Nuclear Power Staging A Comeback Amid Climate Change Concerns

(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Nuclear energy is coming back into focus as countries seek clean reliable power while enhancing grid stability and energy security.
For sure, nuclear power has long been on the decline with its share of the world's electricity generation halving from 18% in the mid-1990s to 9% today.
While China, India and Russia never stopped expanding their nuclear industries, many Western countries moved the other way due to the technology's heavy construction costs and an abundance of cheaper alternatives.
More recently, concern about global warming and the security of energy supplies amid Russia's war in Ukraine has sparked renewed interest in the energy released by splitting atoms.
Many of the reactors in wealthy countries are approaching the end of their original design life span, which is usually 40 years.
But a number of countries are now investing in so-called small modular reactors (SMRs). The idea is that standardised parts would be built in factories and shipped for assembly on site, thereby reducing the cost of the reactors.
But the commercialisation of SMRs has been delayed, with deployment still years away.
Among Western nations, the UK and France lead the pack. The UK, where reactors currently generate about 15% of electricity, wants to boost that figure to 25% by 2050.
France, which already generates 70% of its electricity with nuclear power, plans to build six new units while also extending the life span of existing reactors.
Japan, once among the world's biggest nuclear-power generators, is struggling to reboot its industry following the 2011 disaster at its Fukushima plant, where meltdowns at three units following an earthquake and tsunami forced more than 100,000 people to relocate. It nevertheless wants to lift atomic power's contribution in the electricity mix to 50% by 2030.
Germany shut its final nuclear reactor in April 2023, but continues playing a major role in global nuclear fuel markets.
The US finished its first new reactor in three decades in June but doesn't have any new projects planned, with investors instead focused on developing SMRs and reviving plants that were prematurely shuttered.
The UAE began operating its fourth new reactor in March 2024. Other countries building plants include Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Iran, Russia and Turkiye.
There are strong arguments for and against nuclear power generation.
Opponents say Fukushima was only the most recent calamity to demonstrate that nuclear power is too dangerous. Accidents also released radiation at Three Mile Island in the US in 1979 and Chernobyl in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, seven years later.
There's also the expense and environmental risks of disposing of reactor waste, which can remain dangerously radioactive for thousands of years.
They also argue that cleaner and safer forms of energy, such as solar and wind power backed up by batteries, can be deployed more quickly.
Proponents point out that accidents are rare. Nuclear advocates also insist that the smaller, advanced reactors of the future will be even safer.
The choice, they argue, isn't between nuclear energy and renewables but rather between the two working in tandem and a failure to avert the worst out
The case for nuclear as a climate change solution got a boost in 2022, when European Union lawmakers voted to allow nuclear energy projects to be labelled as green investments.
This year, giant US tech companies have been turning to nuclear as a climate-friendly power source for the massive data centres they are building to run artificial intelligence systems.
Major tech companies have poured money into fission recently: Microsoft is helping resurrect the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear facility to power data centres, and competitors Alphabet and Amazon have invested in SMRs.

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