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A number of countries, including the UK, are building new nuclear power plants.
Ten years ago, the global nuclear industry appeared to be in irreversible decline.
Concerns about safety, cost and the fate of radioactive waste had sapped enthusiasm for a technology once seen as a revolutionary source of cheap, abundant energy.
Yet there is now widespread talk of a recovery, fueled by tech giants Microsoft, Google and Amazon all announcing investments in the sector, as well as growing pressure on rich countries to cut back their carbon emissions.
But how real is this return?
When commercial nuclear power was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s, governments were wowed by its seemingly limitless potential.
Nuclear reactors could harness and control the same awesome forces released by atomic bombs – to provide electricity to millions of homes. With a single kilogram of uranium producing about 20,000 times more energy than a kilogram of coal, this seemed like the future.
But technology has also inspired public fear. And this fear seemed justified by the Chernobyl disaster, which spread radioactive contamination across Europe in early 1986.
This fueled widespread public and political opposition and slowed the industry's growth.
Another accident, at the Fukushima Daichi plant in Japan in 2011, reignited concerns about nuclear safety. Japan itself shut down all its reactors immediately afterward, and only 12 of them have since restarted.
Germany has decided to completely abandon nuclear energy. Other countries have scaled back their plans to invest in new power plants or extend the lifespan of aging installations.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, this resulted in a loss of 48 GW of electricity generation worldwide between 2011 and 2020.
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The 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident sparked new fears about the safety of global industry.
But the development of nuclear power has not stopped. In China, for example, there were 13 nuclear reactors in 2011. There are now 55, with 23 more under construction.
For Beijing, which is struggling to meet rapidly growing demand for electricity, nuclear power had, and still has, a vital role to play.
Today, interest in the sector appears to be growing again elsewhere. This is partly because developed countries are looking for ways to meet energy demand, while striving to meet the emissions reduction targets set by the Paris Agreement.
With 2024 expected to be the hottest year on record, pressure to reduce carbon emissions is growing. The renewed focus on energy security, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, has also played a role.
South Korea, for example, recently abandoned plans to phase out its large fleet of nuclear power plants over the next four decades – and will build more.
And France has abandoned plans to reduce its own dependence on nuclear power, which provides 70% of its electricity. Instead, it wants to build up to eight new reactors.
Additionally, last week the US government reaffirmed at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or Cop29, held in Azerbaijan, its intention to triple nuclear energy production by 2050.
The White House initially pledged to do so on the sidelines of last year's Cop28 conference. A total of 31 countries have now agreed to try to triple their use of nuclear energy by 2050, including the UK, France and Japan.
Also at Cop29, which ends on Friday, November 22, the United States and the United Kingdom announced that they would work together to accelerate the development of new nuclear technology.
This follows agreement reached in last year's Cop28 final declaration or 'stocktaking' that nuclear should be one of the zero or low emissions technologies to be 'accelerated' to help tackle climate change.
But the thirst for clean energy doesn't just come from governments. Tech giants are working to develop more and more applications using artificial intelligence.
Yet AI is data-driven, and data centers need constant, reliable electricity. According to Barclays Research, data centers account for 3.5% of U.S. electricity consumption today, but that figure could rise to more than 9% by the end of the decade.
In September, Microsoft signed a 20-year deal to buy electricity from Constellation Energy, which will lead to the reopening of the infamous Three Mile Island Power Plant in Pennsylvania – the site of the worst nuclear accident in US history. United States, where a reactor suffered a breakdown. partial merger in 1979.
Despite its tainted public image, another reactor at the plant continued to produce electricity until 2019. Constellation Chief Executive Joe Dominguez described the reopening agreement as a “powerful symbol of the rebirth of nuclear energy as a clean and reliable energy resource.
Other tech giants have taken a different approach. Google plans to buy power produced from a handful of small modular reactors, or SMRs — a nascent technology intended to make nuclear power deployment easier and less expensive. Amazon also supports the development and construction of SMR.
SMRs themselves are being touted, in part, as a solution to one of the biggest drawbacks of nuclear power today. In Western countries, new power plants must be built to modern and rigorous safety standards. This makes them prohibitively expensive and complicated to build.
Hinkley Point C is a good example. Britain's first new nuclear power station since the mid-1990s is being built on a stretch of remote coastline in southwest England.
It is the first in a series of new plants to replace the country's aging reactor fleet. But the project is about five years behind schedule and will cost up to £9 billion ($11.5 billion) more than expected.
This is not an isolated case. America's newest reactors at the Vogtle plant in Georgia opened seven years late and cost more than $35 billion, well over double their original budget.
SMRs are designed to solve this problem. They will be smaller than traditional reactors, using standardized parts that can be assembled quickly, on sites close to where the energy is needed.
But even though some 80 different models are under development around the world, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the concept has not yet been commercially proven.
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Microsoft's need for electricity will prompt the restart of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, pictured.
Opinions on nuclear energy remain very polarized. Supporters say technology is essential if climate goals are to be achieved. Among them is Rod Adams, whose Nucleation Capital fund promotes investments in nuclear technology.
“Nuclear fission has a seven-decade history, showing that it is one of the safest energy sources available,” he explains.
“It is a sustainable and reliable energy source with already low costs, but investment costs are too high in Western countries.”
Opponents, however, insist that nuclear power is not the solution.
According to Professor MV Ramana of the University of British Columbia, it is “madness to consider nuclear energy clean”. It is, he says, “one of the most expensive ways to produce electricity. Investing in cheaper, low-carbon energy sources will further reduce emissions per dollar.”
If current trends indeed herald a new nuclear era, an old problem remains. After 70 years of atomic power, disagreements remain over the fate of accumulated radioactive waste, some of which will remain dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years.
The solution sought by many governments is geological storage, i.e. burying waste in sealed tunnels deep underground. But only one country, Finland, has built such a facility, while environmentalists and anti-nuclear campaigners say dumping the waste out of sight and out of mind is simply too risky.
Solving this conundrum could be a key factor in determining whether there really will be a new era of nuclear energy.
