Dubious future of nuclear energy
The attitude of society to nuclear energy is extremely negative. Those politicians and experts who had criticized it before, after the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant received very weighty arguments. In Japan and other developed countries, atomists suffered a defeat. The construction of new reactors has been stopped, and the coagulation of existing ones is possible. But not all states are ready to abandon atomic energy.
Germany, for example, has shut down eight of its reactors this spring and is going to close all the others by 2022. Most Italians voted to keep their country non-nuclear. Banned the construction of reactors Switzerland and Spain. The Prime Minister of Japan personally promised to do everything possible to reduce his country's dependence on the energy of the atom. This is what the President of Taiwan says. Mexico is focusing its efforts not on building ten reactors, but on developing its natural gas-fired power plants. Belgium speaks of the possibility of abandoning nuclear power plants already by 2015.
As for the United States, an excess of natural gas and insufficient funding have already forced us to think about the extinction of nuclear projects. After Fukushima, the fate of projects has become even more definite. If in the 2007 year 28 applications were filed for the construction of a nuclear power plant before 2020, today we can say that at best three will be built.
In France, which is ahead of the entire NPP capacity per capita, there is a desperate debate. The president supports nuclear energy, and his main adversary, Francois Hollande, proposes to reduce the share of nuclear energy by more than a third by the year 2025. Social polls show that Hollande is more popular in his own country than the current president. Before the accident in Japan, about two-thirds of the population of France supported the development of nuclear energy, today almost as many are in favor of its curtailment.
But not all states treat the nuclear industry negatively. New reactors can be built in the UK, Eastern Europe and South Korea. In Bangladesh, Vietnam, India, Turkey and Iran, Russia will be engaged in the construction of nuclear power plants. The USA, France, Japan and South Korea are working on similar deals in Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey. China continues to build reactors in Pakistan.
Does the idea that none of the client states have a worthy nuclear safety regulation program come to the heads of these nuclear builders? Only in Pakistan there are enough trained personnel who can work on the construction of nuclear power plants and continue to deal with nuclear programs.
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Syria, Iran and Algeria are seeking to obtain nuclear weapons, or are already conducting relevant development, or trying to get the necessary technology. Pakistan already possesses nuclear weapons. Iran, Egypt, Algeria and Syria have already been seen in actions that violate the measures and safety standards of the IAEA. Some of the countries where it is planned to build nuclear reactors do not respond to calls to reduce the production of nuclear fuel, a process that could in a short time turn Egypt, Turkey, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and Jordan into countries possessing nuclear weapons.
For the sake of which the whole world is in danger of new catastrophes, when new reactors are being built in such countries?
The first and main reason is simple and clear - money, more precisely - a lot of money. Today, when developed countries are beginning to abandon the construction of new nuclear reactors, suppliers of nuclear solutions have to move to less developed markets in the Middle and Far East, which promise considerable profits. For example, South Korea signed its first contract for the construction of four reactors with the United Arab Emirates in the amount of 20 billions of dollars.
Well, the second reason is geopolitical interests. Russia sells the reactor to Turkey at cost. What is the reason for such generosity? Moscow wants to get a lever of influence on its neighbor, which is capable of creating problems with the construction of oil pipelines. In the situation with Iran, Russia wants to play the role of a superpower, which is an independent arbiter in Tehran’s disputes over the nuclear issue.
Saudi Arabia wants to get an atomic bomb, saying that they will have to develop nuclear weapons if Iran does it. Tehran, on the other hand, insists that its activities in the nuclear industry are connected exclusively with the use of the peaceful atom and solve only energy problems.
Is the risk of repeating Fukushima or Chernobyl and the nuclear arms race in the Middle East worth someone's political interests or a few billion dollars? Let's hope that the danger of building nuclear power plants will be understood not only by developed countries.
Information