“…It’s the 15th anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and any lessons from that event seem to have been forgotten by most. Political leaders of all stripes, from centre-left to far right have been keen to promote nuclear power as at least a partial solution to the problem of replacing coal and gas. The peak of enthusiasm was reached at COP 28 when Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and Rishi Sunak signed a pledge to triple nuclear power generation by 2050.
To call this pledge ambitious would be an understatement. No nuclear plant has started in construction (as defined by first nuclear concrete) in Europe or North America since the disastrous Hinkley C project in 2017. And the future is not much better. The UK will presumably go ahead with the Sizewell C project, duplicating Hinkley, but that will only replace retirements of existing plants. In France, sites for six reactors have been identified, but no investment decision has been made. And in the US, even the announced restart of reactors closed as uneconomic in recent years is looking doubtful…”