Nuclear power's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year

M.V. Ramana and Suvrat Raj sum up perfecty the thankfully dreadful year just experienced by the waning nuclear power industry:

"By all accounts, nuclear power has had a bad year. In March, Westinghouse, the largest historic builder of nuclear power plants in the world, declared bankruptcy, creating a major financial crisis for its parent company, Toshiba. The French nuclear supplier, Areva, went bankrupt a few months earlier and is now in the midst of a restructuring that will cost French taxpayers about €10 billion. Its reactor business is being taken over by a clutch of companies, including the public sector Électricité de France, which is itself in poor financial health. In May, the U.S. Energy Information Administration announced that it expects the share of nuclear electricity in the U.S. to decline from about 20% in 2016 to 11% by 2050. The newly elected Presidents of Korea and France have both promised to cut the share of nuclear energy in their countries. And the Swiss just voted to phase out nuclear power." Read the full article.

Renewables Overtake Nuclear Years Earlier Than Expected

The latest issue of the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Electric Power Monthly (with data through April 30) reveals that renewable energy sources – including wind, solar, geothermal and hydropower – are now providing a greater share of the nation’s electrical generation than nuclear power, according to a new analysis from nonprofit SUN DAY Campaign.

For the first third of this year, renewables and nuclear power have been running neck-in-neck, with renewables providing 20.20% of U.S. net electrical generation during the four-month period (from January through April) compared to 20.75% for nuclear power. Yet, SUN DAY says that in March and April, renewables surpassed nuclear power for the first time and have taken a growing lead: 21.60% (renewables) versus 20.34% (nuclear) in March and 22.98% (renewables) versus 19.19% (nuclear) in April. Read more