Green Tech, Covid-19 Hit Nuclear Power: Bloomberg

As electricity demand declined across the world due to Covid-19 lockdowns and economic contraction, renewable energies have taken a bigger share of the global energy market after many nations decided to give green technologies priority on the grid. The pandemic worsened the outlook for nuclear power stations, already struggling to break even. For many years, atomic reactors in Europe coexisted happily with other kinds of energy stations. Demand was sufficient, and nuclear station investors recovered initial investments after decades of operation. However, earlier this century, German Chancellor Angela Merkel launched her so-called Energiewende to subsidize green power and other countries followed, reshaping energy economics and giving solar and wind energy a major role. According to the International Energy Agency, global power consumption could decline as much as 5 percent this year, the biggest plunge since the Great Depression. With low electricity prices and high operation costs, eight US nuclear stations have closed since 2013 and at least four more are scheduled to close permanently by 2025. – YaleGlobal