Michael Shellenberger in action
Pro-nuclear activist Michael Shellenberger, founder of the California-based global citizens movement Environmental Progress (“not paid by the nuclear industry”) was in Amsterdam recently, where he gave a very personal “Ecomodernist” defense of why nuclear power is good and how it should be supported. “It is about protecting the natural environment by concentrating human activity.” This article was first published on Energy Post Weekly.
Few debates seem to be as deadlocked as that around nuclear power. The opponents insist it’s too dangerous even if it’s CO2-free, the defenders say its risks can be managed. The opponents also argue that nuclear power is too centralized and inflexible to function well in the flexible power system of the future. The defenders say it’s the unreliability of variable renewables that makes nuclear power the ideal CO2-free backstop.
Recently the opponents have been able to marshal another powerful argument: they point out that nuclear power has become too expensive compared to renewables to compete in the market. Even Nobuo Tanaka, former Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) and long-time nuclear advocate, recently admitted nuclear power is “ridiculously expensive”.
Huge dilemma
The high cost of nuclear power has created a huge dilemma for policymakers in many countries. They know, if they don’t provide some form of support, no new nuclear power stations will be built – and many existing ones will be closed. They wonder: should they ensure that their existing power plants keep running as long as possible – or even go completely against the market and actively promote the building of new nuclear power plants? Or should they let nuclear power die?
The basic question policymakers have to answer is this: is it possible to build a secure, affordable, and clean energy system without (new) nuclear power? Or is (new) nuclear power needed to achieve climate targets and ensure energy security at reasonable cost?
“Germans want to live dangerously. They want to drive down the Autobahn at 180 km per hour”
Some researchers, such as Stanford professor Mark Jacobson, argue that it is perfectly possible to create an energy system based 100% on renewables in time to prevent climate catastrophe, at affordable cost, without nuclear power. They are supported by many environmentalist groups, like Greenpeace, who oppose nuclear power despite its climate-friendliness.
Others say that’s an illusion. The International Energy Agency (IEA) for one is convinced that we need considerable growth of nuclear power if we are to keep global warming limited to 2 degrees.
Just recently, in June, the IEA went as far as to organize a high-level meeting for energy ministers to make them aware of the need to put “more efforts” into supporting nuclear power. The IEA showed the ministers this chart to show what is happening in the nuclear sector and what needs to happen if nuclear power is to make its expected contribution to a low-carbon energy system:
Source: IEA (SDS = sustainable development scenario)
Those who support nuclear power often point to the example of Germany to show what happens when a country decides to abandon nuclear power. Germany is spending tens of billions on renewable energy but is unable to meet its climate targets because the clean renewables are partly replacing the clean nuclear power that is being phased out.
However, Germany is an extreme example. Few policymakers would consider actively closing existing nuclear power plants. They are rather asking themselves whether they should help to keep existing plants open, and, an even more difficult question, whether they should actively promote the building of new ones.
“We want to leave the gorillas alone, and the hump-backed whales, and the rainforest”
Very few OECD-countries have decided to actively support new nuclear build. The UK is the most prominent example. In the U.S., the Trump administration is looking for ways to support existing nuclear power plants and funds research into “advanced” nuclear reactors.
France had decided to reduce the contribution of nuclear power to its electricity supply from 75% to 50% – but it has delayed that project and there are even rumours now that the French government may be wanting to expand nuclear power. French newspaper Les Echos has reported that a confidential report commissioned by France’s government proposes building five new nuclear reactors.
The Japanese government’s latest Energy Plan probably demonstrates the hesitation among policymakers most clearly: it commits to nuclear – and to renewables – and to coal….
Ecomodernist Manifesto
Most policymakers probably expect little help anymore from advisors and analysts to help them cut the nuclear knot. They surely must believe they have heard all the arguments for and against many times over. The nuclear debate may not be dead – it does smell funny sometimes.
However, they could be wrong. In recent years a new perspective has freshened up the stale nuclear debate – one that has not had a lot of attention yet. It is a perspective that has been developed foremost by maverick pro-nuclear activist Michael Shellenberger.
Shellenberger is the founder and president of pro-nuclear citizens movement Environmental Progress, which he started in late 2015 in California. Before that, in April 2015, when Shellenberger worked for the pro-nuclear think tank The Breakthrough Institute (which he co-founded), he along with 17 other researchers published “the Ecomodernist Manifesto”. (I may be wrong, but I think he even coined the term “ecomodernism”.)
Ecomodernists tend to be more optimistic about the future of the planet – and mankind’s role in it – than environmentalists. In their Manifesto the founders of the Ecomodernist movement write that “knowledge and technology, applied with wisdom, might allow for a good, or even great, Anthropocene.”
“A good Anthropocene”, they write, “demands that humans use their growing social, economic, and technological powers to make life better for people, stabilize the climate, and protect the natural world.” To achieve this goal, the Ecomodernists believe – like environmentalists – that “humanity must shrink its impacts on the environment to make more room for nature”, but – unlike environmentalists – they reject the idea that “human societies must harmonize with nature to avoid economic and ecological collapse”.
Their way out of the ecological crisis may be viewed as the opposite of the environmentalist solution. “Intensifying many human activities — particularly farming, energy extraction, forestry, and settlement — so that they use less land and interfere less with the natural world is the key to decoupling human development from environmental impacts”, they write.
In other words, according to the Ecomodernists, human beings should try to develop an advanced technological society not “in harmony” with nature, but as a way of allowing nature to run its own course as far as possible. Nuclear power fits in perfectly with this vision. Unlike solar and wind power, it is highly concentrated, producing a large amount of energy with a very small natural footprint, say the Ecomodernists.
“You want to increase the amount of energy you use. Living in a city uses a lot of energy”
For Ecomodernists nuclear power is just one of the causes they fight for. They are also in favour of intensive farming, for example. For Shellenberger, however, nuclear advocacy has become an intensely felt personal quest. He said as much when he was in Amsterdam on the last day of August, to liven up the initiation of a Dutch Ecomodernist foundation. “Nuclear power is a demanding mistress”, he told the small audience attending the event.
With the founding of Environmental Progress, his global “citizens movement for nuclear power”, he has chosen to serve that mistress full-time.
However, this should not give you the impression that Shellenberger is an ideologically driven nuclear fanatic. Nor does he resemble anything like an “industry spokesman”. He insists that he does not take any money from the nuclear industry – and he certainly talks like he doesn’t care about what anybody thinks. Which does fit in with his personal background: he describes himself as a progressive liberal fan of Hillary Clinton and was involved in his life in a wide range of social campaigns, “from challenging Nike over its labour practices in Asia, to saving the Headwaters Redwood forest”, according to Wikipedia.
Shellenberger’s views, which are uniquely his own (he made it clear in Amsterdam that he was not speaking for other Ecomodernists, only for himself), should give any policymaker pause for thought. Let’s look at a few of the things he had to say.
His first and maybe most important point of the evening: “Ecomodernism”, he said, “is about protecting the natural environment by concentrating human activity.” That is not the first thing you would hear from a PR agency working for the nuclear industry.
Ecomodernists, said Shellenberger, want “to decouple from nature”. A lot of people don’t understand that, he added. “We like nature, people will tell me. We don’t want to decouple from it. We like nature too, I tell them, that’s why we do want to decouple from it.” He described seeing gorillas in Africa recently as a deeply moving experience. “We want to leave the gorillas alone, and the hump-backed whales, and the rainforest.”
At the same time, Shellenberger stressed that Ecomodernism is about a “high-energy life”. Ecomodernists don’t believe in energy saving as a goal in itself. “You want to increase the amount of energy you use”, Shellenberger said. “Living in a city uses a lot of energy. Going on holidays does too.”
But then, if you want to use a lot of energy, if you want to leave nature alone, if you are against water and air pollution, then all these roads lead to nuclear power, said Shellenberger.
Moral panic
So what about the objections so often heard against nuclear power? Isn’t it dangerous?
“A lot of things are dangerous”, said Shellenberger. “Germans want to live dangerously. They want to drive down the Autobahn at 180 km per hour. That’s looking for danger.”
Couldn’t a terrorist make a nuclear bomb by breaking into a nuclear power plant? Perhaps, but it’s easier to go into a hospital and steal radioactive material there, suggested Shellenberger. Or to drive a truck into a crowd.
Nuclear power is indeed dangerous, said Shellenberger, but the point is that it’s relatively the safest from of energy. “7 million people a year die from fossil fuels and biomass. Wind turbines kill a lot of people.”
“Advanced nuclear is wishful thinking. It is the wrong timing for it”
The Fukushima disaster he called a “moral panic”. “The Japanese industry and government pretended that nuclear power is absolutely safe. They isolated it from the people. So when Fukushima happened, people felt vulnerable. They evacuated a nursing home. That was horrifying. They killed a lot of people doing that.” The Fukushima story has to be re-narrated, said Shellenberger.
What about nuclear waste? “That’s the best damn part of nuclear power”, he said. He compared it to the waste from fossil fuels (CO2, pollutants, oil spills) and the “terrible waste” from renewables. “Solar panels contain cadmium, chromium, lead. These remain toxic forever.” By contrast, the amount of nuclear waste is extremely small, and “stored in cans that can’t be opened”. In fact, Shellenberger believes it is nonsense to want to bury nuclear waste. “Why bury it? The nuclear industry knows it isn’t necessary, but they will make billions doing it.”
Airbus
With regard to renewables, Shellenberger is not only critical of the waste they produce, but also of the space they require. “A solar farm takes up 5000 times more space than nuclear power”, he said. The global expansion of solar power is “like spreading future electronic garbage all over the planet. Wind turbines are a horrible disaster. Anti-environmental.” He did emphasize that those are personal views.
As to the jobs renewables create: “Who wants to create a lot of jobs? You want to reduce the number of people producing energy, so they can do other things.”
Shellenberger does not deny for one moment the high costs of nuclear power. He has written extensively about how to bring down those costs. In order to survive, the nuclear sector must embark on a radical new course, he believes: standardize production, preferably create one company, comparable to Boeing or Airbus in the aircraft sector, that will churn out a large number of standard PWR (pressurized water reactors), which is a well-proven design.
There is nothing wrong with the standard water cooled reactor, says Shellenberger. They function very well – and, he adds, we don’t even know how long they may last. “They could be immortal.” Build a lot of them in the same place, is his advice.
His vision was vindicated a few days later, on 3 September, when the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) came out with a report, The future of Nuclear Energy in a carbon-constrained world”, which not only concludes that nuclear power should remain a key part of a low-carbon energy mix, but also recommends cutting costs by standardizing production.
“Nuclear has this aura of death. For most of the population this technology is fundamentally deadly”
The MIT researchers recommend “An increased focus on using proven project/ construction management practices to increase the probability of success in the execution and delivery of new nuclear power plants”, as well as “a shift away from primarily field construction of cumbersome, highly site-dependent plants to more serial manufacturing of standardized plants”, which is exactly what Shellenberger has been arguing for the last two years.
Unlike many in the nuclear industry, Shellenberger does not believe in the blessings of “advanced” nuclear reactor designs, such as molten salt reactors. “Molten salt reactors are really complicated to make”, he noted. He said they are mostly believed in by “professors who don’t work at nuclear power plants.”
Advanced nuclear is “wishful thinking. It is the wrong timing for it. At this moment we need the opposite of advanced nuclear. We have to defend existing nuclear!”
The bomb
With all of those arguments for nuclear power, why are so many people so radically opposed to it? This is a question that has been occupying his mind for three years now, Shellenberger said. His conclusion: because deep down people associate it with nuclear weapons. “It has everything to do with the bomb”, he said. “Nuclear has this aura of death. For most of the population this technology is fundamentally deadly.”
If you thought that Shellenberger would then start denying that there is a relationship between nuclear power and nuclear weapons, you would be wrong. “For a long time many in the industry have insisted there is no relation. That is nonsense”, he said.
“Once you have nuclear, you can have prosperity and peace for all”
He went as far as to say that the countries that are currently pursuing new nuclear power for the first time, such as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, do this because they want to obtain the option of making nuclear weapons. If you don’t want a nuclear weapon, you probably don’t want to build new nuclear power plants, he suggested.
But this, said Shellenberger, is not necessarily a bad thing. Thanks to nuclear weapons, he argued, the number of wars and war deaths has gone down steeply since World War Two. “Why don’t India and Pakistan wage war on each other? Because they both have nuclear weapons.”
“Once you have nuclear”, Shellenberger concluded, “you can have prosperity and peace for all.”
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Well, I am fine with the thoughts of ecomodernism. I also would prefere to solve the problems with more and better tecnology, not by going back to ancient times. Ad to leave Nature alone in enough areas.
With the rest I miss the compelling arguments.
That one kind of solar power contains cadmium and similar materials does not make this a general problem of solar power. And the cadmium, lead, etc, if it is used there always existed in the environment before. Different from nuclear waste.
Land use of Solar – Solar does not use valuable space. Valuable space would be too expensive for this. It usues mainly areas with little or no use, like roofs, landfills areas along roads and railroads, brownfields of other kinds, real deserts where also nature is not really present as far as life is concerned.
Wind power today uses similar amounts of conrete and steel and does not move more material per TWh produced like nuclear. And it does not seal more ground. It stands distributed, correct. But as it looks like plants and animals do not really care about them. An as they are growing in sice they get out of reach for bats and birds which usually do not fly so high. There is nothing interesting to eat high up in the air.
So it is hard to see any advantages for nuclear, beside a tiny bit less grid capacity needed.
It would be more interesting to intensify grid extensions on the highest level, than to intensify work on nuclear in my point of view. There is more to get from that direction.
Thanks for this clear report about Shellenberger’s presentation.
We share our disbelieve regarding “advanced” reactor designs.
All those “advanced” designs are tried in previous century and found to be inferior compared to PWR/LWR.
Nuclear now restarts with the development of those designs because PWR/LWR doesn’t meet present demands. Little chance on success as those designs were evaluated in previous century by excellent scientists. Often during very long experiments such as with the Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) at ORNL.
Still, even Dutch govt reserved & spent a few years ago substantial money on further research regarding the MSR… Research regarding steel for the MSR, while even the massive Chinese MSR team could not find better steel in past 7 years than the Hastelloy-N (a nickel alloy) used with the MSR Experiment in the sixties.
A waste of money.
As matter of fact, if Germany had invested all the money in nuclear instead of unreliable windmills and solar, the would have been fulfilling the climate target for a long time. Look at France.
Well france has problems to keep the nuclar plants open with the recent market prices, and no idea where the money for decomissioning and waste storage should come from. Estimates for cost for decomissioning + waste storage for france are in the same ballpark with the costs of renewable generation construction so far – with the difference that the development in germany to a big part created two new technologies with the potential to supply the mayor share of energy for mankind, without CO2 emissions and without nuclear wastes. In some decades we will have a beter view on the results of the french and german investments.
How many decades do you need? Nuclear power was discovered in 1945. The first reactor in 1950s. In 20 years, France went from coal heavy, to one with the cleanest electricity that doesn’t use significant geographically constrained resources.
Solar and wind has been around for centuries. Even today, countries struggle to go beyond 40% renewable. Those that do, cheat by exporting excess electricity during sunny, windy days, and then importing it all back in the evening.
DRance exports piles of exesss electricity from it’s nuclear power, so the cheat to the same amount. In summer nights nuclear in france supplies 200% of demand, so half of it is either curtailed or exported. Germany with >40% renewables just had one hour where demand was supplied 100% by renewables, so doubeling it will bring germany to the same level with renewables than nuclear is today in france. Just that france did much more to improve demand side management to suck upp excess nuclear electricity than germany did to suck up electricity freom renewables.
Renewables have the disadvantage to be variable, but the advantage to correlate with demand.
Solar power on industrial level is just around now, and wind power on industrial level for maybe a decade or two depending where the starting point is set.
Nuclear was researched and developed in industrial level immediately after it was discovered, in giant programs. Wind was developed in tiny programs in the 19190’s and 1980’s, mor drag came into the development past 2000.
Nuclear also is just a small deviation from the steam turbine ttecnology which was developed during the second half of the 19’th century. Steam turbine sice did double then every 5 or 10 years, same as it is happening now with wind power generation.
What can I say? France: price per Kwh: 0,15, emission per capita 5,27. Germany: price per Kwh: 0,29, emission per capita 9,47 (and rising). Now tell me who is doing better?
Emissions in germany are falling. And france has lower taxes etc on power. wholesaleprice in germany was lower tahn in france the last years. (might have changed the last weeks) but it is irrelevant for the discussion we are having. could well be that soon fa´rance has 35ct/kWh to pay decomissioning and waste management by small power customers, and germany drops to 15ct/kWh because EEG levy drops when the expensive units drop out of support, and taxes are reduced to the french level.
Emissions in Germany are rising (0,7% 2017). For the decommissioning of France reactors 38 billion euro is already provisioned, so no problem there. The much higher emission in Germany is the driving factor in catastrophic climate change. Your fear of nuclear is not helping.
Nuclear is electricity, so let’s check (UBA & AGEB):
yr; CO²(g/KWh); nuclear
2000; 644; 29%
2010; 559; 22%
2015; 528; 14%
2016; 516; 13%
2017; 489; 12%
So past 2yrs emissions decreased 7% while nuclear decreased 18%.
Not with the price for less dangerous nuclear.
And they may now suffer under an exclusion zone which covers significant part of Germany…
Note that ~1% of the world’s reactors ended in disaster creating major exclusion zones and major health damage.
Even with Fukushima, despite the extreme luck that the wind blew 97% of all airborne radiation direct to the ocean.
a href=”https://goo.gl/3HDGL1″>Studies found highly significant increases of perinatal deaths directly related to the local radiation increase (fall-out) affecting 17million people! So the IPPNW concluded that the increased radiation will cause ~20,000 deaths in the affected 9 prefectures…
[…] you quote again from the work of Hagen Scherb, the man who is paid by the Russians to sell as much natural gas to the Germans as possible. The refutation of your […] claim can be found at: https://TINYURL.COM/Y9VGUDTB.
And Bas, there are treatments available for radiofobia. (LNT is a lie.)
That refutation at the site of Schellenberger’s organization (EP) contains major weaknesses.
Though the site often doesn’t censor, they censored my comments except a minor (check for BasM).
If that or any other refutation has value, the peer reviewed scientific journal “Medicine”, which published the report of Scherp etal, would have published it together with a response of Scherb etal (and it would be visible in Pubmed to which I link above). It’s relevant as it concerns thousands of additional deaths due to the emitted radiation.
Further note that:
– the other two authors are Japanese scientists with a long list of scientific publications (check at Pubmed).
– another scientist, Koerblein, published similar highly significant increased perinatal death results, though his study covered only 7 prefectures, he concludes high significant results (P=0.0000006)!
Chernobyl:
Nuclear fearmongers: We are doomed. Everybody is going to die! There will be a nuclear dead zone for centuries.
Reality: The exclusions zone is teeming with (healthy) wild live. Radiation problems are managed.
Fukushima:
Nuclear fearmongers: We are doomed. Japan is doomed! Everybody is going to die!
Reality: Nobody died in the accident because of radiation. Nature is reclaiming abandoned areas. People are returning to their homes. Radiation problems are managed.
–
Nuclear fearmongers about co2 emissions: We have everything under control! Just wait for future invention ‘x’ and everything will be fine. Just wind and solar. Believe us. We know!
Reality: CO2 emissions are still rising. Wind and solar is not enough (see Germany). We also need nuclear to cope with the problem of imminent climate disaster.
“doomed. Everybody … to die!”
Nobody thinks that.
“exclusions zone is teeming with (healthy) wild live.”
No longer hunting which killed more animals…
At least one study concluded to increased levels of impairment… The healthy claim is not supported by decent studies.
Chernobyl exclusion zone is expected to stay an exclusion zone for the next 3000 years.
“Nobody died in the accident because of radiation.”
Death due to increased levels of radiation comes after a latency period of some years up to 60years as shown by a.o. the Life Span Studies regarding the bomb victims.
Similar as with smoking, asbestos, fine dust (PM’s), etc.
“We also need nuclear”
As nuclear is 2 – 5 times more expensive, it’s far more effective to buy more renewable for the available money.
Nuclear is 2-5 times more expensive???
Not according to this article: https://tinyurl.com/ybg3yn5g. And electricity prices in markets with a lot of renewables are (in general) much higher than markets with a lot of nuclear. So reality contradicts your statement. Countries with a lot of nuclear also have a far less co2 emissions.
A fairy tale article.
Wholesale market prices in coutries with a lot of renewable power generation are usually lower than in countries with a lot of nuclear.
But finances for nuclear more often come directly from the taxpayers pocket, while renewable expansion was often financed by additions on retail power prices. Which still keeps retail power prices up in some countries for a limited amout of time.
France shows that there is a upper limit for nuclear at around 70-80% share without big storgaes / really big grids, since nuclear output (not curtailed) does not correlate with demand fluctuations.
It concerns investment now.
Not the past, when German wind & solar cost €15-€50/MWh (~2003). Recently both were auctioned for prices €35-€60/MWh during 20yrs, thereafter market price.
New nuclear in UK (Hinkley):
£102 = €116/MWh inflation corrected during 35yrs…
+£17Billion loan guarantee which implies a subsidy of €3/MWh
+disaster and waste liability subsidies worth €10/MWh.
As renewable oriented countries want to minimize energy use, they have higher taxes on energy (also car fuel). For a real comparison one should check whole sale prices at the power markets (APX).
LNT a lie??
US National Academy of Sciences and major science organizations around the world, adhere to the Linear Non-Threshold Theory. It is confirmed by many research results for radiation levels below normal background radiation. E.g.:
https://goo.gl/eWZqGn
http://goo.gl/ZTqxLB
https://goo.gl/zGltnI
https://goo.gl/2tkhcF
That there is a threshold before nuclear radiation causes damage, resembles promotion messages for:
– tobacco; “a cigarette a day doesn’t ham”
– asbestos; “with low concentrations of fiber in the air, no increased cancer risks”
Those statements are also lies as shown by scientific studies.
Those misleading statements cause that many people take more risks, hence cause the deaths of many people…
LNT in a nutshell: When 1 person takes 100 paracetamol (acetaminophen) at once he will die. So, when 100 people take 1 paracetamol also 1 person will die.
This is the kind of reasoning of the LNT crowd. […]
Let’s not get into a debate on LNT here. This is a scientific debate. Energy Post is an energy website. I think you both made your point, people can go and look for information themselves.
“Hagen Scherb, … paid by the Russians”
???
Mathematician Dr. Hagen Scherb promoted (Dr = PhD) on statistical change analysis. He is one of the leading scientists at the Institute for Biomathematics and Biometrics belonging to the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Health.*)
He has a well paid, secure job in a good place (Neuherberg, München), and is a respected scientist.**)
Why would he take the risk to ruin his standing and career by falsifying results in order to get a bribe from the Russians?
Especially since any scientist can check his results by requesting the same birth data and execute statistical analysis, as shown by the study of Koerblein which I linked above.
Why would the Russians take the risk that Scherb makes such offer public?
___
*) The group of German Helmholtz & Fraunhofer centers are comparable with the national lab’s in USA (or TNO in NL).
**) Especial after 2 pro-nuclear scientists doubted the found increased genetic damage to newborn up to 40km from Germany’s prime nuclear waste (dry cask) store in Gorleben, and they then started with an expanded due diligence study declaring that Scherb’s results couldn’t be true.
To their unpleasant surprise, they found even worse genetic damage (they expanded the research area downwind of Gorleben). They were so fanatic pro-nuclear that they doubted their own results despite the found extreme high significance level…
So after a conference with all involved scientists, it was decided to close Gorleben prematurely (2015) while the huge dry cask storage building was still 70% empty….
(a major financial loss)
Some further background on Michael Shellenberger; He received a bachelor’s degree in Peace and Global Studies from Earlham College in Indiana in 1993, and a masters degree in anthropology from University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1996. His spouse is a sociologist who studies the impact of socioeconomic status, race, and ethnicity on health. He decided to run for the California’s governor position because California’s young people, middle class, and poor are being sold out.
He was named a Time magazine Heroes of the Environment (2008), winner of the 2008 Green Book Award, co-editor of Love Your Monsters (2011) and co-author of Break Through (Houghton Mifflin 2007) and The Death of Environmentalism (2004).
On the comment that contained PWR’s don’t meet present demand. A number of Chinese massive nuclear “baseload” power plants are seeing one by one their “first of a kind” Gen-III+ Nuclear Reactors connected to the grid… They include the US Westinghouse AP-1000, the French AREVA EPR, the Russian VVER-1000 and the Chinese ACPR-1000. At the Chinese Yangjiang Nuclear “BaseLoad” Power Plant we see that in only a 10 year time period with the construction of 6 nuclear (including two Gen-III+ Reactors) 6600 MWe can be realised.
Unit 1 Gen-II CPR-1000 1,080 MW 25 Mar 2014
Unit 2 Gen-II CPR-1000 1,080 MW 05 Jun 2015
Unit 3 Gen-II CPR-1000 1,080 MW 18 Oct 2015
Unit 4 Gen-II CPR-1000 1,080 MW 08 Jan 2017
Unit 5 Gen-III+ ACPR-1000 1,080 MW 23 May 2018
Unit 6 Gen-III+ ACPR-1000 1,080 MW 2019
No this can not bee seen from this data. Construction start was 2008, and planning start much much more early.
Otherwise building wind power just takes weeks, from pouring the first concrete of the tower (not foundations) till the generator is connected to the grid with the modern towers made of premanufactured parts.
rooftop solar could be declared to be constructed within days.
real life xpansion is much slower, for example china seems tohave no construction start for nuclear this year so far.