Nuclear energy represents a potential solution to both problems, providing a firm source of electricity that can complement the variable sources of renewable energy on electrical grids, as it does in Scandinavia. Denmark’s vaunted wind energy accounts for only about 4 percent of total electricity generation annually across the Scandinavian grid. But it is fully integrated into the much larger Scandinavian grid, which includes Sweden, Norway, and Finland and is dominated by hydroelectric power and nuclear energy. Green icon Denmark generates about 50 percent of its electricity from wind. Even in the power sectors of the wealthiest countries in the world, no economy has succeeded in getting much more than about a third of its electricity from wind and solar combined. Second, wind and solar energy alone will not be sufficient to break that dependence. But that progress has been limited to rising shares of renewable energy in the power sector, which accounts for only about 20 percent of energy use and emissions globally, along with incremental improvements to energy efficiency across the rest of the global energy economy, which remains powered almost entirely by fossil fuels. Progress to reduce dependence on them and cut carbon emissions is real. First, the world remains far too dependent on fossil fuels. Taken together, these developments suggest two interlinked conclusions. Meanwhile, the resulting spike in fertilizer prices has threatened harvests and raised the specter that famine, largely banished from even the poorest regions of the world in recent decades, might be back for an encore. Soaring energy prices have resulted in shortages, blackouts, and protests across the developing world and have pushed hundreds of millions back into extreme poverty. Many other regions of the world do not have the resources to do so. Europe is buying its way out of energy poverty. The picture is darker still across emerging market and developing economies. The turn back to nuclear energy has been a ray of hope in an otherwise dark geopolitical landscape. Europe, arguably the wealthiest and greenest precinct of the global economy, and a region that has invested trillions over the past two decades to transition its energy economy to wind and solar energy, has been forced to engage in a wild scramble to replace Russian oil and gas with alternative sources of fossil fuel, importing liquefied natural gas from the United States and other regions, fast-tracking new pipeline projects from North Africa, and firing up mothballed coal plants to keep the lights on and its factories humming. Despite significant progress on the cost and feasibility of renewable energy, the energy crisis reminds us just how dependent the world remains on fossil fuels. Even anti-nuclear Germany has conceded to basic geopolitical energy realities and extended the life of the nation’s last three operating nuclear power plants. The UK has launched an ambitious plan to build eight new reactors and 16 small modular reactors. France, which had launched plans to reduce its dependence on nuclear energy during President Macron’s first term, reversed course and now plans to build six new reactors and a dozen more small modular reactors. Japan has announced, after a decade of paralysis, that it plans to restart many of its reactors, which have sat idle since the nuclear accident at Fukushima Daiichi. As the Russian invasion of Ukraine turned post-pandemic energy shortages into a full-blown energy crisis, nuclear power plants slated for closure across Europe have been given an 11th hour reprieve. Recent months have marked a dramatic turnabout for the fate of nuclear energy across the developed world. The energy security case for nuclear power is building
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