A decade ago, it seemed as though the global nuclear industry was in an irreversible decline.
Concerns over safety, cost, and what to do with radioactive waste had sapped enthusiasm for a technology once seen as a revolutionary source of abundant cheap energy.
Yet now there is widespread talk of a revival, fuelled by tech giants Microsoft, Google and Amazon all announcing investments in the sector, as well as the growing pressures on wealthy nations to curb their carbon emissions.
But how real is the comeback?
When commercial nuclear power was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s, governments were seduced by its seemingly unlimited potential.
Nuclear reactors could harness and control the same awesome forces released by atomic bombs – to provide electricity for millions of homes. With a single kilogram of uranium yielding some 20,000 times as much energy as a kilogram of coal, it seemed like the future.
But the technology also inspired public fear. And that fear seemed to be justified by the Chernobyl disaster, which spread radioactive contamination across Europe in early 1986.
It fuelled widespread public and political opposition – and slowed the growth of the industry.
Another accident, at the Fukushima Daichi plant in Japan in 2011, re-energised concerns about nuclear safety. Japan itself shut down all of its reactors in the immediate aftermath, and only 12 have since restarted.
Germany decided to phase out nuclear power altogether. Other countries scaled back plans to invest in new power plants, or extend the lives of ageing facilities.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, this led to the loss of 48GW of electric power generation globally between 2011 and 2020.
The post Is nuclear power gaining new energy? first appeared on EnviroLink Network.