section_path: Debate/Comparison with renewable energy
section_name: Comparison with renewable energy
paragraph_text: Comparison with renewable energy
  
  Slowing global warming requires a transition to a low-carbon economy, mainly by burning far less fossil fuel. Limiting global warming to 1.5 °C is technically possible if no new fossil fuel power plants are built from 2019. This has generated considerable interest and dispute in determining the best path forward to rapidly replace fossil-based fuels in the global energy mix, with intense academic debate. Sometimes the IEA says that countries without nuclear should develop it as well as their renewable power.
  
  World total primary energy supply of 162,494 TWh (or 13,792 Mtoe) by fuels in 2017 (IEA, 2019)
  
  Several studies suggest that it might be theoretically possible to cover a majority of world energy generation with new renewable sources. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said that if governments were supportive, renewable energy supply could account for close to 80% of the world's energy use by 2050. While in developed nations the economically feasible geography for new hydropower is lacking, with every geographically suitable area largely already exploited, some proponents of wind and solar energy claim these resources alone could eliminate the need for nuclear power.
  
  Nuclear power is comparable to, and in some cases lower, than many renewable energy sources in terms of lives lost in the past per unit of electricity delivered. Depending on recycling of renewable energy technologies, nuclear reactors may produce a much smaller volume of waste, although much more toxic, expensive to manage and longer-lived. A nuclear plant also needs to be disassembled and removed and much of the disassembled nuclear plant needs to be stored as low-level nuclear waste for a few decades. The disposal and management of the wide variety of radioactive waste, of which there are over one quarter of a million tons as of 2018, can cause future damage and costs across the world for over or during hundreds of thousands of years – possibly over a million years, due to issues such as leakage, malign retrieval, vulnerability to attacks (including of reprocessing and power plants), groundwater contamination, radiation and leakage to above ground, brine leakage or bacterial corrosion. The European Commission Joint Research Centre found that as of 2021 the necessary technologies for geological disposal of nuclear waste are now available and can be deployed. Corrosion experts noted in 2020 that putting the problem of storage off any longer "isn't good for anyone". Separated plutonium and enriched uranium could be used for nuclear weapons, which – even with the current centralized control (e.g. state-level) and level of prevalence – are considered to be a difficult and substantial global risk for substantial future impacts on human health, lives, civilization and the environment.