ITS EDUCATION ASIA ARTICLE

The nuclear question

By Danny Harrington, MD ITS Education Asia

Nuclear power has had a troubled history in more ways than one. The  more recent question revolves around whether we should class it as renewable or non-renewable, safe or dangerous, clean or dirty, polluting or non-polluting. Even the iea seems to be hedging it’s language, saying it “makes no recommendations to countries that choose not to include nuclear power in their energy mix” but concludes that “building sustainable and clean energy systems will be harder, riskier and more expensive without nuclear” as they release a 2022 Fuel Report.

Here in Hong Kong, a certain amount of the territory’s electricity supply comes from the Daya Bay plant in mainland China. One of the HK power companies holds a stake in the plant. Certainly nuclear means lower carbon emissions and is safe from global price volatility which oil is most certainly not. On the other hands are the questions of power station construction, the centralized production model, waste disposal and of course weaponizing issues.

The jury is still very much out but it seems nuclear has to stay part of the equation for the foreseeable future.