From: imbibe@mindspring.com   
      
   New report paints gloomy picture of the world’s nuclear industry   
   By Dawn Stover, Oct. 6, 2022, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists   
      
   The amount of electricity generated worldwide by nuclear energy increased by   
   3.9% last year. In China, it increased by 11%—in part because China   
   connected 3 new nuclear reactors to the grid last year, and two more in the   
   first half of 2022.   
      
   That might sound like a growth industry, but China is one of the few places   
   where nuclear power is on the rise. In countries such as France, India, and   
   the U.S., nuclear electricity generation is declining. And although global   
   nuclear electricity    
   generation is still increasing, it is not keeping pace with other energy   
   sources, particularly wind and solar power.   
      
   Last year, nuclear energy’s share of global electricity generation dropped   
   below 10% for the first time in four decades. At its peak in 1996, nuclear   
   power generated 17.5% of the world’s commercial gross electricity.   
      
   At the end of 2021, the world had 437 nuclear reactors “in operation,”   
   according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). However, that   
   total included 23 reactors that have not generated power since at least 2013.   
      
   Those are some of the key findings in the World Nuclear Industry Status Report   
   2022, the most recent in a series of annual reports compiled over the past 15   
   years by an international team of experts led by Paris-based independent   
   consultant Mycle    
   Schneider and London-based independent consultant Antony Froggatt. The   
   385-page report, released on Oct. 5, paints a detailed picture of reactor   
   construction starts, closures, electricity generation, reactor age   
   distribution, and other trends within the    
   33 countries that have operating nuclear reactors—as well as an update on   
   potential newcomer countries.   
      
   Ten chapters of the report focus on specific countries and the issues they are   
   having with nuclear power: For example, reactors in France had their worst   
   performance in years, and the report says the worst is yet to come. In   
   Germany, the energy crisis    
   caused by the war in Ukraine has led to an unexpected debate over whether to   
   extend the lifetimes of nuclear reactors that were scheduled to be phased out   
   in response to the Fukushima nuclear accident. In the U.S., legislators have   
   passed large new    
   subsidies for nuclear power in order to keep an existing, but in some places   
   no longer economical, low-carbon-emissions energy source afloat in a changing   
   climate.   
      
   In Fukushima, Japan, the industry status report describes the situation   
   created by the 2011 accident as “far from stabilized.” Japan’s safety   
   authority agreed on a controversial plan to release more than 1.3 million   
   cubic meters of contaminated    
   water into the ocean over the coming 3 decades. “Most of the water would   
   have to be treated again before being diluted and released,” the report   
   notes.   
      
   This year, for the first time, the authors also included a chapter on   
   “Nuclear Power and War” in their report. The chapter explains why it is   
   virtually impossible to protect a facility as complex as a nuclear power plant   
   from intentional or    
   accidental military attacks. No nuclear power plant in the world has been   
   designed to operate during a full-scale war that includes shelling, occupation   
   by enemy forces, and physical threats against employees operating the plant,   
   the report states. “   
   Nuclear power plants are immediately vulnerable in war situations. This is   
   directly due to the constant and permanent need for cooling.”   
      
   The chapter on war also includes a timeline of official statements by the IAEA   
   and the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine about the status of   
   nuclear facilities in Ukraine, particularly the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia   
   nuclear power plant.    
   The report’s authors note that they have “refrained from attempting an   
   objective account of what is happening in Ukraine,” given the difficulty of   
   verifying whether certain reports are exaggerated or even false. “The   
   warring parties, as well as    
   organizations and individuals interacting with them, have an interest in a   
   representation that is not necessarily objective,” the report states.   
   Nevertheless, the authors hope that the chronology of statements sheds some   
   light on the situation.   
      
   It’s unclear what impact economic sanctions will have on Russia’s   
   dominance in the international nuclear reactor marketplace. Russia’s   
   national nuclear company Rosatom currently has 20 reactors under construction:   
   three in Russia, four each in    
   China and India, and nine more in four other countries.   
      
   Of the 53 reactors currently being built around the world, an average of   
   almost seven years has passed since construction began, according to the   
   industry status report. At the beginning of 2021, utilities planned to connect   
   16 reactors to the grid that    
   year, but only six actually made it—half of them in China.   
      
   Even though China has a young and growing fleet of reactors, two-thirds of the   
   world’s reactors have already operated for more than three decades, with   
   many reactors approaching the end of their operating lifetimes. The status   
   report projects that “   
   in the decade to 2030, in addition to the units currently under construction,   
   161 new reactors . . . would have to be connected to the grid to maintain the   
   status quo, almost three times the rate achieved over the past decade.”   
      
   And even if reactors were built at that accelerated rate, that still leaves   
   the problem of what to do with nuclear reactors during times of conflict—as   
   the war in Ukraine shows.   
      
   The more nuclear reactors that are operating, “the more difficult to shut   
   down all reactors as a precautionary measure in case of war,” the status   
   report notes. “Physics do not change under wartime conditions.”   
      
   https://thebulletin.org/2022/10/new-report-paints-gloomy-picture   
   of-the-worlds-nuclear-industry   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)