Nuclear Power: The key to cutting carbon emissions and hitting our 2020 targets?

In the spirit of avoiding the laborious and often misunderstood climate change opinions which are so often bantered about today, IRJ gets straight to the point as we explore whether nuclear power could be the key energy source the world is waiting for, in order to cut our carbon emissions and hit 2020 energy targets. It is time for a few home truths from both the ‘Yes’ and the ‘No’ camps, and a nod to being “on the fence”. No more arguing. No more misinterpreted statistics. This is a bottom line look at what is on offer, and at what potential cost.

The nuclear debate

In order to understand the debate in its most simple form, it is important to look more closely at nuclear fission reactors, their history and their application today. In brief, the nuclear reactor is the device used to execute the non-explosive, controlled nuclear reaction which creates the power many of us will best understand today—usually done using heat from the nuclear reaction to power steam turbines, although this is continuously developing and other methods do exist. The argument arises from the use of nuclear reactors and the power created on a mass, typically civilian power consumer level. It is fact that nuclear is the real zero carbon emission energy source; a key point in supporters working to promote nuclear use.

Supporters highlight nuclear as a sustainable source of energy capable of greatly decreasing our dependence on oil. With this factor in mind, nuclear could offer true energy independence to a nation ready to embrace it. On the matter of dangerous wastes management, supporters point to a strong facilities record in the Western world and compare this advantageously with that of other power stations. Here is the real bone of contention: How big a threat is nuclear waste? It is the backbone to many anti-nuclear arguments, that claim that this issue, along with heightened danger for nuclear arms development, and the environmental impacts of uranium mining, are more than enough reasons to rule out nuclear as the key for carbon emissions reduction.

The question, of course, is how such different attitudes can reach a solution? Is there ever really going to be an answer that suits both sides? It is, of course, a terribly grey area that for the most part stems from the base nuclear debate. The debate is argued, standpoint depending, based on national governments, scientific research, power generation requirements, stability, economy and every other imaginable circumstantial variable.

The World Nuclear map

According to the World Nuclear Association, approximately 13-14 per cent of the world’s electricity came from nuclear in 2009, and according to the Energy Information Administration of the U.S., the nation took around 19 per cent of its electricity from nuclear which makes it the greatest user in the world. Talking nuclear on a world scale does, of course, have its regional peaks and troughs. Some countries, such as Austria, Denmark, Greece and Ireland, have no active nuclear power stations and some, such as France, have many. As a result, national attitudes to embracing this energy source are bound to vary quite widely. Following an International Energy Agency [IEA] review of France’s energy policy in mid-2010, the agency announced that France is one of the least CO2-intensive industrialised economies, thanks in great part to its nuclear power use.

“The government has a huge responsibility to ensure that the nuclear waste management is addressed in a sustainable way,” IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka said in the subsequent press release.

However he also notes that France’s nuclear-embrace does not solve all of the nation’s energy gripes.

“While France has surplus baseload nuclear capacity that allows it to be a major electricity exporter, it has to rely on imports to meet its peak demand,” he continued.

Legislation proposed in France aims to open up nuclear supply to more of the nation’s electricity companies. In a nutshell, the mass nuclear haul of world-renowned French energy company EDF— which tends to enjoy production costs that are lower than wholesale electricity prices— would become available to other companies at what Tanaka calls, “a regulated tariff.” France exemplifies successful nuclear use; now its challenge is levelling out access with what the IEA calls, “a stronger policy focus on energy security.”

In contrast, Ireland has been the subject of great media attention with some experts claiming that its current zero-nuclear capacity will prevent the country from achieving its 2020 targets.

“By itself, nuclear power cannot be the answer to the development versus environment dilemma, but there is no answer without a significant nuclear contribution and this applies to Ireland also,” Dr Bertrand Barré, scientific advisor the Areva Group, of France, said in April 2010.

“Many countries’ approach to decarbonisation includes a growing nuclear element. Although nuclear power plants are not currently a legal option in Ireland, we believe that due consideration of them as an option is worthwhile,” the May, 2010, report from Pöyry Energy Consulting states.

Then, further in contrast, is Belgium. The country has put together a nuclear phase-out plan; aimed at bearing down nuclear power to be non-nuclear within 10 years. This phase-out was originally announced in a 2003 Act. In 2008 the country elected to launch another study on this scheme. Numerous studies by CREG, the federal energy regulator, suggested that the plan wasn’t favourable. As of October, 2009, the Council of Ministers voted to postpone the scheme, instead announcing plans for a new nuclear agreement under which nuclear power companies will make annual contributions. Simultaneously, the government announced plans to more actively improve energy efficiency and security. It is reported that approximately €500 million in funds for this will come from the nuclear industry. Belgium is a great example of the push and pull many countries are experiencing as the world works to improve energy security, strives for energy independence and considers nuclear power’s risks, potential and reputation.

On closer inspection of an individual country, region, and economy’s energy needs, the quest to determine whether or not nuclear presents a ‘key’ to the 2020 targets is rendered quite fruitless. Instead, perhaps it is more important to better understand why different nations have different suitability to the energy source? The goal is not for the world to wholly embrace, or wholly oust nuclear power: It is whether or not there is a significant place for the energy source in our global future, and where exactly that place may be.

The world’s nuclear news today

It is quite impossible to account for attitudes to nuclear today without considering one particular event that markedly altered media coverage and public awareness of the energy source forever: the April 26, 1986 Chernobyl Plant nuclear disaster in the Ukraine. On that fateful day, reactor four experienced a surge of power growth during an unusual systems test, carried out whilst the plant was operating at a low power level. Power spiked, causing a series of explosions and reactor four ruptured. A rapid and large fire and radioactive fallout ensued. A total of 56 individuals lost their lives as a direct result of the accident and 300,000 were resettled. A period of distrust amongst the media, the USSR, the nuclear and the wider power industry went on from there and may still be perceived today in some reporting. Whilst recognising the damage done, it is important to try and work beyond such events—as is currently indicative in the oil industry where British Petroleum’s Macondo oil slick continues to ripple through the press, the U.S. as a whole, the Senate, offshore drilling regulation and beyond.

Nuclear certainly has its great success stories, as exemplified by the praise bestowed on France by the IEA just months ago. In August, 2010, the Atomic Energy Council (AEC) spoke out in praise of Taiwan’s fourth year of peacefully harnessing nuclear power. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) spoke with full support for Taiwan’s governmental procedure of “not developing, producing, acquiring, storing, nor applying” nuclear arms, according to the AEC.

On August 13, reports emerged of an India—U.S. deal with investment potential totalling US$55 billion by 2020 with a year-on-year nine per cent growth for new investment and trade in civilian nuclear power. India’s current installed capacity for nuclear is 4,340 megawatts and the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) is looking to increase that to 20 gigawatts by 2020, then 63 gigawatts by 2030.

In Germany it is a very different story. The government plans to implement a tax on the fuel used in nuclear plants—part of the country’s €82 billion plan between 2010—2014 aimed at slashing public budget deficits. Utilities companies have spoken out about the plans and say, bearing in mind nuclear makes up around 25 per cent of Germany’s electricity production, that the tax could mark the end of the country’s nuclear industry, result in inflated energy prices and thwart attempts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Again, with this decision on nuclear, there arises great debate.

Speaking exclusively with Mike Childs, Head of Climate change at Friends of the Earth (FoE), IRJ heard about recent U.K. government research which suggests it is entirely possible to make emissions reductions without the use of nuclear.

“The U.K. Department of Energy and Climate Change this week (of Monday July 19), ran a number of scenarios about how the U.K. can meet the reductions the U.K. government has committed to in terms of carbon reduction,” Childs says.

“One of those scenarios demonstrated that we could do so without nuclear power. That may not be the government’s policy; there are a number of scenarios that enable debate around these issues but one of them clearly demonstrates we don’t need nuclear power.”

Childs also spoke about similarly non-nuclear promising research conducted by the European Climate Foundation, working together the European Commission and with industry. This work looks at the energy requirements of the European Union and presents similar results.

“They looked at a number of scenarios and one [was a] non-nuclear renewable scenario that again demonstrated it was entirely possible. With the appropriate investment in the grid, European lights would still be on 365 days a year, 24 hours a day without the intermittency problems that have been claimed for the high-end renewable power energy suppliers,” Childs says.

“From those perspectives, we [FoE] feel comfortable still in terms of saying we don’t need nuclear power.”

Childs went on to say that if it was proven that the world carbon emissions without nuclear power, FoE would revisit its position on the issue. Interestingly, when IRJ spoke with Ian Hore-Lacy, Director of Public Communications at the World Nuclear Association, Lacy said, “There’s no reputable international body which has expressed an opinion on this that has suggested that whether it is possible to meet energy targets without nuclear.”

“Where has there ever been a problem with civil nuclear wastes in the last 50 years?” Lacy asks.

The quest to place, or perhaps dislodge, nuclear power in line with the world’s future energy needs lead IRJ to sit down with Childs and Hore-Lacy to gain more first-hand perspective as to why both arguments are not only valid, but crucial to understand if countries all over the world are going to reach a conclusion on nuclear power which best suits their specific needs today and keeps mindful of our rapidly-approaching deadline for cutting our carbon emissions in 2020.

The argument FOR nuclear power

IRJ spoke with Ian Hore-Lacy, Director of Public Communications at the World Nuclear Association, about quite how much potential nuclear has and whether it is, indeed, that key energy source to see us through our carbon emissions reductions and to achieve our 2020 targets.

Lacy says: “The main thing here is that nuclear power does not emit any carbon emissions at all, and if you take into account the whole fuel cycle, that is the mining and enrichment as well, the carbon emissions are minimal... It’s nice to have [wind and solar] and it makes us all feel good to harvest that energy that is growing around us or shining down upon us, but you use the word dispatchable and being hard-nosed about it, wind and solar are not in the race. They are never going to be dispatchable in the sense that nuclear and fossil fuels are.”

IRJ: Let’s look at why nuclear power is the key to cutting our carbon emissions and meeting our 2020 energy targets?

IHL : There’s no reputable international body who has expressed an opinion on this that has suggested whether it is possible to meet energy targets without nuclear. The answer I think is a very plain ‘no’ from any quarter. It’s questionable whether with even foreseen rates of development of nuclear power it’s possible, but certainly without nuclear power it’s not possible.

It’s very realistic to proceed [with nuclear]. The question I would put to anyone making that assertion [about waste management with nuclear] is ‘Where has there ever been a problem with civil nuclear wastes in the last 50 years?’ I don’t think you can point to any single problem of any significance where wastes have affected the environment, affected people, or held a serious risk of doing so. In one sense, where is the problem? The short answer is that at a political level it’s a bit of a ‘hot potato’ because politicians, generally in many countries, have shown a reluctance to grapple sensibly with the question. Technically there is no problem. The modest challenges that wastes pose are being well-funded and well dealt with, in contrast, I suggest, to many other industrial wastes—toxic and hazardous.

[Concerning sustainability,] any published data on uranium resources refer only to known resources, which is not a particularly surprising statement when you think about it. There is little relationship to what is in the Earth crust. There are only known resources—that is to say they represent the expenditure and quite a lot of money in mineral exploration to actually discover in the first place and quantify those resources.

As you spend more money, the resource numbers tend to go up. That has been the historical position, of course not just with uranium, but with any metal/mineral that is true of. You mention limits to growth which is of the 1970s, and that sort of fallacy is being applied today occasionally by some critics to the uranium resource question.

IRJ: What sortrts of activities today present a furtrther world or regional lean toward s embracing nuclear power? Are there any current goings on that you are partirticularly excited about?

IHL : The main exciting things that are coming up are that people are building a lot of reactors. There are over 50 reactors under construction around the world, half of those in China. They’re big reactors and they’re modern reactors and it’s exciting to see them going ahead and coming online. One of them came online just last week in China.

Also, some of the old equipment for enrichment from around the world is being replaced with new equipment which is much, much more energy efficient.

Thirdly, some misconceptions that caused the U.S. to ban reprocessing in 1977 have now been reviewed and reconsidered and it looks as though we will now been moving into an era where most uranium is in fact recycled, giving us about 30 per cent more energy out of it, and just being much more rational in relation to the amount of the wastes arising. There’s a double-plus from that; there’s an increase in use of resources and there is a much greater reduction in the amount of waste.

IRJ: Let’s look at the challenges facing the future of nuclear. What sortrts of issues need to be overcome in ord er to adv ance the energy source’s use throughout the world?

IHL : I think the challenges are continued technological development in respect to reactors and other parts of the fuel cycle. The reactors that are being built today are called Generation Three reactors; they’re an evolutionary development of Generation Two ones. Generation Four reactors are on the drawing board and they will probably be coming online in the 2020s or by 2030. They are bit more sophisticated in some ways, require greater attention to the development of materials in particular, and some of those will operate at high temperatures and be used for industrial heat, including the production of hydrogen and the thermo chemical production of hydrogen. Those are all very interesting developments. And of course, the oil industry is facing big challenges in respect to many of its reserves now being low quality ones, which require a lot of energy to extract them and nuclear power has a lot of potential there to assist the oil industry.

Also, South Africa is the only country in the world currently producing a lot of oil from coal, but should that become more popular, particularly nuclear heat can assist a lot there too, and get twice as much oil out of a ton of coal as before and do that without a huge carbon footprint.

IRJ: In your opinion, what kind of partrt will clean and/or renewable energy sources play in our energy futures? Can they ever tr uly compete wit h nuclear on every level?

IHL : I think there will be a lot more nuclear power [in the future]. You best refer to the professional number crunchers as to exact quantities, but we’ll see a lot more nuclear power there. We’ll see it in a lot more countries. If we have 10 more countries by 2020, we’ll have nuclear power taken up to about 40 countries using it. Otherwise, I don’t think there will be any huge changes that I can foresee.

The main thing here is that nuclear power does not emit any carbon emissions at all, and if you take into account the whole fuel cycle, that is the mining and enrichment as well, the carbon emissions are minimal. They’re about two per cent of those from coal. It’s absolutely trivial. That’s a key point. I think the second is vis-à-vis renewables; Nuclear power provides a continuous, reliable supply of electricity on a large scale. There are none of the new renewables—leaving out hydro in Scandinavia and Canada—like wind and solar, that can do that. Renewables will always be ancillary to your main baseload suppliers today; coal, nuclear and some gas. Nuclear is really designed for those load suppliers as a continuous, reliable supply on a large scale. That is always going to be the main electricity demand in any country. Renewables certainly have a role, but very much at the fringe.

You’ll never have dispatchable power with wind or solar for very obvious reasons. I think there’s actually more potential for solar than there is wind in some ways, despite for the rush for wind that is going on—and bear in mind the rush for wind is only going on because governments in virtually every country have mandated that it must be subsidized either by government or by the consumer. It’s clear the way things are going there.

[Renewables are] nice to have and [they] make us all feel good to harvest that energy, that is growing around us or shining down upon us, but you use the word dispatchable—and being hard-nosed about it—wind and solar are not in the race. They are never going to be dispatchable in the sense that nuclear and fossil fuels are.

The argument AGAINST nuclear power

IRJ spoke with Mike Childs, Head of Climate Change at Friends of the Earth about this international organisation’s views on a nuclear future, and whether this energy source is key, or perhaps our only key, for cutting carbon emissions and meeting those 2020 goals.

Childs says: “It’s been clearly demonstrated that we do not need nuclear power to deliver low carbon economies. Nuclear power still has unsolved problems in terms of its waste and that’s wrong to hand off to future generations. Instead, we ought to be looking much more in terms of energy efficiency, but also into developing and rolling out our renewable industries.”

IRJ: Let’s look at why nuclear power is not the key to cutting our carbon emissions and meeting our 2020 energy targets?

MC: The fact that we need to reduce our carbon emissions is beyond a doubt. We would argue that, and there is other climate change heretic, but for energy security reasons there are countries that want to be resilient to peaks in fossil fuel prices. A drive towards moving from oil towards a low carbon future is clear. Our concern, which has always been our significant concern with nuclear for many years, is that we have no idea how to safely deal with the waste that comes from a nuclear power stations.

It’s not appropriate to hand a toxic legacy of large amount of nuclear waste onto future generations. That’s not behaving responsibly. Clearly the nuclear industry has seen it’s got a chance of a renaissance under a low carbon future and it’s now promoting itself as being the low carbon solution to needing to have low carbon energy supply. It’s changed its tact considerably from the past when it promoted itself as having the ability to generate energy so cheap to meter.

Our perspective on that is, because of the problems with nuclear power, is there any way that we can meet the energy demands of the future in a way that is consistent with what we need to do to in terms of reducing carbon emissions? Much of the research that is out there now, and more in recent times, has demonstrated that we can both wean ourselves from fossil fuels and move toward a low-carbon future with the emissions that we want, and not have to have a nuclear power plant.

If it was demonstrated that we couldn’t meet what we needed to in terms of carbon emissions without nuclear power, then we would have to revisit our position, but that’s not the case so we’re comfortable where we are.

IRJ: What sorts of work is Friends of the Earth currently involved in terms of spreading the word about nuclear power, our alternatives and meeting our 2020 carbon emissions targets?

MCMC : We work within a range of N.G.O’s and we comment and communicate with each other quite extensively. At the moment, at Friends of the Earth we’re not concentrating on doing any more research around nuclear power, we’re concentrating on trying to get the policy measures in place to drive energy efficiency, reduce transport and to work to try and unlock investment flows into renewables—for example, we’re doing work around the Green Investment Bank that the government has announced it is putting in place. We’re not doing it, but we’re glad that other people are doing research around nuclear and what we make clear when we speak to our civil servants and administers and others is our position on nuclear power. We point to the government’s own evidence that we don’t need it and the evidence from the European Climate Foundation.

IRJ: Let’s look at the challenges facing Friends of the Earth’s standpoint on nuclear. How do you feel about the flurry of recent announcements made by bodies such as KPMG of the U.K. and ETSAPSAP of Japan, that state that nuclear must play a central role in meeting our targets?

MCMC : We’re not going to build a whole new nuclear power by 2020, so even if I was a mass nuclear advocate that would be “pie in the sky”. We know that the construction times often overrun, they’re very complex projects, they need very high skills and those high skills aren’t in abundance right now. To say they’re the only option for meeting our 2020 targets I think, would be incredibly misplaced and not really looking at the practical realities on the ground. There is, however, no doubt a challenge in meeting the 2020 renewables targets, especially in countries like the U.K. but also across Europe as a whole. At the moment, many of the renewable energy action plans that are being provided through the Commission use a very large amount of biomass in their targets. Well, there are real sustainability challenges around biomass—we’re not saying there are no sources of biomass but there are sustainability issues in terms of land use, competition with food and just how much carbon you save anyway —so there are some big issues there undoubtedly. With the plans that have been set so far they look like they’ve over-egged the biomass side and underplayed the energy efficiency part of the pie. The 20 per cent target becomes much more achievable with the less energy that you use. That’s why across Europe and particularly in places like the U.K. there is an opportunity to unlock large amounts of energy efficiency in a relatively quick space of time.

IRJ: In your opinion, what kind of partrt will clean and/or renewable energy sources play in our energy futures? Can they ever tr uly compete wit h nuclear on every level?

MC : There are a lot of different elements to that and clearly if we are going to have a dependable renewable energy supply, for example, a move to coal or gas based carbon capture storage (CCS) moving toward that 100 per cent, can we technically deal with the issues? Well, yes we can we can: Clearly we need to develop the European grid and that’s now being looked at by the European commission and others. Then we need to look at storage options, for example for times like when the wind is not blowing. But that’s what all these reports demonstrated. These are not insurmountable barriers—they are very possible technically. In terms of cost, of course, it depends on how you cost the alternatives. Clearly you have to work on scenarios for different prices. If some scenarios for oil and gas are high-priced then it drives low carbon and, in pure economic terms, it might be the cheapest route to go to in terms of energy to house-holders. As the Stern Review (British Government, October 2008) pointed out quite clearly, once you start taking on board the other costs associated with climate change activity, clearly the low carbon scenario is the most economically sensible route to go down. If you compare the costs around renewables and nuclear, it may be at the moment that some forms of renewable are more pricy than nuclear as it is currently regulated and controlled—deepwater offshore, for example.

You then need to bring into the equation the other parts of that. Firstly, you need to look at the cost of nuclear as it is now, where you effectively relatively large government subsidies, for example underwriting the liabilities of the nuclear power plants. We’ve seen with the BP spill, they have massive liabilities from that—that wasn’t underwritten by government.

Once you start removing those, the economics for nuclear can start changing anyway. Then, how do you effectively price the externalities associated with the legacy of radioactive waste that future generations have to manage for a very considerable amount of time and the potential impacts that might come from that waste if there accidents or attacks?

So at the moment we would say nuclear is underpriced, due to government subsidy and support and that makes it appear cheap compared to some of the more expensive renewables such as deepwater offshore.

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