Briefing: Nuclear power
startclickprintexclude--> an increasingly vital debate in the 21st century. in the case of the United States, it has stopped altogether. But the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Analyst, Alan McDonald says that growth has kept pace with the expansion of world electricity supplies. Currently, nuclear power contributes around a 5 percent slice of world energy -- and provides about 15 percent of the world's electricity. In 2007, the IAEA predicted that nuclear power would grow by between 25 and 93 percent by 2030. an average nuclear power plant produces around 30 tons of waste every year. All these activities produce considerable amounts of CO2. The economic cost of waste disposal alone is vast. According to Friends of the Earth, disposing of the existing waste from the UK's 19 reactors will in total cost a staggering $110 billion. And this is all before we start worrying about decommissioning costs, potential leaks and disasters that come with the territory. startclickprintexclude--> Because construction slowed after Chernobyl, many of the world's reactors are now old and approaching retirement -- all but one of the UK's active reactors will be closed down by 2023. And new plants take years to build. The UK Government, which has recently given the green light to a new nuclear building program, won't have the first new ones online before 2017. Putting all other arguments aside, critics say that nuclear power is going to provide too little, too late. Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends and author of the Hydrogen Economy, told CNN: "To get any appreciable impact on climate change you have to get 20 percent from renewable energies. For nuclear power to achieve this figure would mean building 3000 nuclear plants -- that's three power plants every 30 days for the next 60 years." The problems don't end there, Rifkin says. "We still don't know how to get rid of the nuclear waste. There is a problem of uranium deficits between 2025 and 2035 and there are also security threats." But the most important factor, according to Rifkin, is that we don't have enough water. "In France -- which is the quintessential nuclear country -- 40 percent of all the water consumed every year goes to cooling the nuclear reactors. And when it comes back it's heated and it dehydrates the lakes and streams and furthers climate change drought. During the heat wave of 2003, there wasn't enough water to cool the reactors, so they had to slow them down," he said. the joining of nuclear atoms using extremely high temperatures. Many scientists believe it will be a viable source of energy and could have a major positive impact on climate change. Not only does nuclear fusion generate more energy it also produces far less radioactive waste than traditional fission plants. France is currently playing host to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) at a site in Cadarache in southern France. The project, which is costing a whopping $12 billion, is a joint venture between the European Union, the United States, Russia, Japan, South Korea and China and India. But the first commercial plant is still a long way off. Should everything go smoothly, ITER predict fusion-powered electricity will be available by 2045. Look out for CNN's interview with NRG Energy President and CEO, David Crane. In September 2007, NRG Energy submitted the first application for a new nuclear reactor in the U.S. in nearly three decades. Read what someone at the heart of the nuclear debate has to say on Principal Voices. |
