01 Feb The Incredible Shrinking Nuclear Offset to Climate Change

See the entire report at: The Incredible Shrinking Nuclear Offset to Climate Change

by Sharon Squassoni in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

Here are some excerpts:

Can nuclear energy be much help when it comes to fighting climate change? Or have nuclear
energy advocates greatly overstated their case? The likelihood that nuclear power will play a
significant role in mitigating climate change is very low, absent a game-changing innovation that
allows cheaper, safer nuclear power plants to come on-line much more quickly.

Without being included in UN Development plans, “nuclear energy can expect to continue ambling
along at a growth trajectory of somewhere between 1 and 1.5% annually. In the context of high rates of electricity growth, this means that nuclear energy will decline in significance rather than grow.”

First: According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), measures to improve energy efficiency are “the cheapest and fastest way to curb demand and emissions growth in the near term,” and most of the IEA’s scenarios for slowing the growth of carbon emissions rely heavily on efficiency improvements.

Next, de-carbonize electricity generation: “Electricity generation emits 41% of the world’s energy-related carbon dioxide because it is dependent on fossil fuels. More than 60% of electricity production uses coal and natural gas. Renewable energy (approximately 22%), nuclear energy (10%), and petroleum and other liquid fuels (5%) round out the rest of the electricity supply (EIA 2016).”

However, replacing fossil fuels with nuclear is slow compared to solar, wind and battery solutions.  “The high construction costs of nuclear power plants relative to other electricity generation options present an obstacle to widespread deployment, as does the time required – generally 10 years – from licensing to operation.”

“Worldwide, renewables are capturing larger shares of the electricity market. In 2015, solar-sourced electricity grew 33%, and wind-sourced electricity grew 17%. Nuclear-sourced electricity, on the other hand, grew only 1.3%. According to the IEA, global investment in all renewables was about $280 billion, more than covering the 2015 global electricity growth (IEA 2016b). Of course, solar and wind need to grow at continued high rates to catch up to nuclear energy’s output, but the trend line is unmistakable.

In Europe, Germany will phase out nuclear energy by 2022, while France passed a law in 2014 to reduce reliance on nuclear energy from 75% of its electricity to 50% by 2025. Switzerland and Belgium are also poised to close their nuclear reactors.

The world leader in nuclear energy – the United States – virtually stopped building reactors in the late 1970s in response to escalating costs and a nascent environmental movement. More recent efforts to jump-start new nuclear construction in the United States (e.g. through programs like Nuclear Energy 2010) have produced anemic results rather than a true revitalization. Today, the United States has four power reactors under construction out of a fleet of 100, with an average age of 35 years. Some reactors, despite 20-year extensions of their operating licenses, have been shut down because they were not cost-effective to operate. The federal Clean Power Plan failed to provide incentives for extending licenses for existing US nuclear power plants.
Japan was also one of the top nuclear energy producers. The 2011 accident at Fukushima Daiichi power
plant slowed down worldwide construction while the industry paused to take stock. The fact that most of
Japan’s reactors are still awaiting authorization to restart accounts for some of the decline in nuclear electricity since 2011.