A continuing insistence on nuclear will be detrimental to our ability to power a Just Transition: while the jobs it creates are few and primarily for the highly skilled, its enormous costs will likely result in austerity policies.
The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2021 (WNISR2021) assesses the status and trends of the international nuclear industry, and contains several focus chapters, including a first assessment of Nuclear Power and Climate Change Resilience. A special Fukushima Status Report – 10 Years After provides an overview of ongoing onsite/offsite challenges, health impacts, judicial decisions, and cost estimates of the disaster. Chernobyl – 35 Years After the Disaster Began looks at advances in the cleanup and remaining challenges. For the first time, WNISR dedicates a chapter to the problem of Nuclear Power and Criminal Energy.
The findings of this joint policy brief challenge the flawed underlying assumptions of the original EU Joint Research Centre (JRC)’s assessment, published in April 2021, which concluded that nuclear energy is detrimental neither to people nor to the environment. These concern chiefly four aspects: the role of nuclear energy for power generation in the EU27; nuclear waste management; the risk assessment of nuclear technologies; and nuclear proliferation.