Experts say world is ‘past peak fossil power’ but warn against uneven development of energy projects
Nuclear power generation is likely to break records in 2025 as more countries invest in reactors to fuel the shift to a low-carbon global economy, while renewable energy is likely to overtake coal as a power source early next year, data has shown.
China, India, Korea and Europe are likely to have new reactors come on stream, while several in Japan are also forecast to return to generation, and French output should increase, according to a report on the state of global electricity markets published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) on Wednesday.
Electricity demand is also expected to increase around the world, fuelled largely by the move to a low-carbon economy. Electric vehicles and heat pumps, as well as many low-carbon industrial processes, require electricity rather than oil and gas.
Fantastic. Let’s sink more money into white elephants rather than investing in stuff that’s actually economical.
No it can’t. Have you looked at any current project? They’re all wildly over budget. And none of those calculations even consider decommissioning or nuclear waste storage. Both are endless money pits that are usually paid for by the public. You cannot even put a price tag on nuclear storage because it’s never been done before and it needs to be operated beyond the horizon of any reasonable accounting practice. We’re effectively saddling future generations with our crap.
We should rather build more coal plants to fill in what renewables can’t right?
And yet, EDF has built the current french nuclear reactor fleet without any subsidies, and made billions of euros of net profit every year for decades, excepted in 2022. It is feasible. Current failures are not inherently tied to the nuclear technology. It’s political.
You cannot even put a price tag on nuclear storage because it’s never been done before
Plain false. Cigéo will work for 100 years for about 25 billions of euros. That’s dirt cheap. And you now why it’s dirt cheap? Because the entire high level radioactive waste produced by a country like France for 60 years fit in a 16 meters wide cube. And most of it will be re-used in future EPRs.
