Tuesday, October 20, 2015

This study reflects on the future of nuclear technology post Fukushima Daiichi.

It is worth reading, because, the public opinion globally of nuclear energy has changed with the exception of countries such as Iran. The public matters. Republican legislators like to claim there are jobs in every aspect of energy and it should be exploited to the maximum. That is counter culture to the American public. I think it is time the American Public's opinion matters and the end of cronyism brought to reality.
 
Anticipating the future (click here) is difficult in any situation, but assessing the prospects for nuclear power in the next fifty years presents especially complex challenges. The public perception of nuclear power has changed and continues to change. Once viewed as a miracle of modern technology, nuclear power came to be perceived by many as a potential catastrophe; now it is viewed as a potential, albeit potentially still dangerous, source of green power. Conventional wisdom in the 1960s held that nuclear power could dominate the electricity sectors of developed countries, while less than twenty years later, many predicted the complete demise of the U.S. nuclear industry following the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. Yet neither attitude fully forecast the situation today: a nuclear industry that is not dominant, but is far from dead. Indeed, the history of long-range planning for nuclear power serves as a caution for anyone wishing to make predictions about the state of the industry over the next half-century. Nonetheless, it is critical to assess its role in the future energy mix: decisions taken now will impact the energy sector for many years. This assessment requires both a review of past planning strategies and a new approach that considers alternate scenarios that may differ radically from business as usual....