nuclear-news

States across Europe and East Asia are closing nuclear reactors and replacing much of their electricity-generating capacity with offshore wind energy. Socialists should embrace the growth of this industry — and use green reindustrialization to fight for well-paid, stable jobs.

his month, the Netherlands will celebrate the completion of the Borssele 1 and 2 offshore wind farms, located twenty-two kilometers off the coast of the Dutch province of Zeeland. In the sleepy village where the transmission cables come ashore, a relic from the late 1960s hums away, awaiting its decommissioning. That’s because Borssele also has a nuclear power station — the Netherlands’ last remaining such facility, scheduled to be taken off-line in 2033.

Just over a decade ago, plans had been drawn up for a second, perhaps even a third, reactor on site. The abortive expansion project was scrapped partly as a consequence of popular opposition, in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster. But what was ultimately decisive was the law of value as identified by Karl Marx. With the declining cost of renewable energy, nuclear power simply does not make economic sense — even for capitalists, never mind socialists.

Many of the fervent debates within the Left concerning nuclear power have been strikingly unproductive for one simple reason. Nuclear advocates, woefully ill-informed about the frontiers of renewable energy development, tend to avoid discussing the actual dynamics of inter-capitalist competition in the electricity sector. But with many capitalist enterprises and states ditching nuclear and pushing forward with offshore wind, it is essential for socialists to better understand the latter — and begin to engage with it strategically.

ecent years have seen several prominent figures within the environmental movement and democratic-socialist left embrace nuclear power. They distance themselves from their (former) comrades’ quasi-religious technophobia, but erroneously call for a program of “people’s fission” that would supposedly solve the climate crisis in one fell swoop. This stance elides many of the real dangers of atomic energy, particularly in a country like the United States, where corruption is endemic and state regulatory capacities are weak. Whatever the politics and intentions of this varied bunch may be, left-of-center nuclear advocates all end up achieving the same thing — running interference for the fossil fuel industry, by casting doubt on the possibility of a renewable civilization……..

Rather than reciting the fossil fuel industry’s propaganda about the intermittency of renewables in order to advance the pet project of nuclear power, democratic socialists ought to focus on promoting the expansion of renewable energy while striving for the industry’s democratization through the workplace and political struggle.

Several advanced capitalist states, Denmark and Portugal in particular, are moving decisively toward 100 percent renewable electricity, and they are doing so largely by investing in offshore wind. Even France, whose 1980s program of atomic autarky is routinely touted by nuclear advocates, is aiming to close several reactors over the next decade and a half, replacing much of its electricity generating capacity with offshore wind energy. South Korea, although it continues to promote nuclear power abroad for the benefit of the country’s chaebol, has pledged to phase out many of its own nuclear power plants while aggressively promoting offshore wind energy through a coordinated industrial policy.

t is no wonder that Denmark, Portugal, and South Korea — not to mention Japan, China, and Taiwan — are so keen on offshore wind. While certainly intermittent, offshore wind is significantly less so than onshore wind or solar. Furthermore, offshore wind development does not imply the type of land-use conflicts that often accompany the construction of solar and wind farms in rural areas………..

Despite being hampered by the Trump administration, the US offshore wind industry is beginning to take off. Meanwhile, the nuclear energy industry is in complete shambles, gobbling up $9 billion just to move some dirt around. The question is not whether socialists should promote nuclear power or renewable energy, but how quickly renewables will displace fossil fuels and on what terms. …….. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/10/offshore-wind-energy-just-transition-nuclear