Nuclear big designs

We just crossed the first anniversary of the massive earthquake and tsunami that left approximately 20,000 dead or missing and triggered a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. It was the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. About 326,000 Japanese residents remain homeless, including 80,000 evacuated from the vicinity of the Fukushima facility. Residents evacuated from the zone set up in a 12-mile radius around the nuclear plant are still struggling to rebuild their lives.

In the Fukushima area—in Fukushima, there are two million people living in the prefecture, the state, and about three-quarters of those people are living under levels of very serious radioactive contamination. There are prefectures in—hot spots in surrounding areas that also have high levels. About 350,000 children are living under these conditions. The decontamination has started, but how effective it can be—some areas have been decontaminated only levels—the radiation went down 10 percent, 20 percent.

And yet, nations (except Germany) are scrambling to up their nuclear energy tally. In the UK it is the current season favourite with the ruling party. At the time of the Fukushima disaster, only four countries (China, Russia, India and South Korea) were building more than two reactors. In these four nations, citizens pay for the new reactors the government chooses to build through direct subsidies or energy price hikes.

That is because nuclear power is a private investor's nightmare. Given its long gestation period, no new nuclear-power project has ever bid successfully in a competitive energy market anywhere in the world. As said by an expert in The Guardian, 'big nuclear programmes only happen when citizens sign blank cheques..'

French company Areva working on a new Olkiluoto 3 reactor in Finland without government support is four years behind schedule and more than €2 billion over budget!

Will a price on carbon help level the playing field? Not really, as solar and wind would turn out cheaper and faster than nuclear.

Yet why are governments like the UK, US and India backing nuclear?