of policy measures for supporting nuclear power, including operating lifetime extensions from regulators, electricity market designs that reward nuclear plants for their advantages including high levels of availability, and payments that put nuclear on an even footing with renewable sources as low-carbon power. In practice, the blunt realities of energy politics have meant that moves to help nuclear power have not always played out in the best possible ways for curbing emissions. In the US, New York, Illinois and most recently New Jersey have put measures in place to support their nuclear plants. A similar plan is being debated in Pennsylvania, and although it has come too late for Three Mile Island, it could save the state’s other nuclear plants.
There have been vigorous arguments over all of these initiatives, but the most controversial of all has been the plan now moving through the legislature in Ohio, which links support for nuclear power to help for coal-fired plants and an attack on policies favouring renewables and energy efficiency. The state’s House of Representatives this week approved a bill that would create new payments for Ohio’s two nuclear plants, while cutting support for energy efficiency and scrapping the state’s mandated standard requiring 12.5 per cent of its generation to come from renewable sources by 2027. The legislation now goes to the state’s Senate. The plan has won bipartisan support, but it has been a particularly critical issue for Ohio’s Republicans.
A senior adviser to President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign has been urging state lawmakers to back the plan, because of the thousands of jobs that would be lost if the nuclear plants closed. “The message is that if we have these plants shut down we can’t get Trump re-elected,” a source told Politico.
In another example of how the changing energy landscape of the US has shaken up old enmities and alliances, the campaign against the bill has united environmentalists and the oil and gas industry. Neil Waggoner of the Sierra Club, the environmental group, described the legislation as “a farce” and “an absolute embarrassment for Ohio”. The American Petroleum Industry warned that customers would “pay the price” for the bill, and urged the state Senate to “protect Ohio taxpayers and reject this legislative bailout”.
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1.This Month
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https://sppga.ubc.ca/events/event/nuclear-power-and-climate-change-can-small-modular-reactors-deliver/(See RSVP link and then register with Eventbrite)
Webinar: Nuclear Power and Climate Change: Can Small Modular Reactors Deliver?
The presentations will draw upon the 2021 World Nuclear Industry Status Report
Wednesday October 6, 2021 TIME (be sure to convert time to your zone)12:30 PM – 1:50 PM PDT (Pacific Daylight Time) 3:30 PM – 4:50 PM EST (Eastern Standard Time)
NUCLEARWAKEUPCALL.EARTH
Welcome to Women Transforming Our Nuclear Legacy (WTONL), a global online mentoring program for women and girls! https://www.nuclearwakeupcall.earth/women-s-project
So far, the nuclear lobby has bought the hearts and minds of governments, but has not won the hearts and minds of the people. In a propaganda war, as in all wars, truth is the first victim. But there are many journalists and others out there who will counter the lies of the nuclear industry.
Today, across the world, the nuclear industry is unpopular. It is particularly unpopular with women, and with indigenous peoples. It’s unpopular with those who have suffered from it, such as the veterans who attended nuclear bomb tests, and the ‘downwinders’ who suffered from those same tests. It’s unpopular with families afflicted with cancer from uranium mining. It’s unpopular with Ukrainians and Japanese whose lives have been disrupted by nuclear disasters.
he nuclear industry is also unpopular higher up in the social food chain. Many academics, economists, scientists, and doctors are concerned about the dangers of all kinds that are intrinsic to the nuclear industry.
So who does like the nuclear industry? – careerists in the nuclear industry, careerists in politics, academia, careerists in the Murdoch media, highly paid uranium workers, communities that exist only because of mining, – (the latter can’t really afford not to support it).
The nuclear industry, following in the footsteps of the tobacco and asbestos industries will now blanket its servant mass media, and any other possible avenues – such as education, and politics, – with propaganda.
The main focus of the nuclear lobby’s propaganda? This will now be CLIMATE ACTION .
They’re spending an awful lot of money on this. Despite this huge investment in deception, the nuclear lobby is not winning.
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