Can we save the climate with nuclear power?
A new article finds that, at a global scale, nuclear is in decline and there is little hope that new, current-type nuclear power plants will make a big difference for fighting climate change. While this might not come as a big surprise to experts in the field, our study is the first to apply the technological innovation systems framework to analyze technology decline.
We use a broad range of indicators to assess the performance of nuclear. Among other issues, we show how the actor base and supplier-owner networks have weakened from the 1970s till today, how expectations have lowered and how cost and time overruns made nuclear a very risky investment. A key driver for nuclear decline is the increasing competition from renewable energies with rapid cost and performance improvements.
The Downloadarticlevertical_align_bottom was authored by Jochen Markard, Nuno Bento, Noah Kittner and Alejandro Nuñez-Jimenez and published in Energy Research and Social Science.