Torre produced a Ph.D. dissertation for a Canadian university on the subject in late 2017. He stated in his abstract that a state [country] has a plethora of options when it comes to electricity generation. In the case of nuclear power, it is not a simple yes/no or present/absent dichotomy as it is often portrayed in the literature. [Bias Alert: Right off he uses strong language, i.e., dichotomy, in the selection or not of nuclear power, which it is far from it]. A country that has existing nuclear capacity can choose to: expand, maintain, or phase out nuclear power. It will implement one of these three policies towards nuclear power for a variety of political, social, and economic reasons; the challenge is to discern the criteria used in reaching these policy outcomes.
Using Finland, Canada, and Germany, this project explores most similar cases with differing outcomes during the nuclear renaissance (2000-2015). Each case is illustrative of one of the three possible trajectories for a country already in possession of at least one commercial nuclear power plant. This dissertation sought to better understand why they choose such divergent policies around nuclear power during this period of study.
He found what is confirmed in the literature’s claim that nuclear expansions are most likely to take place within governance models that are centralized, technocratic, and involve limited public engagement. [BIAS ALERT: This claim is blatantly untrue: The U.S. operates the largest nuclear fleet.] As electricity planning shifts away from centrally planned, technically informed decisions among experts to a more democratic process, with an increased emphasis on social considerations, large-infrastructure projects like nuclear power plants will become that much more challenging to advance. Taken together with the rising costs of building new reactors, it will greatly limit where new construction will seriously be considered. [Comment: The democratic process in making decisions on technical matters is untenable.]
[Based on the Editor's judgment and experience, the "People" do not have the appropriate backgrounds to make such decisions and are, in general, woefully ignorant on such subjects as energy selection. The exception is when the use of such an energy source damages the environment, such as the burning of coal and oil and gas, and in the waste handling issues surrounding wind and solar installations, the general public has the right and the basis to weigh in on opposing energy resources that clearly damage the environment. The bias against nuclear power (and even uranium mining) generally comes from anti-nuclear groups touting misinformation and exaggeration generated by commercial environmental groups, such as Greenpeace and groups, who pander to (or even grift) ill-informed people while paying large salaries to their employee attorneys to misrepresent the truth in many cases, while even receiving funding from wind and solar interests and oil and gas pundits (more). Many of these people produce or underwrite the publication of many papers, reports and news items in favor of wind and solar projects that Torre appears to have found in "the literature" (more).
The opposition to nuclear power consists of a small segment of the general public that the media broadcasts widely, who are also pandering to a sub-set of the population. The opposition conveniently overlooks the fact that nuclear is the safest energy resource in use today (more), and without subsidies to the wind and solar industry, and with similar allowances to the oil and gas industry, would make nuclear power widely economic in terms of relative lower electricity costs compared to wind, solar, and natural gas.
With respect to the time to construct and to construction costs, which appear to many to be too high, such projects are more like dams than erecting a fleet of windmills and thousands of areas filled with solar panels, both forms having only a limited lifetime when compared to nuclear power plants that are designed to operate for more that 50 years in supplying the electrical grid with power 24/7. The operation and maintenance costs involved in the large wind and solar projects have been overlooked, under-estimated, and under-played in the selling of these projects by industry during the economic evaluations during the project design stages, and electricity costs from such projects are rising rapidly now in Germany (after allowing the Greens to panic the German government), California (after the State allowed most of the nuclear power plants to be retired, while encouraging natural gas to make up the difference needed to power California, albeit now with power blackouts and increasing costs), with similar reports in other parts of the U.S. and the world.(more).
With respect to the nuclear-waste issues (aka "used fuel"), these are often misrepresented, but such waste is being stored safety at the plant sites around the country until the U.S. government provides for an appropriate storage facility, not a disposal site. The used fuel is being stored until "breeder" reactors have been constructed to handle and consume such fuel (more), (more), (more), and (more).
If Torre has concluded that the general public ought to decide what fuel is to be used, except for climate issues, then he is poorly informed, badly mistaken, or just pandering to others in the academic environment who are naïve about wind and solar being free and nuclear power being dangerous (more). It should clearly noted that most, if not all, of these mistakes were created by pressure form the "general public" involved in the politics of energy selection.
So, maybe Torre needs to revise his dissertation. Here are links to the current nuclear power issues surrounding Canada, Finland, and Germany and an editorial by Howard, 2020 (here)].
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