atw 2018-10

atw Vol. 63 (2018) | Issue 10 ı October
558
Our Planet Will Be the Loser if We Allow Nuclear Energy
to Ebb Away
John Shepherd
NUCLEAR TODAY
John Shepherd is a
UK-based energy
writer and editor-inchief
of Energy
Storage Publishing.
Links to reference
sources:
IAEA report –
https://bit.ly/2O5poT1
MIT study –
https://bit.ly/2FNkTJk
A newly-released report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which suggests nuclear power may
“struggle” to keep its current place in the world’s energy mix, should serve as a wake-up call.
According to the report, Energy, Electricity and Nuclear Power
Estimates for the Period up to 2050, the retirement of ageing
reactors and ongoing struggles with competi tiveness could
lead to “shrinking” nuclear electricity generating capacity.
IAEA director-general Yukiya Amano has rightly warned
this declining trend could be a setback for international
efforts to mitigate climate change.
In the projected ‘low case’ scenario to 2030, the report
shows nuclear electricity generating capacity falling by
more than 10 % from a net installed capacity of 392 gigawatts
(electrical) (GW(e)) at the end of 2017. In the ‘high
case’, generating capacity increases 30 % to 511 GW(e), a
drop of 45 GW(e) from last year’s projection.
According to the report, longer term, generating capacity
declines to 2040 in the low case “before rebounding to 2030
levels by mid-century, when nuclear is seen providing 2.8 %
of global generating capacity compared with 5.7 % today”.
The projections are based on a critical review of the
global and regional energy, electricity and nuclear power
projections made by other international organisations,
national projections supplied by individual countries for a
recent OECD Nuclear Energy Agency study and the estimates
of the expert group participating in the IAEA’s yearly consultancy
on nuclear capacity projections.
This combined data, albeit only forecasts, makes for
worrying reading. And in the short term, the figures
indicate that political (rather than necessarily practical)
favouritism of subsidised and “intermittent” renewable
energy sources will have an impact on electricity prices
and in turn impede nuclear’s growth prospects in some
regions of the world. The low price of natural gas will also
have a role to play, according to the report.
Compared with projections for 2017 to 2030, the 2018
projections were reduced by 45 GW(e) in the high case and
increased by 6 GW(e) in the low case. The report’s authors
say these reductions are a knock-on effect from the nuclear
accident at Japan’s Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant
among other factors.
Of further concern is the report’s acknowledgement of
“increasing uncertainties” in its projections because of the
“considerable number of reactors scheduled to be retired”
in some regions around 2030 and beyond.
It is clear that significant new nuclear capacity will be
needed to counter the impact of reactor retirements (as a
result of plant ageing and economic difficulties) but where
will new nuclear come from?
The report said interest in nuclear power “remains
strong” in some regions, particularly in the developing
world, but “interest” is not enough if the world’s nuclear
energy industry is going to shake off the perception that it
could be in a downward spiral. That must not be allowed to
happen.
Globally, electricity accounted for about 19 % of the
total final energy consumption in 2017, according to the
IAEA report. About 70 % of the final energy consumption
was in the form of fossil fuels. The contribution of hydropower
and renewable energy sources continued to increase
significantly, reaching 25.1 % in 2017, but the share of
nuclear electricity production remained at about 10.3 % of
the total electricity production.
Nuclear Today
Our Planet Will Be the Loser if We Allow Nuclear Energy to Ebb Away
ı John Shepherd
The report projects global nuclear electrical generating
capacity will increase to 511 GW(e) by 2030 and to
748 GW(e) by 2050 in the high case. This would represent
a 30 % increase over current levels by 2030 and a 90 %
increase of capacity by 2050.
However, in the low case, the world nuclear electrical
generating capacity is projected to gradually decline until
2040 and “then rebound to the 2030 level by 2050”.
This means the share of nuclear electrical generating
capacity in the world total electrical capacity would be
about 3 % in the low case and about 6 % in the high case by
the middle of the century. This is not good enough.
Clean nuclear’s environmental credentials should give
us every reason to make a renewed effort to turn the
situation around and positively seek out new investments
in advanced nuclear technology.
We must not allow the nuclear energy industry to be
wrong footed. We’ve made huge advances in demonstrating
nuclear’s environmental credentials over the past
20 years or so.
There are sensible voices in the world that understand
this, thank goodness. A new study from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US said the world will
increasingly need to make deep reductions in carbon
emissions to mitigate the impacts of climate change and
nuclear can still play a key role.
The latest study from the MIT Energy Initiative – The
future of nuclear energy in a carbon constrained world – said
the high costs of bringing new nuclear capacity online
must be addressed. There is also an uncomfortable warning
that “the prospects for the expansion of nuclear energy
remain decidedly dim in many parts of the world”.
As MIT points out, nuclear is facing an uncertain future
for several reasons, including “escalating costs and, to a
lesser extent, the persistence of historical challenges such
as spent fuel disposal and concerns about nuclear plant
safety and nuclear weapons proliferation”.
As readers of this journal will appreciate, the spent fuel
“issue” is a political rather than technical one. All the technology
in the world cannot be deployed to ensure the safe
long-term management of spent fuel without the requisite
political will. Full credit in this regard to countries such as
Sweden and Finland for leading the way, but shame on
those such as the UK where there are still no tangible steps
forward being taken and where all the paper generated for
reports and consultations to date most probably needs more
storage space than ever the country’s spent fuel will need.
The nuclear industry has every reason to remain positive
about a bright future, but this cannot be taken for granted. Reports
such as those I have touched on here do make bleak reading.
But they are projections about what could, not will, be.
If we don’t like the potential future mapped out for us in
the IAEA’s report, it’s within our grasp to change it – not
just for the advancement of our industry but for the greater
environmental and economic good of our planet.
Author
John Shepherd
Shepherd Communications
3 Brooklands
West Sussex
BN43 5FE