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Global Leaders Push for Nuclear Energy Revival
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Science & Health


GLOBAL LEADERS PUSH FOR NUCLEAR ENERGY REVIVAL

March 21, 2024 2:20 PM
 * By VOA News

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


A protestor from Greenpeace hangs on the building with a banner during arrivals
for a Nuclear Energy Summit at the Expo in Brussels, March 21, 2024.
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More than 30 global leaders and delegations pushed for the increased research,
funding and implementation of nuclear energy Thursday at a summit in Brussels
hosted by the International Atomic Energy Agency, also known as the IAEA.

The summit involved European countries, as well as the United States, Brazil and
China. It comes after last year's United Nations environmental summit COP28, in
which 22 leaders backed nuclear energy.

The push for nuclear energy is to meet global environmental goals and move away
from a reliance on coal and oil, particularly as many European countries have
moved away from Russia as an oil source following its full-scale invasion of
Ukraine in 2022.

Proponents of nuclear energy argue that it is an efficient, low-carbon renewable
source of energy. Opponents, however, point to the potential dangers of nuclear
energy, raising accidents such as the 1986 nuclear meltdown in Chernobyl,
Ukraine, or the more recent accident in Fukushima, Japan, in 2011.

Among those leading the charge for nuclear energy is France, which leads the
world in electricity generated by nuclear power. In response to the potential
risks of using nuclear energy, French President Emmanuel Macron said, "we should
be more worried … about CO2 emissions that have a direct impact on our health
every day."

Rafael Grossi, the IAEA director general, said "It took 28 conferences on
climate change to recognize, at long last, that nuclear should be accelerated,"
adding that it's "better late than never."

Among the opponents of nuclear energy are countries like Austria and Germany.
The latter removed all nuclear power plants following the 2011 nuclear incident
in Japan.

Other environmental activist organizations also oppose the measure. Lorelei
Limousin of Greenpeace said "Nuclear, all the evidence shows, is too slow to
build. It's too expensive. Much more expensive than renewables." Limousin added
that the world should focus instead on developing renewable energy, rather than
what she called "nuclear energy fairy tales."

Although many leaders showed support for nuclear energy, barriers remain to its
implementation, such as a lack of funding for nuclear research.

The 2021-2025 budget for the European Union's primary research body for nuclear
energy was cut by 20%. Bernard Magenhann, the deputy director general of the
joint research center of the EU, told reporters this week that "We have lost
competencies with an aging population [among nuclear workers] and we must take
care of the replacement of skills in the near future." He added that if we do
not "re-skill new talent" within 10 years, "we will be in a difficult
situation."

Another barrier that remains is restrictions for funding nuclear projects among
development organizations such as the World Bank. Grossi, commenting on funding
restrictions, said, "We still have an international and institutional
architecture that forbids financing of nuclear projects."

The U.S., which supports the France-led push for nuclear energy, expressed
support for eliminating funding restrictions.

John Podesta, the senior advisor to the U.S. president for clean energy, said,
"We're supporting the French initiative to encourage the World Bank and other
development banks to eliminate the restriction on funding nuclear."

A joint statement was released by global leaders at the summit, expressing
support for bolstering nuclear energy.

Leaders said they will "commit to fully unlock the potential of nuclear energy"
by working to support and finance existing nuclear reactors.

Some information for this report came from Reuters, The Associated Press, and
Agence France-Presse.

 * VOA NEWS
   
   The Voice of America provides news and information in more than 40 languages
   to an estimated weekly audience of over 326 million people. Stories with the
   VOA News byline are the work of multiple VOA journalists and may contain
   information from wire service reports.
   
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