An atomic future?

What do you see as the primary driver behind the nuclear power industry in the years ahead?
The primary driver will be the huge global demand for clean, affordable, reliable energy. Humankind now faces the immense and unprecedented challenge of reconciling the needs of rapidly expanding global economies with the necessity to preserve the environmental conditions that enabled civilization to evolve.
In developing countries, led by China and India, the demand for energy will soon outstrip demand in the West. If those countries rely on fossil fuels, they will create unbearable pollution for their own citizens while so accelerating the build-up of greenhouse gases (GHGs) as to ensure devastating climate change.
The task for both the developed and developing nations is nothing less than to achieve a global clean-energy revolution. In this quest, renewables can play an important role. But the real workhorse in producing clean energy on a vast scale must be nuclear power.

How is the current debate over climate change affecting the nuclear industry? As awareness of impending climate catastrophe has grown, so too has the recognition of nuclear power's fundamental virtue of producing emissions-free energy.
Among environmental groups that have regarded anti-nuclearism as an article of faith there is still resistance to acknowledging the merits of nuclear energy. Mythologies and dogmas are well entrenched, both institutionally and psychologically.
Meanwhile, however, the climate debate is gradually producing an ever-widening understanding that nuclear energy possesses the characteristics of a truly sustainable energy resource.The fuel is plentiful and yields virtually no emissions, and the waste is small in volume and safely manageable.
This is why plans are in place to expand nuclear power in almost all of the 30 countries where it now exists, and also why several other major countries - including Poland, Turkey, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Kazakhstan - have begun planning to introduce nuclear energy.
Renewable energy benefits from incentives as a low-carbon form of energy - should nuclear power be incentivised on the same grounds? Many renewable technologies are in early stages of development. Mechanisms such as the UK's Renewables Obligation have a

useful role in helping those technologies gain a foothold.
At this stage, nuclear power does not require such subsidies. It is a mature and advanced technology, which is now cost-competitive with fossil fuel even before the environmental virtues of nuclear power are taken into account.
Any "subsidies" for nuclear power should be limited to two areas: development of even more advanced fuel-cycle technologies and limited start-up incentives for innovators where new designs are being deployed for the first time.
It bears emphasis, however, that such government support is not needed to make nuclear energy competitive.That goal has been achieved,over a period of years, through steady reductions in both capital and operating costs.
At the same time, where incentives are offered specifically for low-carbon benefits, those benefits should be available equally to nuclear energy and renewables. The purpose of such incentives is, after all, to hasten the cleanenergy revolution. The same philosophy applies to the imposition of taxes.

Do you expect nuclear eventually to be accepted within the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI) schemes? We see no justification for continuing any form of restriction on the use of nuclear energy within the CDM and JI schemes.
Right now, the slow progress being made by the Kyoto mechanisms means that adverse treatment of nuclear energy under those schemes is having little impact. But dealing effectively with climate dangers will require an agreement much more ambitious in scope than Kyoto and much more effective in encouraging the widespread adoption of clean-energy technologies, including nuclear power.
The WNA is a strong advocate of such a comprehensive and effective global pact.

How do the economics of nuclear power compare with conventional forms of electricity generation, and how do you expect them to change in future?
Nuclear power's increased competitiveness is the result of cost reductions in all aspects of nuclear economics: construction, financing, operations, and waste management and decommissioning.
Among the cost-lowering factors are the evolution to standardised reactor designs, shorter construction periods,

new financing techniques, more efficient generating technologies, higher rates of reactor utilisation and longer plant lifetimes.
The International Energy Agency and the OECD's Nuclear Energy Agency have produced analyses showing that, even at high interest rates, nuclear power costs less than any of the fossil fuels. For example, at rates of 10%, they calculated average electricity costs per kilowatt-hour (for power plant construction and operation) to be 4 cents for nuclear, 4.7 cents for coal and 5.1 cents for natural gas. At lower interest rates, the comparison is even more favourable to nuclear.
This analysis is on pure economics.The balance would tilt even further toward nuclear power with the use of carbon taxes, emissions trading or low-carbon incentives.

Can the industry alone bear the costs of nuclear waste management, and/or decommissioning? If not, how should these costs be shared?
In many countries, the industry already bears the costs of waste management and decommissioning by building these functions into the cost of electricity.This is a principle that should be applied everywhere. Nuclear power's superior competitiveness includes this built-in cost.

Realistically, what share of power generation do you expect for nuclear in 2050? Nuclear energy currently uses 440 reactors to supply 16% of the world's electricity. Global electricity demand may double by 2030 and treble by 2050. Given the need to cut GHG emissions,we should expand nuclear power as rapidly as possible. Realistically, by 2050 we can expect to see the nuclear share of generation double.That would mean perhaps 2,000 reactors by mid-century. Ideally, a similar share might be supplied by renewables, but that is a speculative hope.
By 2100, I believe the world can and should have 8,000-10,000 reactors. That may seem a lot, but I see it as both feasible and necessary. Given the dire projections now coming from climate scientists, planning for anything less would be a reckless invitation to environmental disaster.