Energy from My Backyard - The Renaissance of Renewable Energy - page 230

Two of the great advantages of nuclear power are the maturity of the technology and
the widespread occurrence of uranium ore. Compared with other non-fossil energy sources
suchaswindandsolarpower,nuclearpowerwasquicktoreachmaturity; justsixteenyears
separated the first laboratory chain reaction (1942) from the first commercial power plant
(1958). Yet it was not until the early 1970s, as the oil market teetered, that nuclear power
went mainstream. Between 1970 and 1980 global nuclear capacity grew from about 10 to
350gigawatts. Thirty yearslater,in2010,that capacity remained stagnant at375gigawatts.
Despite rapid development and generous government subsidies, nuclear power failed to
live up to its promise as a major alternative to fossil fuels. Energy scientist Vaclav Smil
describes nuclear power as a “successful failure”; a technological success but an economic
failure ( 2010 , 42). The reasons for this failure are complex and varied, but they can be
boiled down to two factors: risk and cost ( Sections 5.7 and 6.5 ).
The recent emergence of power-hungry economies in Asia and South America seemed
to augur, at first, a revival of nuclear power. As concerns about carbon dioxide emissions
grew, nuclear power re-emerged as a kind of 'light-green' energy source. Several leading
environmentalists, including former Greenpeace director Stephen Tindale, began to lobby
in favour of nuclear power. According to Tindale, “nuclear power is not ideal but it's better
than climate change” (Connor 2009 ) . The accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in 2011
put an abrupt stop to the incipient renaissance and rehabilitation of nuclear power. Its echo
has gone far beyond Japan, reigniting the almost-dormant debate on the safety of nuclear
energy in many countries.
7.3 Future Energy Use in a Business-as-Usual Scenario
Many agencies, including the IEA, BP, the United Nations, and Greenpeace, publish
regular energy outlooks and scenarios for further discussion among citizens and
governments. Energy scenarios provide descriptions of how alternative energy conditions
could emerge in the foreseeable future. They analyse available data on social, economic,
and environmental issues, take into account potential future technological breakthroughs
and political turmoil, explore plausible cause-and-effect links, and highlight key decisions
and their likely consequences. More than 150 energy scenarios are currently available
(Fischedick et al. 2011 ) . They range from studies that assume a 'business as usual'
approach, where current energy policies continue more or less unchanged, to more
optimistic projections, which assume that action is taken to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions and achieve sustainability.