Then the anti-nuclear Luddites gathered and started working to kill nuclear power, and after decades of work, pretty much succeeded. It didn’t help that Chernobyl happened. The reactor that melted down/exploded was an RBMK graphite-moderated reactor, a Soviet era design that was thermally unstable and did not have a containment. Maybe it was hubris or arrogance, but it seems the designers figured it didn’t need a containment because “Soviet reactors don’t melt down”. That the West didn’t use that design, didn’t use graphite-moderated reactors, didn’t matter to the anti-nuclear Luddites. Nuclear power was sold as being “bad for children and other living things”, demonized, painted as being something out of Hell that needed to be banned rather than being a virtually limitless and clean energy source. It’s only now that people are realizing they’ve been sold a bill of goods.
Has the technology changed since the 1960’s? Absolutely. The new generation designs are safer, more efficient, don’t generate the amount of nuclear waste as older designs, and in some cases can use the depleted fuel from older reactors as fuel, helping eliminate the high-level nuclear waste. Some of these new reactor designs are small modular reactors that greatly reduce the cost of building nuclear power plants.
All of these things seem to be leading towards a resurgence of nuclear power, with one of the big factors being that nuclear can operate 24/7/365. Some of the newer designs can go years without needing to be shut down in order to be refueled and others never need to be shut down for refueling.
At least one state is looking to expand nuclear power, that being my home state of New Hampshire. Governor-elect Kelly Ayotte made expanding nuclear power in the state part of her campaign platform. About 60% of New Hampshire’s electrical power comes from nuclear power, in this case from the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant. The rest comes from natural gas, hydro, coal, biomass, and wind. (There isn’t a lot of large scale solar here, part of that because of being so far north. It is because of the high cost of natural gas that helps make electricity here expensive, said natural gas coming from foreign sources because the natural gas pipeline bringing it into New England doesn’t have the capacity to supply the demand for both heating and power generation.)
Across the nation the demand for electrical power is growing, much of that due to the increasing number of data centers being built.
Stephen Moore, an economic advisor for President-elect Donald Trump, whom I recently interviewed over the incoming administration's economic policies, shares a similar vision and said that nuclear energy is long overdue for an American renaissance after being neglected decades ago.France has had a high percentage of its electrical power from nuclear for decades, with approximately 75% of its power coming from nuclear and it is planning to increase that in the coming years. We should be following France’s example, not Germany’s. Nuclear works. Renewables don’t. And nuclear is green. And now it can be even less expensive to build.
"We need to get back to building new plants so that we have the electric power capacity for the next generation of artificial intelligence and other uses that will tax the grid beyond what it can provide. AI will use three to four times as much energy as the internet, so demand is going to spike and we will be at risk of brownouts," Moore told HotAir in a separate interview.
According to Moore, the U.S. gets less than 20% of its electric power from aging nuclear plants that are now on the verge of being retired after decades of service and need to be replaced fast, or the nation will face a worsening energy production deficit as demand increases.
Germany, Europe's largest economy, has seen its industries implode after deciding to shut down its last nuclear power plants during the Ukraine war and is now having a severe electricity crisis. Meanwhile, in comparison to its faltering neighbor on the other bank of the Rhine, France is now more committed than ever to nuclear power to sustain its economy.