Denis Demin, director of Information-Analytical Department of Energocapital

– We are on the threshold of nuclear renaissance

A few days ago the energy ministers of G8 and their colleagues from India, China and South Korea discussed the situation over the growing fuel prices in the world and made public the scenarios and strategies to 2050 by the International Energy Agency. In this document the IEA recommends the governments of all countries to develop renewable energy sources and nuclear energy, to save energy and to reduce CO2 emissions.

Today, we are on the threshold of nuclear renaissance. In the 1980s the “green” lobby in Europe was strong enough to curb the development of nuclear energy, while developing countries had not yet had enough capacities for building own nuclear power plants. One more obstacle was that it was quite hard to differentiate peaceful uses of nuclear energy from the use of nuclear weapons. As a result, the countries who were not members of the nuclear club faced heavy restrictions on their nuclear exports.

Today, the situation is quite different. There are no more obstacles to the export of peaceful nuclear products.

The plans of China and India alone make the forecasts of the International Energy Agency look quite realistic. Even Germany, who seemed to say final no to nuclear energy, is now showing less radicalism with respect to this problem.

Now that the fuel for thermal power plants is growing in price and is getting increasingly scarce, nuclear energy appears to be the only real alternative.

As long as the oil price will be growing, we can expect active construction of nuclear power plants worldwide.