Europeans suddenly resurrected their interest in nuclear power because of the energy crisis.
As it turns out, sky high energy bills might just have been enough to loosen Europe’s long standing and deep rooted resistance against nuclear power.
In the 1970s, the nuclear movement organised several demonstrations but did not manage to change major governmental policies on nuclear buildup. This anti-nuclear movement gained significant strength in the 1980s, due to people’s concerns about their own health and safety following the Chernobyl disaster and the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Fukushima disaster in 2011 seemed to reinforce all those concerns about nuclear energy.
While energy demanding countries like Germany and the United Kingdom have gradually phased out their production of nuclear power since the 1980s, this is far from being the case worldwide.
Those nuclear reactors did not disappear. Quite the contrary, nuclear power capacity multiplied in China during Europe’s energy transition. This has kept nuclear power capacity steady across the world in the last decades despite Europe’s clampdown.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) predicts this buildup in Asia will continue. In fact, the agency released a prediction before the energy crisis started that nuclear energy capacity would grow significantly in the next few decades, taking into account planned construction works and investments in Asia.
While Germans deactivated their last remaining nuclear reactors, following a twenty year programme to phase out nuclear energy, around 70% of the energy produced in France still comes from nuclear sources. This year, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant opened in Finland and 40% of the country’s demand for electricity is met with nuclear energy.
If Europeans want to be competitive in the global energy market, they will need to reactivate many of the already diffused reactors or build new ones to increase their energy supply and limit their energy dependencies. While this might make Europeans more competitive, they will also become more vulnerable to environmental disasters.
Nuclear lobbyists claim it is the best energy source for countries because it helps them reach carbon neutrality, advertising nuclear power as a climate friendly solution to the world’s carbon footprint. Not counting environmental risks associated with nuclear energy, it is a very small patch on the carbon footprint because it ignores the real source of the problem in the long-term, mass consumption, over-production and means of transport.