DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The world wants more nuclear energy as a means to fight climate change and supply an ever-growing demand for electricity, part of a generational shift in thinking on atomic power, the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog said Thursday.

Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, made the comments in an interview with The Associated Press at the COP28 climate talks. He called the inclusion of nuclear power at the summit, where he said a major nuclear agreement was likely, showed just how far the formerly “taboo” subject had come decades after the disasters at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.

However, he acknowledged the challenge still posed for his agency in monitoring nuclear programs in countries, particularly in Iran after the collapse of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

“This used to be easier when this international consensus was there and so Iran could see that this was not about political pressure, but a widespread approach that was to see a Middle East, one of the — if not the most — volatile region in the world, not to add to the mix the possibility of a country getting nuclear weapons,” Grossi said.

    • Fox@pawb.social
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      1 year ago

      Could it be that a combination of ways is actually best?

    • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s slow and expensive because of the legal red tape… Only with a nuclear power plant do you have ro have the ENTIRE specific site design done before you can even think of touching dirt, but it has to go through mandatory rounds of review and approval, too.

      In what universe do you know of where several rounds of mandatory government inspection of just the plans makes anything go quickly?!

      • Halcyon@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        Slow in comparison to the possible upscaling of renewable energy sources. We need to get off fossil energies quickly to tackle climate issues.

        • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          The point is it is artificially slow. It does not inherently take many years to build a plant when they have general workable plans. Not any more than any other major construction, including renewables.

            • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Ever consider all the fear mongering nuclear got? The engineers know what they’re doing. It’s safer than fossil fuel plants and other dangerous industrial work these days. And no, all the ignorant fucks who are also afraid of nuclear that will vote you up don’t make you correct.

              • Nuclear engineers are the same people who helped create these regulations…

                Nuclear is really safe today, thanks to those regulations. We’ve changed and improved those power plants a lot in the past half century. I don’t consider safety a real issue anymore, but if we cut all red tape and regulations, then it does become an issue again. That’s nuclear engineers saying so by the way, not “ignorant fucks”.

    • Otter@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      The director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency personally sells nuclear power?

      • Kool_Newt@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        First he’ll hook you with free yellow cake, soon you’ll enriching your own uranium