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New hopes for nuclear?
The world's nuclear power industry seems to have new cause
for optimism after spending much of the past 25 years on the
defensive. On 7 March, US senator Pete Domenici (Rep, New
Mexico) introduced a new bill - the Nuclear Energy Electricity
Assurance Act - that aims to boost the use of nuclear energy
in the US. In mid-month, it was revealed that China intends
to add some 12,000 MW of new nuclear capacity over the next
five years. And late last year Finnish energy company Teollisuuden
Voima revealed plans to build the country's fifth nuclear
power station.
This latter announcement came during COP 6, the United Nation's
annual meeting on climate change, held last year in The Hague.
The timing was no accident. Many in the industry believe growing
concern about global warming could be the industry's salvation.
Explicit political support for this view came on 21 March
when US vice-president Dick Cheney said during a television
interview, "if you want to do something about carbon dioxide
emissions, then you ought to build nuclear power stations."
Cheney also heads a White House task force that is preparing
recommendations on how the US can boost its domestic energy
supplies.
Nuclear power's great selling point in the context of climate
change is that it creates virtually no greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions. So, if fears about climate change begin to override
concerns about radiation, waste disposal and nuclear proliferation
that have dogged the industry since the late 1970s, the nuclear
industry believes it could get a new lease of life.
There is evidence to suggest that public fear of nuclear power
is starting to fade. In a January poll of 1000 US adults,
commissioned by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), an organisation
representing US nuclear plant operators, 64% said they
agreed with the statement: "We should keep the option to build
more nuclear energy plants in the future". 29% disagreed.
The comparable percentages in a October 1999 poll were 60%
and 33%. A majority (51% in January) agreed with the
statement: "We should definitely build more nuclear energy
plants in the future." The apparent shift in sentiment was
confirmed by responses to a third proposition: "We should
shut down all nuclear energy plants". 21% agreed with
this while 52% disagreed.
But nuclear power is still a bête noire for many environmental
groups. "It's an inherently unsafe technology," says Roger
Higman, senior climate campaigner with Friends of the Earth.
"We are strongly opposed to it."
When the latest NEI poll was conducted, California was in
the midst of a series of well-publicised blackouts which undoubtedly
influenced responses. But the state's problems look set to
continue for months, if not years, to come. Further blackouts
occurred in mid-March when residents felt a need to switch
on their air conditioning and state governor Gray Davis has
warned that more power interruptions are likely this summer.
Adding to US support for nuclear power is mounting concern
over oil and gas prices, both of which rose sharply last year,
and worries about a mounting reliance on natural gas. But
outside the US, climate change is a more important driver.
"We can't avoid nuclear power if we want to fulfill the Kyoto
commitment," EU Energy Commissioner Loyola de Palacio said
in an interview with Finnish television in February. The 1997
Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement to reduce emissions
of GHGs which are generally accepted to be making a significant
contribution to global warming. Under the terms of this agreement,
industrialised nations pledged to cut their GHG emissions
to 94.8% of their 1990 level by 2010. The EU target is
for a 8% reduction.
But, within the EU executive itself, there are strongly held
opinions on both sides of the argument. Environment Commissioner
Margot Wallstrom, for example, takes a quite different view
from her colleague de Palacio: "We have to look at sustainable
solutions and, if we create a huge waste problem, that is
not sustainable," she said after the COP 6 meeting.
Some member states have already decided that nuclear will
play no part in their long-term energy plans, but seem to
be in no rush to implement the decision. The Swedish government
vowed in 1980 phase out its 12 nuclear plants by 2010. It
shut down one in 1999 but closure of the second has been postponed
from this year to 2003 and opinion polls in the late 1990s
suggest less than 20% of the population now favour early
closure. The government seems to have no plan to replace this
nuclear capacity, says Greenpeace campaigner Tarjei Haaland,
in Copenhagen.
Germany, where the Green party shares power with Social Democrats,
announced last year that it, too, would phase out its nuclear
capacity. But, to the dismay of its vociferous anti-nuclear
lobby, it set a leisurely timetable which will see many plants
running for most of their design life. Some will still be
operating in 2030.
In neighbouring France, on the other hand, where the public
is ever ready to take to the streets to protest against unpopular
government decisions, the anti-nuclear lobby has had little
impact. Around 75% of French electricity comes from nuclear
plants - a higher share than in any other country. Like most
other European nations, France plans a substantial boost in
its use of renewable energy, but this will not have much impact
on the total power mix for many years. "France has no oil,
very little gas and its coal seams were already running out
in the 1950s. Its hydroelectric resources are used to the
full and other non-fossil energy sources are in their infancy,"
junior industry minister Christian Pierret told a nuclear
energy meeting in Paris last July.
Japan has a similar dependency on imports of fossil fuels
and, until recently, has been another strong advocate of nuclear
power. The country currently has 51 nuclear reactors, generating
around one third of its electricity. It planned to add up
to a further 20 reactors by 2010 until an accident at a nuclear
reprocessing facility some 90 miles from Tokyo in 1999 dented
public confidence in the technology. These plans are now under
government review.
Most of the countries that have pledged to reduce their emissions
under the Kyoto agreement have large nuclear portfolios, notes
Maureen Koetz, environmental policy director of the NEI. It
was assumed that these nations would keep their nuclear plants
running when the targets were agreed to, she says.
And, the NEI notes, nuclear plants also make a substantial
contribution to the nation's clean air efforts as they emit
no sulphur dioxide or nitrogen oxides, the main causes of
acid rain and smog.
There are currently more than 430 nuclear plants in existence.
Most of them were built in the 1970s and 1980s and typically
have a design life of around 40 years. So, unless they are
shut down early, most will still be operating during the first
commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2008-12). These stations
account for some 17% of global electricity generation.
Among OECD nations, the share ranges from 4% to 75%
and averages around 24%. If this power came from fossil
fuels, global emissions of carbon dioxide would be 1.8 billion
tonnes/year higher, says the International Nuclear Forum (INF),
grouping of several nuclear industry associations from around
the world. This means the industry should be given credit
for avoiding GHG emissions, just as wind power or solar power
will be, it argues.
If the US is to reach its Kyoto target of reducing its emissions
of GHGs to 7% below their 1990 level by 2008-12, the US
will need to reduce its emissions by 272 million tonnes. If
nuclear power were removed from the energy mix before this
time, the savings required would rise to more than 400 million
tonnes, the NEI says. And, while these figures may be of only
academic interest, given President Bush's hostility to the
Kyoto agreement, similar figures apply in many other industrialised
nations.
Yet there is a consensus among climatologists that the Kyoto
goals represent only a small step towards the reductions that
will be eventually be needed. They say that total cuts of
60% below 1990 levels which will be required if the concentration
of GHGs in the atmosphere is to be stabilised at a level low
enough to prevent dangerous climate change.
But even this goal could be achieved, in some countries, without
any nuclear power, says Higman at Friends of the Earth, citing
a recent study by the UK's Royal Commission on Environmental
Pollution. This showed that it would be possible for the UK
to achieve a 60% cut in GHGs by 2050 by greatly expanding
its use of renewables and energy efficiency measures. However,
the no-nuclear scenarios assumed energy demand in 2050 could
be reduced to less than 63% of what it was in 1998 and
that living standards may decline.
Many industrialised nations have launched aggressive plans
to boost the share of electricity they derive from renewable
sources but, even under the most optimistic forecasts, renewables
are unlikely to contribute more than 39% of primary traded
energy by 2050, according to the World Energy Council.
According to Nuclear Energy Agency, a semi-autonomous body
within the OECD, electricity demand is likely to grow by 3%
a year worldwide over the next two decades, but by at least
5%/year in the developing countries, on a business-as-usual
projection. This would necessitate a doubling of the current
world generating capacity of about 3,000GWe by 2020 in addition
to the replacement of about 600GWe of obsolescent plant, it
notes.
Against this background, it would be perverse to exclude nuclear
power from the suite of emission reduction approaches proposed
in the Kyoto Protocol, the industry says. One of the few decisions
at the ill-fated COP 6 meeting, however, was to do just that.
Despite stiff opposition from the US, Japan, Canada and others
it was agreed at the November meeting that nuclear power plants
would not be eligible for carbon credits within the Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM), the scheme proposed in the Protocol
to reward projects in developing countries which avoid or
prevent emissions of GHGs.
But, says Jonathan Cobb, nuclear policy manager at British
Nuclear Fuels, there is no guarantee that this agreement will
be retained when the suspended COP 6 negotiations reconvene
in July in Bonn. Several nations have objected to the exclusion
of nuclear power since The Hague meeting. And, he notes, the
exclusion agreement referred only to CDM projects. Joint Implementation
(JI) - a separate mechanism for rewarding projects which reduce
or avoid emissions in industrialised nations - was not mentioned.
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