FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

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Nuclear Power Is Growing Only Because of China and India’s Programs

Nov. 8, 2018 (EIRNS)—According to the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2018, China and India are leading the world’s nuclear power production growth, as the two developing nations, among the top consumers of energy in the world, pursue their respective national nuclear energy programs, CNBC reported today. According to the International Energy Agency, world nuclear power production will grow by about 46% by 2040, and more than 90% of the net increase will come from China and India. (In its upcoming Nov. 16 issue, EIR will demonstrate EIR will show that that nuclear production must grow much more than that to achieve the power required for global economic development.)

The survival of nuclear power is now in the hands of China, India, and Russia, while the developed nations, including Japan and South Korea, have slowed down generation of nuclear power significantly. The United States, by far the leading nation in implementing this front-line power technology in the 1960s through 1980s, last licensed a plant in 1979, and is no longer capable of manufacturing the third generation light water reactors that are being built elsewhere.

Even in China and India, their nuclear power plants are not the mainstay of power generation. Nuclear’s contribution to their overall power generation capacity is very small. In essence, it supplements the power sector, and, in the case of China, is also intended to replace many of their polluting coal-fired power plants over the coming decades.