10 years after Fukushima: Nuclear energy sees tailwind from climate change

A decade after triple meltdowns at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant brought the nuclear industry to a standstill, advocates are sensing a tailwind brought on by the urgency of climate change.

In the race to decarbonize, and mitigate disruptions brought on by climate change, many climate activists have reluctantly come to see nuclear energy as a necessity to a low-carbon future. That’s altering the risk calculus around nuclear power plants around the world.

“Slowly in the past two, three years we've started to see a much different dialogue and dynamic [around nuclear] throughout the world,” said George Borovas, head of the nuclear practice at law firm Hunton Andrews Kurth. “From governments to international organizations, and even some environmental organizations that were always anti-nuclear, lately they have become much more accepting because they see that climate change is our number one problem.”

A Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) employee, wearing a protective suit and a mask, walks in front of the No. 1 reactor building at TEPCO's tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture, Japan February 10, 2016. REUTERS/Toru Hanai TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY · (Toru Hanai / reuters)

‘Fukushima changed everything’

The Fukushima disaster in 2011 set off a wave of anti-nuclear sentiment globally, in the immediate aftermath. Critics pointed to the events as a wake up call that highlighted the inherent risks associated with its technology. Four months after the reactor meltdowns, the German government announced plans to phase out all 17 of the country’s reactors by 2022, while the Swiss abandoned plans to build new nuclear reactors and committed to phase out existing ones. In Japan, where nuclear power accounted for a third of the country’s energy mix before March 2011, just nine of its 54 existing reactors have been authorized to operate over the last decade.

The U.S. remains the world’s largest producer of nuclear power, with its 98 reactors accounting for 20% of America’s total electrical output, according to the Department of Energy.

“Fukushima changed everything because it was a real accident in a sophisticated, highly developed country that was known for its safety record...it was not Chernobyl, which had a completely different profile at the time,” Borovas said. “The whole industry retrenched. Countries around the world retrenched.”

A decade on, nuclear power capacity has increased by about 43 gigawatts, the equivalent of roughly 43 reactors coming online, according to a report by the International Energy Agency. Though the number of reactors have declined from more than 430 in 2011, to 414 globally, existing reactors have increased their output to meet demand.

The growth has been most pronounced in emerging economies, which see nuclear energy as the most sustainable path to meet the energy demands of a growing middle class, Borovas said. In China alone, where ongoing projects account for 20% of reactors under construction globally, the government has identified nuclear power as a key tool in its push to decarbonize. It recently called for the construction of coastal nuclear power plants to increase its energy capacity by 20 gigawatts in the next four years, the equivalent of 20 new reactors.