![]() nuclear power projects now being built, high up-front price tags have often been compounded by cost overruns and project delays. But two out of every three nuclear power reactors worldwide are scheduled for retirement in the foreseeable future, and new construction seems unlikely to replace all of them. still leads the world in nuclear energy output by a large margin, followed by France, China, Russia and South Korea. “We certainly can and should be investing in absolutely everything until we get to net-zero ,” says Josh Freed, senior vice president of the climate and energy program at Third Way, a public policy think tank based in Washington, D.C. And they tout a new generation of nuclear reactors designed to be safer and perhaps more cost-competitive. But nuclear power advocates-and some environmentalists-still see nuclear power as a cornerstone of clean-energy policies meant to address climate change. Instead of fear, activism or political oversight, what has profoundly weakened the outlook for nuclear power is a shift in the economics of electricity generation that favors cheaper natural gas and renewables, such as wind and solar energy. But NRC commissioners voted against adopting a draft rule requiring extra measures to be taken against such hazards in a split decision in 2019. nuclear plants against earthquakes and floods. Four months after the disaster, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) task force issued a report recommending updates to the regulatory standards for protecting U.S. nuclear reactors shut down for precautionary reasons in the wake of Fukushima. Other countries, including Spain, Belgium and Switzerland, are in the process of doing so within the next 14 years.īy comparison, no U.S. “It not only had direct and indirect environmental consequences that they’re still dealing with-and a price tag of hundreds of billions of dollars to clean it up-but also it shattered the confidence of the Japanese people in nuclear power, which the authorities had always assured them was totally safe.”Īdditionally, the accident spurred regulatory reviews of nuclear power worldwide and accelerated a preexisting plan in Germany to completely phase out nuclear power by the end of 2022. “In Japan, still an outsize event,” says Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Since then about a third of them have been permanently shut down, and only nine have resumed operation. When the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami occurred on March 11, 2011, there were 54 nuclear reactors in Japan. But the industry’s unstable footing has less to do with the Fukushima accident-and more to do with how a natural gas glut and the rise of renewable power have transformed the global energy landscape.įukushima has certainly left its mark on the nuclear industry. Nuclear power faces a wobbly future 10 years after an earthquake and tsunami triggered a triple reactor meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan. ![]()
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