» Nuclear power dropped to 32 year-low

2014/09/22

The cost of keeping uranium out of the hands of terrorists and safe from natural disasters is sidelining nuclear energy, which officials once dreamed would power a utopian future of cheap, almost limitless electricity.

The amount of power produced by nuclear reactors has dropped to a 32-year low, the International Atomic Energy Agency was to tell its 162 member states meeting in Vienna. The agency was also to present lower forecasts for future output as governments in developed nations seek other sources of power.

Even as a new generation of campaigners promote carbon emission-free nuclear power as part of a strategy to tackle climate change, growth has stalled in Europe and North America while Japan’s reactor network — the world’s third biggest — remains idle following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that wrecked the Fukushima No. 1 atomic plant. Concerns that Iran, Syria, or even some terrorist group, might squirrel away fuel for making bombs have pushed up the price of nuclear power in the rest of the world.
<Media Reoprt>
IAEA set to announce 32-year low in nuclear power production (Japan Times)]

Tags:construction of new plants, IAEA, news

• Evacuation orders lifted in 3 municipalities today, one more tomorrow

• Court issues injunction to halt Takahama nuclear reactors

• Anti-nuclear group of India submitted a letter to the Japanese Government to oppose Japan-India nuclear agreement

• World Nuclear Victims Forum in Hiroshima closed with “Hiroshima Declaration”