Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
world energy total from over 440 nuclear generating plants in 2013 and will rise to
5.5 % on current trends, although countries such as France heavily depend on this
source, with 80 % of its electricity produced in this way (IEA
2013
). Unresolved
questions about the higher costs of the nuclear generating plants that produce pow-
er, the problems of safety and the difficulties of disposing of radio-active nuclear
waste that takes centuries to decay have always led many to question an increase in
this source of power. But negative attitudes to nuclear power have increased sub-
stantially since the Chernobyl accident in 1986 and especially after the tsunami that
destroyed much of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plants in March 2011. In both cases
the release of radiation has led to the creation of extensive exclusion zones around
the plants. This has led many countries to reconsider their use of nuclear power,
with Germany planning to close its reactors by 2022, Italy to ban nuclear plants
and Japan to close all its plants, although some are likely to reopen given Japan's
limited fossil fuel supplies despite the fact that the majority of the public opinion
is against them. However India has plans to double its number of nuclear plants.
Nevertheless, unless political opinions change it is unlikely that nuclear power will
be an increasing contributor—at least at a world scale—to future energy production
in absolute terms. Also the prospect of fusion as a power source, instead of nuclear
fission, is still an unresolved dream, without a major technical breakthrough. Yet
there may be another alternative. In recent years there has been increasing calls for
the use of thorium in nuclear power generation. This is a more abundant source than
uranium and many regard it as safer, since the generating process is easier to turn
off if accidents occur (Hargreaves
2012
; Martin
2012
). But it must be admitted that
there are still many technical problems to solve before this becomes a significant
option in power generation, for even if they are solved, the building of many plants
will take decades.
The IEA also calculated the changing energy supplies and sources if govern-
ments pursued different policies. A slightly more optimistic figure of 17.6 % from
renewable sources by 2035 is predicted if the future supply estimate is based on
policies actually promised by various governments by the end of 2011, but were
not yet implemented. By contrast, column 5 of the table shows that the increase
in energy would only be 14.1 % and the renewable proportion would be 26.2 % if
governments enacted carbon reduction policies, especially in power and industrial
plants, to limit the C02 proportion in the world atmosphere to 450 ppm, a level that
many climate scientists have long held to be one beyond which major increases in
global warming may occur. However, given current trends and the reluctance of
many governments to drastically change their sources of energy production, this
450 scenario is looking to be increasingly unlikely.
For those advocating sustainability, these projections are depressing, since even
with such drastic new measures as the 450 scenario shown in Column 6 the pro-
portion of the three main fossil fuels still amounts to just over 63.5 % of the total
energy consumption by 2035, although with different energy source mixes, with
coal declining by 32.7 % in absolute terms, oil by 12.9 % and natural gas increasing
by 20.5 %, again in totals, not proportions of the energy mix. Perhaps the most opti-
mistic feature of the projections is the reduction in the proportion of coal, since the
