Half life; Nuclear power.(International Energy Agency)

Economist (US), The, November, 2006

The nuclear industry is predicting a rapid expansion--but that will not happen without government help

"NUCLEAR has to be part of the energy mix," insists Claude Mandil, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), a think-tank-cum-watchdog for power-hungry countries. He was speaking at the launch this week of a report that overturned the IEA's previously pessimistic view of the prospects for nuclear power. It now estimates that nuclear generation will grow by at least 13% by 2030, and perhaps as much as 40%. The firms that build nuclear plants are making similarly rosy projections. The nuclear division of General Electric (GE), an American conglomerate, predicts that 66 gigawatts of new capacity--equivalent to the output of about 44 big reactors--will be...

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