RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Power Utility Long Term ContractsInteresting post Will1999. It really depends on your definition of "safe". Despite all the shrill rhetoric from the anti-nuclear media more people were killed on the roads of Japan every hour than as a result of Fukushima. Nobody died as a result of it. Nobody was seriously injured as a result of it. More people died from heart attacks and stree caused by largely unnecessary mass evacuations of populations. They would have been far safer if they had stayed where they were.
There will be no decimation of the nuclear industry.Here are some facts and figures to tell you why. Firstly the only real replacement for nuclear is fossil fuels. The liberal fraternity hates fossil fuels more than it does nuclear so coal is not going replace it. Natural gas has been remarkably cheap in recent years and the power plants have become much more fuel efficient with the combined cycle (gas turbine + steam turbine) technology. That combination has pose3d a reall competitive threat to nuclear. But we have been here before. With many countries trying to find ways of not choking their populations on coal pollutants natural gas is a very good option. However not many countires have abundant supplies. The LNG market is growing rapidly and companies like Cheniere Energy are exporting it as fast as they can get liquefaction plants on line. I have done very well on that company by the way. As demand increases so does price and those cheap gas fired plants are going to become really expensive to operate in the coming years and they will lose their competitive edge.
As far as wind and solar are concerned they suffer from major issues with capacity factor and availability and make up a very very small percentage of world power generation for that reason.
The last reason is simply the growth in electricity generation. Neither wind nor solar can keep up with even the increases in generation required by the worlds population let alone replace nuclear. The same goes for fossil fuels...although coal could do it and countries have not stopped building coal plants despite signing the Paris accord.
Also remember that over one third of the worlds population has no access to electricity and another third has only limited access to it. Of course most countries aspire to the high standards of living we in the West take for granted and the only way those gaps can be filled is with a huge outbuild of nuclear.
Sadly many politicians believe they can fill this gap with consumption reductions, wind and solar but the mathematics are against them....and not even a politician can make the maths come out differently...although they try.
So, despite all the blather about alternatives, against the backdrop of world energy consumption there is only one technology that can fill those gaps and that is some form of nuclear generation.
And, I would argue that nuclear technology by any measure you care to use, is the single safest form of electrical generation there is bar none.
There have been far more fatalities in the wind industry than in all the 17500 reactor years of operation of the worlds nuclear fleet...but reporting THAt data is not in the interests of the Liberal controlled media...so you do not hear about it.
And as for risk...the single most unsafe thing you do every day is drive a vehicle. Millions of times more likely to die doing that than living next to a nuclear plant your whole life.
Regards
Malcolm