by Global CO2 emissions would be 6% lower than they are now if it weren’t for the “false narrative” against nuclear power since the Chernobyl disaster, which has caused “unfounded public concern”, according to Tony Blair’s think tank.
A report from the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) shows that if the nuclear power industry had continued to grow at the same rate as before the 1986 nuclear disaster, the carbon savings would be the equivalent of eliminating emissions from Canada, South Korea, Australia and Mexico combined.
Global emissions are higher than they could have been due to a sharp slowdown in the number of nuclear reactors opened since the 1980s, the report released Monday said. It showed that more than four hundred reactors had been commissioned in the thirty years before the Chernobyl disaster, but that fewer than two hundred had been commissioned in the almost thirty years since.
“The result is that nuclear power has never become the ubiquitous energy source that many expected, and countries are instead turning to alternatives such as coal and gas,” the report said.
The think tank has predicted a “new nuclear age” in the coming years, driven by a surge in demand for low-carbon electricity from the energy-thirsty data centers needed to power artificial intelligence.
But it warned that public perception of the risk of nuclear power was “not commensurate with the actual risk” and that world leaders should move beyond the “false alarm and false ideology” that have slowed nuclear power’s progress in recent decades.
“In the entire history of nuclear energy, there have only been two major accidents: Chernobyl and Fukushima [in Japan in 2011] – and the consequences of this, although serious, have been significantly overestimated,” the report said.
Earlier this year, Microsoft announced plans to help reopen a nuclear power plant at Pennsylvania’s infamous Three Mile Island site — the site of the worst meltdown and radiation leak in U.S. history — to provide power for its AI operations.
Weeks later, Google signed a “world-first” deal to buy power from a fleet of six or seven mini-nuclear reactors from California’s Kairos Power to generate the energy needed for its growing use of AI. Amazon and software company Oracle have also signed deals to develop small modular reactors (SMRs) to power their data centers.
A new dawn for nuclear energy represents a “significant opportunity” for Britain, according to a second TBI report. It called on the government to set out “a bold new strategy” for nuclear technologies, including the creation of “AI growth zones” across the country, where nuclear projects designed to power data centers would face with simplified planning rules.
Tone Langengen, senior policy advisor at TBI and lead author of the report, said: “A new nuclear era is beginning. But whether this remains the case will depend entirely on whether leaders are willing to move beyond false alarms and ideology and make their judgments based on a fact-based assessment of the risks.”
Earlier this year, MPs on the Environmental Audit Committee said the Conservative government’s approach to developing factory-built small modular nuclear power stations “lacked clarity”, even after the government set up Great British Nuclear, which is expected to supply new power stations . , including a fleet of SMRs.
The previous government spent £215 million on developing SMR design and ran a competition for companies to bid for contracts.
The United Kingdom has not completed a nuclear power plant since Sizewell B was completed in 1995. In 2006, as Prime Minister, Blair announced that Britain would build a new generation of nuclear power stations, but the plan was delayed by legal challenges.
