Atomic Energy on the Rise.
It looks like there is going to be a resurgence in the creation of new nuclear energy plants over the next few years. That’s good news of course, but that news is made even more welcome because many of the new plants will be Gen III with at least 3 being Gen IV.
The bastion of atomic energy over the next two decades will be Generation III reactors, despite the enormous medium- to long-term promise of Generation IV (as I recently explained, here). This is not idle speculation -– it is already happening in the world’s fastest-growing economies. At the time of writing this blog post, over 65 of these modern nuclear reactors are under construction (or nearly so). Twenty-three new nuclear power plants are being built in China alone, which is targeting 70 gigawatts of extra nuclear power by 2020. In addition, there are serious plans in China for two sodium-cooled fast reactors (BN-800) of the “Generation IV” design, following the completion of the first Russian unit in 2012 — the sort of reactor that some people think ‘don’t exist’.
It’s nice to see some good news from the AGW front.
