BBC_Knowledge_Asia_Edition_-_May_2016_

over time, tur ned once more against

the technology. Germany pledged to

shutter all its reactors by 2022, while Italy

held a referendum in which 94 per cent

voted against a government plan to build

new nuclear plants. In France, where

nuclear was successfully sold to the public as

a route to energy independence, the

president François Hollande announced his

intention to reduce the share of energy

generated by nuclear. Meanwhile, in the

UK, no new nuclear power stations have

been built since 1995, and current plans for

energy company EDF to build one at

Hinkley Point in Somerset have been met

with opposition. So where does that leave

nuclear now?

Over the last 20 years or so, most

Western nations have merely maintained

their existing reactors, making incremental

safet y upg rades to meet reg ulations.

Countries that chose to retain their nuclear

plants extended their lifespans, in some

cases well beyond their original design

specifications. “The reactors were designed

for a lifetime of 40 years, and then they got

extended to 60 years,” says Muellner. “The

[older] reactors are going to stay online for

a long time, and they dominate the total

risk of a nuclear accident.” Safety levels,

while not necessarily dropping, were

certainly not going up. “If you build new

plants somewhere, that’s an event that wil l

get attention,” says Muellner. “But lifespan

extension is something which is not

perceived.” Without building new plants,

however, substantial leaps in technology

were impossible, and the industry was

forced to simply pray that there would

never be another major nuclear accident.

But when you look at the raw data, nuclear

energy comes out ahead of other options.

Futurist and energy researcher Brian Wang

ran the numbers shortly after the Fukushima

accident back in 2011. He found that when

you compare all power sources around the

world in terms of energy output, coal and oil

are by far the most dangerous, resulting in 100

and 36 deaths per terawatt-hour (TWh)

respectively. This is mostly due to the

significant air pollution they cause. Nuclear

energy, on the other hand, results in just 0.04

deaths per TWh – lower even than

renewables like wind and solar. This is

because there are dangers involved with

mining the materials needed for wind and

solar, as wel l as r isk associated with erecting

wind turbines and solar panels in dangerous

locations. Other studies show similar results.

So is nuclear power safe? That’s a matter of

definition, says Muellner: “There’s a set of

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