Oui, To a Nuclear Future!

In today’s day and age, our world is subject to the unfortunate reality that most of the world’s electricity comes from non-renewable energy sources in the form of fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas. In fact, in 2017, studies found that 32% of the world’s energy came from oil, with 28% coming from coal and 22% was acquired from natural gas, which isn’t a pretty statistic.

However, the proportion of energy produced through renewable and environmentally friendly sources is rising, particularly from sources such as biofuels and of course, nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is never usually considered the best choice for the energy of the future despite the low emissions, low fuel input and the large yield. The horrors of past catastrophes like the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters give nuclear energy a bad reputation. However, with improving safety standards and the desperate need for clean sustainable energy nuclear energy is now once again viewed as an energy of the future. When it comes to production of nuclear energy, there are only a handful of giants in the sector. Although the largest producer of nuclear energy in the world is none other than the United States of America, the nation has oddly enough, not claimed the title of the largest exporter of electricity produced from nuclear energy. Instead, that title belongs to France.

total of 56 plants.

A nuclear plant in southern France. The Country now produces more than half its electricity from these plants.

The reason why France is able to out-export the United States in terms of nuclear energy is due to its low cost of generation in France. On top of this, France earns a total of over 3 billion euros from the export of nuclear energy every year, making it a viable option in this regard. Another thing France does that the US doesn’t when it comes the nuclear energy, is having the majority of domestic energy usage come from nuclear energy. The difference in proportion of France’s total energy generation being nuclear energy compared to other sources is staggering, with a whopping 72% of electricity produced coming from nuclear energy, with the next highest proportion coming from hydroelectricity at a mere 12%, as shown in the graph below.

Since 84% of France’s electricity comes from nuclear energy and hydroelectricity, it has a very low level of carbon dioxide emissions per capita, with only 4.619 metric tons produced per capita as of 2018.

France is a global giant when it comes to development of nuclear energy technology. In fact, all eyes began to look on France in 2007, when ITER was founded as a collaborative project based in France of 35 nations, in the quest to make the world’s largest tokamak, which is a magnetic confinement device used to harness nuclear energy through the process of nuclear fusion. Since virtually all of the world’s nuclear energy is produced through nuclear fission instead, the eventual switch to nuclear fusion would prove to be a giant leap in terms of progress in nuclear energy technology development.

Construction of the world's largest Tokamak in France.

Construction of the ITER plant began in 2007 and in 2018, tokomak assembly began. Its most recent milestone since the creation of this article was the installation of the tokomaks second magnet on 25th September 2021. According to the current schedule, ITER should be ready to conduct a plasma test by 2025 and completely begin the nuclear energy production process through nuclear fusion by 2035. As a result, by 2035, ITER would be the source of near limitless amounts of energy, powering our world sustainably through the power of nuclear fusion for years to come.

By Rishabh Bandopadhaya