Nuclear Power Needs to Double to Curb Global Warming

Experts suggest that without nuclear power the world has little chance of restraining global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius

By Bobby Magill and Climate Central

Since the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident in Japan chilled global attitudes toward nuclear power, the world has been slowly reconciling its discomfort with nuclear and the idea that it may have a role to play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions to tackle climate change.

The International Energy Agency and the Nuclear Energy Agency suggest in a report released Thursday that nuclear will have such a significant role to play in climate strategy that nuclear power generation capacity will have to double by 2050 in order for the world to meet the international 2°C (3.6°F) warming goal.

With fossil fuels growing as sources of electricity across the globe, the IEA sees nuclear power as a stable source of low-carbon power helping to take polluting coal-fired plants offline.

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Nuclear power at record levels, despite Fukushima disaster

Sixteen months after the nuclear disaster in Japan, electricity generation from nuclear power worldwide has reached record levels, with a reactor construction boom likely to push those levels steadily higher.

“Fukushima has delayed nuclear development by three or four years,” as countries re-evaluate safety around nuclear power, says Luis Echávarri, the director general of the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA). “But construction continues.”

In the immediate aftermath of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami that led to meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, the total global operating capacity for nuclear-generated power dipped from about 372 gigawatts of electricity (GWe) — equivalent to about 14 per cent of the world’s electricity — to roughly 304 GWe, largely due to Japan and Germany switching off their nuclear plants.

However, a year after the meltdown, the amount of electricity generated from nuclear plants worldwide had risen again and is at an all time high, according to Echávarri.

The World Nuclear Association estimates that at least 73 GWe in net new capacity will be added by 2020.
The same can be said for nuclear plant construction. According to the NEA, a branch of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, there are more nuclear reactors under construction now than before the Fukushima meltdown and hundreds more are planned to go into operation in the years to come.
Japan itself shut down all 50 of its active reactors for inspection after the Fukushima meltdowns, but is embracing nuclear power again.

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