Gates's foundation has made a handful of bad investments (generally small) but I'm generally really impressed with the thought they put into where to invest and why.
While it's a little bit scary that Japan and Germany are both trending (more than trending) away from nuclear, maybe that's not the worst thing in the world. Neither country will go for coal. Both countries will need to invest in other technologies (some basic, some consumer-oriented) in order to meet their emissions reductions goals.
But I get scared about the possibility of additional countries backing away from nuclear.
Uh? Not only does Germany rely on coal energy (more so since they plan to get rid of nuclear) they also export it (which is great for politicians in Sweden, cut back on nuclear and call yourself green is great PR (then import coal energy from Germany)).
I'm curious why that is? I remember a table that showed the deaths per terawatt-hour of each energy source [1]. Coal was the highest, and nuclear was the lowest (below all the renewables even). I don't know if this data is accurate, but assuming it is, I can't understand why nuclear doesn't have more support.
It is not so much a meltdown. Those meltdowns are rare. And most people don't die at the point of the meltdown but from the long term consequences of the meltdown. But many Nuclear supporters doesn't accept those death as consequences of the nuclear meltdown. BTW, not knowing data is accurate but assuming it is, is like finding a gun and assuming it is not loaded.
What I'm really concerned about nuclear power is the problem of waste. The dream of fuel recycling has been dreamt for 40 years now and those existing plants are everything but clean. Currently the idea of a closed fuel circle for nuclear power is just a dream.
Also citing new reactor designs is pointless. Old designs are still running. Old Russian designs are still running, and I don't speak about Chernobyl like reactors. And it would take decades to replace those reactors and you still have to deal with the old ones. E.g. Germany shut down all Russian WWER reactors in the East after the reunification, those reactors are still there, the deconstruction of those reactors has just started a few years ago.
In that time frame you might just as good replace nuclear power with a decentralized system of renewable energy. I really wonder, why people who love the internet, love freedom, love markets don't root for that. Decentralized renewable energy are much less likely to create a monopoly for electricity. It is much more likely that you could have an autonomous energy supply.
Most of them are going to be using the latest iteration of some tried-and-true series of reactors from another country. Russia is exporting the VVER-1200, Korea is exporting their APR-1400, and China is looking to export their ACPR-1000 and large components of American, Japanese, and European reactors.
The common thread here is that all of these are very conventional, directly descended from designs that have seen extensive service and have an excellent record of reliability. You're not going to see newbie countries screwing up the designs. (You might see them mess up the operations.)
Gates's foundation has made a handful of bad investments (generally small) but I'm generally really impressed with the thought they put into where to invest and why.
While it's a little bit scary that Japan and Germany are both trending (more than trending) away from nuclear, maybe that's not the worst thing in the world. Neither country will go for coal. Both countries will need to invest in other technologies (some basic, some consumer-oriented) in order to meet their emissions reductions goals.
But I get scared about the possibility of additional countries backing away from nuclear.