That said, I don't see how that's any reason for why wealthy, high tech societies shouldn't be making the switch over to nuke power as quickly as they can. Considering that these large, wealthy countries are also consuming the most power, it seems a no-brainer to start there. Start by greening up these big energy consumers and deal with the "how do you let a dirt poor country run a nuke plant" problem later.
Problem is if we
start by building more nuclear power plants it be 10 years or longer before they come online. That's 10 years of burning fossil fuels that will make the situation much worse.
However If we start by prioritizing
renewables, then when those nuclear plants finally become operational we will already be half way there, and need less of them.
MarkCorrigan said:
Complaining that nuclear power is unsafe by using Chernobyl as a comparison is like claiming modern cars are unsafe because the Ford Model T didn't have seatbelts and airbags.
Modern cars can go much faster, are generally heavier, and are driven at high speed a lot more, so they are inherently less safe. That has been mitigated by adding seatbelts and airbags and crumple zones and other safety features. But those features cost money, making modern cars a lot more expensive.
Similarly, modern nuclear plants are only safe because a lot of effort is put into making them so. They take a long time to build right and the power they produce is more expensive than other sources, including wind and solar. In the future this lack of competitiveness will get worse. That means from a purely economic standpoint it doesn't make sense to bet the farm on nuclear alone.
You say 'wealthy' countries can afford it, but is that really true? Western countries have generated their wealth through market economies that are actually quite fragile, and the wealth is not spread around evenly. Just because the US for example is 'rich', doesn't mean it can sink a large percentage of GDP into projects that that won't provide a return for a decade or so without affecting the economy. The poor will suffer first, then the political backlash could be severe.
Many places in the World are not suitable locations for nuclear power plants. They need to be close to a large source of water that doesn't mind being heated up, and located away from earthquake, volcanic, tsunami, flooding and wildfire zones - and of course not in war zones. In some countries that's impossible. Maybe in the future we will develop nuclear power plants that aren't so picky, but that's not now.
Countries which have the most need to build new nuclear plants are doing it. China currently has 21 plants under construction, India has 8, Turkey has 4, Egypt, South Korea and Russia have 3 each, Japan and the UK have 2 each. China is the most important because they are currently burning way more coal than any other country in the world. And you can bet they aren't holding out on nuclear over irrational safety concerns.
The
IEA predicts that between now and 2040 nuclear will be dominated by China and other developing economies, while advanced economies overall will reduce nuclear capacity as they ramp up renewables. By 2050 the total added nuclear capacity of 20GW will be matched by the retirement of a similar amount - IOW we will be building a lot more new reactors than we are now just to replace old ones being decommissioned.
