Macroscope | In our energy-hungry world, nuclear power is making a comeback – with safer and cheaper technology
- Debate has been revived even in Japan, which suffered the catastrophic failure of the Fukushima plant
- However, small modular reactors are now being favoured as they are said to be safer than conventional nuclear fission reactors, cheaper and easier to operate
Since the COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow last November, there has been a dawning realisation that the world cannot shed its dependence on the fossil fuels of coal, oil and gas while continuing to attain the growth demanded by its advanced and emerging economies.
The shift in thinking is also driven by the realisation that renewable energy resources such as solar, wind and hydropower cannot always be relied on to supplement fossil-fuel-generated energy to the extent required if energy supplies are not to suffer, by virtue of their dependence on weather patterns.
As British peer and former energy minister Lord David Howell says, “We can talk about ‘green’ solutions until we’re blue in the face but that will not make a scrap of difference” – particularly to emerging economies like China and India, which need intensive energy-driven growth.
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China sets new world record in development of ‘artificial sun’
Something has to give. In the case of China at least, that will not be economic growth, as Chinese authorities from President Xi Jinping on down have made clear. What will give instead will be greenhouse gas emission targets that are based on science rather than political reality.
