Remember the news that nuclear power may not be anathema any longer for certain members of the left? Of course, Professor Lovelock has long backed nuclear power, but it takes more than one person to make such a concept fly.
Well, it seems to be flapping its wings a bit harder:
From Japan to Germany to Britain to the United States, leaders of countries that had stopped investing in nuclear power are now considering building new power plants or delaying the closure of existing ones. The shift is especially notable in Japan and Germany, where both turned decisively against nuclear power after the 2011 Fukushima disaster. And it comes even as fears mount about another potential nuclear disaster at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine. …
The global reevaluation shows the extraordinary degree to which the war in Ukraine is reshaping long-held positions about nuclear power. Europe is bracing for a winter of energy shortages in which it may run out of natural gas supplies, potentially forcing it to shut down factories and leave citizens shivering. Worldwide, prices for fossil fuels have skyrocketed since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, with Europe, the United States and a few other countries around the world significantly scaling back their purchases of cheap Russian oil and gas. [WaPo]
Resulting in …
This week, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced that his government is considering constructing next-generation nuclear power plants with the goal of making them commercially operational in the 2030s. The government may also extend the operational life of its current nuclear power plants.
No doubt some folks are appalled, but the fact of the matter is that we need energy, and rioting over its lack would be no fun at all. Don’t be surprised at more news concerning nuclear energy out of both Germany and Japan, as both face Russia, an aggressive, nuclear-armed nation that supplies a lot of fossil fuels.
