Climate One At The Commonwealth Club

Three years after Fukushima is nuclear power dead in the water? Or is it poised for revival due to the world’s desperate need for carbon-free energy? Every day the Fukushima reactors dump 70,000 gallons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean, and there is no end in sight. In the United States, the industry faces more systemic challenges - abundant and cheap natural gases are making new nukes uneconomic, despite the efforts of the Obama administration to jumpstart a nuclear renaissance. Per Peterson, a professor of Nuclear Engineering at UC Berkeley and a former member of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, says the Fukushima disaster has had a significant impact on how engineers design the nuclear power plants of the future, and their safety systems. He says it has led to the development of what is called “passive safety” – the ability for the plant to shut down without needing external sources of electrical power. Two new plants are currently being constructed in South Carolina and G