COMMENTARY — Nuclear power takes a back seat

At this point, the future of the nuclear power industry remains largely in doubt. The gloomy predictions about global warming have done little to convince politicians and the public of the benefits of nuclear power.

The setbacks to nuclear have continued apace: the U.S. has failed to take the expected lead in ordering new nuclear plants. And president-elect Bill Clinton does not consider nuclear a major part of his energy strategy. Canada’s biggest utility, Ontario Hydro, was forced under intense political pressure to defer its ambitious nuclear expansion program until after the year 2010. (Canada’s nuclear construction program will come to an end with the commercial startup of the last Candu reactor still under construction, the Darlington 4 unit east of Toronto.)

In Europe, the suspension of France’s Superphenix fast-breeder reactor in June could stop progress on the technology indefinitely. And the Finnish parliament dropped plans for expansion of nuclear power from its national energy strategy.

Developing and semi-industrialized countries such as Brazil and Argentina have shown little progress, taking upwards of 20 years to complete plants already under construction.

Nuclear’s problems seem always to hinge on economics. Nuclear has little chance of revival during the current global recession, especially in countries fighting for their long-term economic survival.

NUKEM believes nuclear power will not grow much in the Commonwealth of Independent States and Eastern Europe beyond projects already in the advanced stages of construction.

What’s more, the longer countries such as Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and Finland keep their nuclear expansion plans on hold, the harder it will be to get the political support to restart them. So far in 1992, only two nuclear plants, with a combined capacity of 1,520 MWe (megawatt-electric), have gone into commercial operation. One more 1,330-MWe reactor may start up by year-end. By then, NUKEM expects world nuclear plant capacity to stand at 330.3 GWe (gigawatt-electric). We see no country eager to begin a new round of capacity expansion.

During the next few years, the hope is that current expansion plans will continue, however slowly, and that other countries will not cut back on capacity.

— From a recent edition of Market Report, a monthly publication of NUKEM of Germany.