Flamanville Nuclear plant

Energy for the future or relic of

the past?
The Flamanville plant is the first new nuclear plant to be built in France for
15 years.

Nuclear power – an energy source for the

future?
The events at Fukushima had repercussions around the world. It led many to
question whether nuclear power is an energy for the future or a relic of the past.

It was well publicised that in the wake of the accident at Fukushima, Italy and
Germany announced plans to phase out their nuclear industry, with the latter
intending to phase out all reactors by 2022. Both Spain and France aim to reduce
their dependency on nuclear power.

Less publicised is what you learned in Week 2, that there are many nuclear
reactors under construction and a further 500 proposed plants! The table below
shows in which countries these are to be situated.

Nuclear reactors around the world

Reactors
Reactors Reactors Reactors
Country under
operable planned proposed
construction

US 99 5 5 17

France 58 1 1 1

Japan* 48 3 9 3

Russia 34 9 31 18

South Korea 23 5 8 0

China 22 27 64 123

India 21 6 22 35

Canada 19 0 2 3

UK 16 0 4 7

Ukraine 15 0 2 11

World Total 437 70 183 311

Source: World Nuclear Association

This
shut table
down shows the
all of its top 10reactors
nuclear countries with thethe
following most nuclear reactors
Fukushima disasterand the world
in 2011. total. *Japan
Source.
There have been problems with the installation of the nuclear plant at Flamanville
which have delayed the completion of the project. It is now planned to start in
2018. Flamanville is an EPR model as is the planned development at Hinckley
Point.

Many countries intend to increase the amount of nuclear energy that they use;
these include Hungary, Romania and Ukraine. Poland and Turkey plan to build
their first nuclear reactors and as you can see from the table, China has many
reactors planned.

Why are so many countries forging ahead with nuclear

power?
You will examine the answers to this question in the following steps along with
some of the issues that surround the use of fossil fuels. In particular, you will look
at the need to find cleaner energy sources that reduce the emission of carbon
dioxide.

(Text: © The Open University

gettyimages.co.uk), / Images:
Bottom: courtesy © Top:
BBC Charly
News, Triballeau
Source: IEA / Stringer (via
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30919045))

6 comments