Is nuclear energy a real alternative for the generation of electricity in the European region?
Due to different reasons, and particularly after the nuclear accident at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the debate about the future role of nuclear energy for electricity generation in the energy mix of several countries was reopened once again in the European region. There are several reasons for this. The first of these reasons is the high price of oil. The second reason is the need to reduce the CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. The third reason is the dependency of the EU and other European States to the import of fossil fuels.
During the consideration of the role that nuclear energy should have in the energy balance in the European States in the coming years, three main realities should be taken into account:
-The level of criticisms of the use of nuclear energy for electricity generation is rising again in several European States after the nuclear accident at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Germany has shut down 8 of its 17 nuclear power reactors in operation in 2011. The UK shuts down 2units in 2012; other countries such as Switzerland, Belgium and Sweden have plans to shut down all nuclear power reactors currently in operation or have cancelled the expansion of their nuclear programs or the introduction of this type of programs for the generation of electricity in the future.
-Economics comparison. Whether the use of nuclear energy for electricity generation is more economical or not than the use of other energy sources will depend on how cheap it is compared to other alternative energy sources;
-Is nuclear energy a secure energy source for the generation of electricity or it is very dangerous bearing in mind the Three Miles Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accidents? Does the world have in their hands now any other alternative energy sources that are more secure, can provide the level of electricity generation that the countries need when is needed, and it is clean and economic than nuclear energy? If the reply is yes, then they can be used immediately to generate the total energy electricity produced by the 436 nuclear power reactors operating in 31 countries in 2012, before the nuclear accident at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant?
Currently, the European region (including Russia and Ukraine) generates around 31 % of its electricity from 195 nuclear power reactors currently in operation in 17 countries.
According to some expert’s opinion, it is a fact that nuclear energy is already making a substantial contribution to an energy policy that is low in carbon, cost-effective and that provides assured supply.
Today, a strong debate is happening among the oldest and most industrialized EU Member States, which do not want to slow down their economic growth and wish to overcome the current economic and social crisis that some of them are now facing.
This crisis is putting in danger not only the stability of several countries but also the common currency of 23 States (the euro). For this reason, a group of countries is thinking to continue using nuclear energy for the generation of electricity as a real alternative, even after the nuclear accident at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. On the other hand, others countries are taking measures to slow down the expansion of their current nuclear power programs or will shut down some or all of their nuclear power reactors in the coming years. The problem that the world is now facing is how to meet the foreseeable increase in the demand of energy using all available energy sources in the most efficient and economic manner and without increasing the emission of CO2 to the atmosphere.
Undoubtedly, one of the available types of energy sources that have proved in the past that can be effectively used for the generation of electricity is nuclear energy. The International Energy Outlook for 2011 (IEO 2011) indicated that electricity generation from nuclear power worldwide is expected to increase from 2.6 trillion kWh in 2008 to 4.9 trillion kWh in 2035, an increase of 88 %. However, there is a great concern about building new nuclear capacity due to construction costs, energy security and greenhouse gas emissions in several regions of the world.
Every year, the IAEA makes low and high projections of global nuclear power generating capacity: this year's low projection indicates 17 per cent growth in world total nuclear power capacity by 2030, while the high projection suggests a 94 per cent growth, i.e. nearly a doubling in global generation capacity. In other words, growth in nuclear power following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident is expected to continue, however at a rate lower than estimated prior to the accident. http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/2013/np2020.html
The annual projections made since 2011 have indicated that growth has slowed, but not reversed. The 2013 updates, taking into account developments through April 2013, reinforce this conclusion. Over the short term, the low price of natural gas and the promotion of renewable energy sources in some energy policies are expected to impact nuclear growth prospects in several regions of the developed world. These low natural gas prices are partly due to low demand as a result of macroeconomic conditions, as well as technological advances, notably with fracture techniques to extract shale gas. Moreover, the on-going financial crisis continues to present challenges for capital intensive projects such as nuclear power.
"Nuclear energy can be viewed as a critical component of a country's energy infrastructure, providing a clean and dependable long-term source of energy," says David Shropshire, Head of the IAEA's Planning and Economic Studies Section.
In the long run, nuclear generating capacity is expected to play an important role in the energy mix due to growth in population and in demand for electricity in the developing world, as well as climate change concerns, security of energy supply and price volatility for other fuels.
Challenges remain, and policy responses to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident are still evolving. However, over the past year, most countries have finalized their nuclear safety reviews, providing greater clarity with respect to nuclear power development. The final result of those reviews, reactor safety modifications, and in some cases even reactor shut-downs, is that greater confidence in nuclear power is expected as a safe and secure energy source.
In the 2013 updated low projection, the world's installed nuclear power capacity grows from 373 gigawatts (GW(e)) today to 435 GW(e) in 2030. In the updated high projection, it grows to 722 GW(e) in 2030 (A gigawatt, or GW(e), equals one billion watts of electrical power).
The strongest projected growth is in regions that already have operating nuclear power plants, led by Asian countries, including China and the Republic of Korea. From 83 GW(e) at the end of 2012, capacity grows to 147 GW(e) in 2030 in the low projection and to 268 GW(e) in the high projection.
Eastern Europe, which includes Russia, as well as the Middle East and South Asia, which includes India and Pakistan, also show strong growth potential. Nuclear capacities grows from 48 GW(e) in 2012, to 79 GW(e) and 124 GW(e) in the low and high cases, respectively.
Western Europe shows the biggest difference between the low and high projections. In the low projection, Western Europe's nuclear power capacity drops from 114 GW(e) at the end of 2012 to 68 GW(e) in 2030. In the high projection, nuclear power grows to 124 GW(e).
In North America, the low case projects a small decline, to 101 GW(e) in 2030, while the high projection shows an increase from 116 GW(e) at the end of 2012 to 143 GW(e), or a 24 per cent increase.
In EU 2 policies are needed:
1- for the country willing to have and to develop the Nuclear tech in a responsible way, what does it means to have a EU nuclear policy and not a French way, Finish Way, Sweden…. UK way… It would be rational to have common EU rules for nuclear willing countries and not a patchwork of different ones, which lead to overcasts and more risks.
2- For the countries willing to get out of Nuclear, EU should also pave the way to do it, and organize the decommission of existing nuclear facilities providing a clear set of rules.
Have a look to the concept developed by Adrien de Hautecloque on this issues.
Adrien de Hautecloque and ali. Legal Feasibility of Schengen-like Agreements in European Energy Policy: The Cases of Nuclear Cooperation and Gas Security of Supply
Perhaps due to the different position of the European governments related to the use of nuclear energy for the generation of electricity, the adoption of a nuclear energy policy could very difficult to achieve at this stage. However, the adoption of a nuclear energy policy for the EU could be something that would need to be considered as soon as possible in order to clarify the position of the EU on this important issue.
As real alternative to nuclear plants, I think that you could consider in actual fact and on sound grounds the possibility of using big wind power plants with vertical axis of rotation (I mean VertEolo project, see the questions I have proposed) to satisfy global present and future energy needs with reduced costs and environmental impact.
The problem that the EU will have if decide to close all nuclear power reactors currently in operation and substitute them by wind power plants is that the latest cannot be used as base load power plants and this reality will force the EU to use some fossil fuels to assume this important task. The reserves of all fossil fuels within the EU is relatively small and the use of some of them for the generation of electricity will have great negative impact on the environment
The greatest VertEolo plants are very high (> 600 m) and would assure a quite continuous huge energy production. In spite of this, the problem would be to assure an energy reserve when the production is low. This could be solved by the production of synthetic fuels (suitable both for motorvehicles and for energy production) and by hydroelectric power plants used to store energy.
Fossil and nuclear fuels would be totally unnecessary.
Dear Jorge,
In my opinion, NO! Nuclear power is not a real alternative for electricity production! of course the energy density stored in a given gram is much higher than other energy resources. An inch long pellet of Uranium-235 has more energy than one tonne of coal. A fission reaction is about a million times more energetic than a chemical reaction such as the burning of coal, oil or gas. One gram of uranium-235 when undergoing fission in a nuclear reactor gives energy roughly equivalent to burning three tonnes of coal or two tonnes of oil.
But what is the point of all these? Isn't the safety of the people or the environment and every living thing in it we should give priority??? Nuclear may seem carbon emission free but what about the by product that destroys the environment releasing enormous amount of radio active wastes as the by product that could cause critical damages for several hundred or thousands of years? every one talks about a lot in conferences about clean energy but many European countries still insist on holding nuclear power stations as their main power source serving their base load.
Europeans have so many options to transfer from nuclear to other best alternative energy sources like solar paint (it is a promising high efficient and low price energy generator), wind farm (for instance Denmark is giving the extra power generated to Norway and Germany) and Hydro power ( Norway is producing more than 90% of electricity demand from hydro electric). It is possible! It only seeks a devotion to the well being of Human life and the environment.
For those countries with lesser renewable resources, its OK to import power from other countries than exposing their own people for the potential explosion and radio active pollution of their nuclear stations.
We are not likely to see any significant rise of nuclear on the liberalized markets. The European market, for example, is now going through profound changes in terms of which energy sources are used (the rise of renewables) and how the costs are recovered (RES operate at zero variable costs and as such it is difficult to incorporate them into the merit-order principle at large scales).
The is a lot of uncertainty - the only thing we know is that the market is moving towards short-term price volatility (due to RES intermittency) and growing importance of flexibility in production, transmission, distribution and consumption.
In such environment, plants that can be built cheap and quickly and that are flexible in ramping the production up/down quickly will be preferred. In this sense the NPPs could not fit into this picture less - they are very expensive in terms of upfront costs, very complicated to permit+build (the most pro-nuclear optimists from the most pro-nuclear country, the Czech Republic, speak about 15 years between the FID and the first deliveries; realistically we are talking 25 years) and chronically inflexible in terms of output, or flexible only downwards through steam bypasses - but this not what you are getting a NPP for.
The main point is - if it takes 25 years to permit and build a NPP, you are going to start operation in early 2040s should you take the FID today. And in 2040 the market will be so different from that of today that no sound private investor will take the FID and accept such an enormous risk. So if nuclear is to be developed, the Governments will need to take over - and will they? No. There are faster and cheaper ways in achieving generation adequacy and carbon-non-intensive supply.
The construction period of a nuclear power plant depends on a number of factors and can be built in less than 10 years, dependently of the type of reactor to be constructed, the experience of the country, the availability of qualified Manpower, the existence of the resources to finance the construction of the nuclear power plant, among others.
In one of my books, you can find the time of construction of almost all reactors operating in more than 60 countries all over the world.
Thank you Jorge, I will definitely look that up. Of course it depends on the regulatory environment and many other conditions, however, the permitting and construction times in Europe, which I was primarily talking about, will be at least those 15 years, but likely more.
Apart from that, the operational inflexibility and upfront investment intensity remain the key issues.
Hi Jan.
In the 1980s, for example in France the construction of several nuclear power reactors took between 5 to 8 years. Others a little bit more but less that 15 years.
In Germany you can find that the construction of several nuclear power reactors took 4 to 7 years.
You can find a complete information in the IAEA home page.
Dear Jorge,
5-8 years seems as a credible estimate for the construction itself. However, the overall time between the decision to build a plant through the FID to the plant being actually operational would be way longer. Just the development of the site-specific information such as hydrology, seismology or meteorology can take several years (after all, that is why this "early site permit" concept exists in the U.S. and several other countries).
Once you have the site, you can prepare the license application, which, according to the U.S. Nuclear Energy Institute, takes two years. Another three years are needed for the NRC to evaluate the application and issue the license. Provided you have already land access granted you can then start with the 5-8 years long construction. That makes it 10 years minimum for the licensing and construction process only, provided everything goes smoothly. If you add site development and delays you get to 15 years quite easily. And if you count in the time necessary for "fundraising" and undertaking the FID, you get to even higher numbers, especially when public money is involved (which in Europe always is).
1980s were different times. Some countries such as France or Czechoslovakia could take advantage of unified reactor designs and learning curves in their deployment. This is not what you can have in the U.S. or Europe now. There are so few projects that you are basically building prototypes only. Combined with the safety regulation getting more and more strict you end up having the nuclear being the only large scale industry in the history of mankind that shows the continuous increase of unit costs throughout time. In short, the economy of scale does not work here.
If we talk about the introduction of a nuclear power program in a given country, then the overall time could reach 15 years, before the reactor could entry into commercial operation. This time is much less for the construction of other reactors in the same country.
If we talk about the construction of a nuclear power plant, then the time is other. and much less than ten years. If we are talking about the construction for this first time of a prototype or a new design of a nuclear power reactor, then the time is other and could be very long.
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