Nuclear power down for the count

The Era of Nuclear Decommissioning will entail:

• A decline in the number of operating reactors.
• An increasingly unreliable and accident-prone reactor fleet as ageing sets in.
• Countless battles over lifespan extensions for ageing reactors.
• An internationalisation of anti-nuclear opposition as neighbouring countries object to the continued operation of ageing reactors (international opposition to Belgium's ageing reactors is a case in point and there are numerous other examples).
• Battles over and problems with decommissioning projects (e.g. the UK government's £100+ million settlement over a botched decommissioning tendering process).
• Battles over taxpayer bailout proposals for companies and utilities that haven't set aside adequate funds for decommissioning and nuclear waste management and disposal. (According to Nuclear Energy Insider, European nuclear utilities face "significant and urgent challenges" with over a third of the continent's nuclear plants to be shut down by 2025, and utilities facing a €118 billion shortfall in decommissioning and waste management funds.)
• Battles over proposals to impose nuclear waste repositories and stores on unwilling or divided communities.

The Era of Nuclear Decommissioning will be characterised by escalating battles (and escalating sticker-shock) over reactor lifespan extensions, decommissioning and nuclear waste management. In those circumstances, it will become even more difficult than it currently is for the industry to pursue new reactor projects. A feedback loop could take hold and then the nuclear industry will be well and truly in crisis, if it isn't already.

And if that sounds like wishful thinking from someone who opposes the industry, keep in mind that nuclear power supporters have issued any number of warnings in recent years about nuclear power's "rapidly accelerating crisis" and a "crisis that threatens the death of nuclear energy in the West", while pondering what if anything might be salvaged from the "ashes of today's dying industry".