The atom lacks money and workers – Newspaper Kommersant No. 49 (7494) of 03/23/2023

The “nuclear renaissance”, which the International Energy Agency (IEA) and other relevant organizations have been predicting since last year, may be hampered not only by the distrust of nuclear energy that persists after the accident at the Japanese nuclear power plant Fukushima, but also by economic difficulties associated, among other things, with the high cost of building new reactors and the lack of qualified personnel, follows from the report of McKinsey & Company.

With the start of the military operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, the discussion of the phased revival of nuclear energy went beyond the environmental agenda and gained more relevance due to rising prices for fossil fuels. Interest in the industry is also explained by forecasts of a threefold increase in global electricity consumption by 2050. This growth, experts expect, will occur regardless of whether the current pace of the energy transition continues, whether the development of clean energy accelerates or slows down (see chart). Under such conditions, economically predictable nuclear power looks quite promising.

At its peak, in the 1980s, the world’s nuclear power plants increased by about 30 GW per year. Now this figure is three times lower (about 10 GW per year, according to the IEA). At the same time, in order for nuclear generation to satisfy about 20% of the world demand for electricity by 2050, the rate of capacity commissioning must be increased to 50 GW per year. Accelerating the development of the industry is complicated by problems associated with the construction of nuclear power plants, including the lack of necessary materials (the industrial production of which is yet to be expanded), as well as skilled labor (to achieve the stated goal, the number of workers in the nuclear industry in the world must grow to more than 5 million ).

Partly to solve these problems, McKinsey analysts believe, can be cheaper and easier to build and operate small modular reactors (SMR) and fourth-generation reactors (for example, fast neutrons). Demand for them is growing: for example, the US Department of Energy is going to allocate about $ 3 billion for the construction of the latter. Meanwhile, China is likely to become the leader in the generation of nuclear energy in the near future – in this country, the most large-scale construction of nuclear power plants has been launched in recent years.

Christina Borovikova