Coming…coming…well not really.

A side event hosted by the International Atomic Energy Agency can always be anticipated at every climate COP negotiations. This year was no different and neither were the two gentlemen telling their same tired old story about the wonders of nuclear power.

Poor guys. For a decade they could not point to a single new nuclear project in the West that anyone was willing to invest in. And they always had to handle difficult questions about decisions by Germany, Sweden, Belgium and Spain to phase out their existing nuclear power projects. Now that they finally have one new reactor project in Finland to highlight, it is not giving the positive signals they were hoping for. The construction project is running badly behind schedule, it has been heavily criticised by the Finnish nuclear safety authority and its financial arrangements are being investigated by the European Commission because of suspected illegal subsidies.

However, they still have some friends. Like the Financial Times (FT). A week ago its headlines screamed that the International Energy Agency (IEA), in its new World Energy Outlook, would urge the world to build more nuclear power plants to prevent further climate change.

Well, the FT should have held its horses and waited for the actual report, which was launched last Tuesday in London. They would have learned that the IEA’s “Alternative” scenarios suggest only a relatively small role for nuclear power. In contrast the report suggests a much larger role for renewables and energy efficiency – together said to displace six to nine times more fossil emissions than nuclear. And even this increase of nuclear power would – according to the IEA – be conditional upon solving existing problems related to safety, waste and nuclear proliferation (does North Korea or Iran come to mind?).

Additionally, heavy government subsidies would still be required. Finally, although the new scenarios in the IEA report are improvements on their previous ones, they still do not get anywhere near where the global community needs to be to avoid dangerous climate change.

So, nothing new for nuclear projects from this report either.

Sorry, guys. Maybe next year.