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The Inquiry

Do we need more nuclear power to help deal with climate change?

The Inquiry

BBC

News Commentary, News

4.61.7K Ratings

🗓️ 3 June 2021

⏱️ 24 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In November 2021, Britain will host the next UN Climate Change Conference, otherwise known as COP 26. Some 200 countries will come together to try to speed up attempts to make the world carbon neutral by the middle of the century.

But many countries are already struggling to ramp up renewable energy sufficiently to meet their greenhouse emission reduction targets. So is there another answer out there?

Around a tenth of the world's electricity is generated by nuclear reactors. Global generation has slowed in recent years after the nuclear accident in Fukushima a decade ago prompted governments to take a more cautious stance.

But with the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions, many prominent environmentalists are now taking another look at nuclear energy.

Tanya Beckett asks if nuclear energy can helps us transition away from fossil fuel power.

Produced by Soila Apparicio.

(Exhaust plumes from cooling towers at the coal-fired power station at Jaenschwalde Germany. Credit: Sean Gallup /Getty Images)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to the inquiry with me, Tanya Beckett, one question for expert witnesses and an answer.

0:12.8

In November, Britain will host the next UN Climate Change Conference, otherwise known as COP26.

0:21.0

Some 200 countries will come together to try to speed up attempts to make the world

0:25.9

carbon neutral by the middle of the century. But many countries are already struggling to ramp up

0:33.3

renewable energy sufficiently to meet their greenhouse emission reduction targets.

0:39.2

So is there another answer out there?

0:44.0

Around a tenth of the world's electricity is generated by nuclear reactors.

0:49.5

Global generation has slowed in recent years after the nuclear accident in Fukushima a decade ago,

0:55.6

prompted governments to take a more cautious stance. But with the urgent need to reduce carbon

1:02.0

emissions, many prominent environmentalists are now taking another look at nuclear energy.

1:09.2

So this week we're asking, do we need to build more nuclear power stations to help deal with climate change?

1:26.1

Germany, in common with many industrialized countries, began to develop nuclear power in the late 1950s,

1:33.6

amid an era of hope for a cleaner future for electricity.

1:37.6

It was the kind of energy for the future without dust, without coal, without all the terrible things.

1:45.6

Our first expert witness, Deutscheweller journalist Jens Turau, explains how hopes for the potential of nuclear power in Germany

1:54.7

faded in the face of public opposition.

1:59.8

Germany's anti-nuclear movement can be traced back almost as far as the firing up of the country's

2:05.9

first commercial reactor in 1969. It was a big debate in the history of Germany,

2:12.4

while nuclear power is a good idea. But it changed in the 70s when the so-called social movements

2:18.3

in Germany came up. There was a lot of big demonstrations all over Germany, especially at the

2:25.3

town, at that time, in Lower Saxony, Gorleben, where the government planned to build a central

2:32.3

repository. Gorleben is a town situated in a part of Germany, which at that time was on the northern

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