Others have proposed that
nuclear plants could be located
several miles offshore on floating
barges like those used in oil and gas
drilling. This novel solution would
solve three key problems for nuclear
power: cooling the reactor; siting it
away from residential areas; and
resisting tidal waves like the one that
submerged Fukushima. It could even
be relocated in response to demand.
Yet f loating nuclear plants are not
r isk-free. They wil l be exposed to
new problems such as boat collisions,
terrorist attacks and sinking.
There is an alternative concept of ‘small
modular reactors’. These miniature, sealed
units are similar to the ones used to power
nuclear submarines. These reactors could
be deployed and it would be easy to scale
them up or down to suit cities of different
sizes. These reactors don’t require such
huge up-front costs, so are much easier to
roll out, but aren’t significantly cheaper
than the big reactors in terms of investment
per installed kilowatt. “We may see some of
these,” says Muellner, “but I’m not sure that
they’re going to make a dif ference.”
So is nuclear energ y likely to be a par t of
our future? It depends. In China and India,where public opinion plays less of a role in
governmental decision-making, officials
are aggressively expanding their nuclear
output with new, safer, third-generation
reactors. China has 29 operating nuclear
plants and aims to more than double that
figure by 2020, while India has a total of 21
reactors with more than 20 further units
planned. “If it’s government policy to
deploy nuclear power, then it’s going to be
built,” says Muellner.
But in the West, it’s not looking good for
nuclear energy. A heady combination of high
upfront costs, stringent safety regulations,
difficulties in getting financing, unpopularity
with the public, risk of weapons proliferation
and rapid development of competing
renewables means that building new plants is
almost impossible. Nuclear power is getting
squeezed out of the picture by alternative
energy technologies that are cheaper, simpler
and not so politically toxic. “Basically,
everything is tilted in the favour of its
[nuclear’s] competitors,” Caldecott says. “And
that tilt will just get steeper and steeper.” ß1 China is keenly expanding
its catalogue of nuclear
power plants
2 Changjiang nuclear power
plant, seen here under
construction, became fully
operational at the end of 2015BRIGHT
FUTURE
“A combination of high upfront costs, stringentsafety regulations, difficulties in getting financing,
unpopularity with the public, risk of weapons
proliferation and rapid development of competing
renewables means that building new plants is
almost impossible”
?
DUNCAN GEERE IS A FREELANCE SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY WRITER WHO’S BASED IN GOTHENBURG. PHOTO: GETTY1SCIENCE