Читать книгу The Energy World is Flat - Lacalle Daniel - Страница 6

I immediately recognized Fukushima as yet another “black swan”, an event that has a very large impact that no one had anticipated before the fact, but that everyone viewed as obvious after the fact. The scale of the earthquake and the unfortunate series of events were unique to Fukushima, but lessons would be learnt and new processes and security measures would be put in place, as has always been the case when accidents and natural disasters have occurred.

But within days, and despite decades of safe nuclear power, countries around the world were closing down nuclear plants and rethinking their plans of extending the life of existing plants and building new ones. Politicians had taken over and were reshaping the future of nuclear power.

But not all countries reacted the same way. Fukushima did not change the position of France, which produces over 75 % of its own energy needs from nuclear power. And it did not change the position of China either, which maintained its plans to build up to 70 new nuclear plants by 2020.

The nuclear world was polarized, but I was optimistic that common sense would prevail and that short-term knee-jerk reactions would give way to long-term constructive solutions and even safer power generation across the world.

There is, however, no doubt in my mind that Fukushima was a critical milestone towards the end of OPEC's dominance. Let me tell you why.