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IPCC WGIII Fourth Assessment Report, Second Order Draft
optimization plus potential contributions given future expansion of
and large scale investment into nuclear power or do the calculations
assume "real world conditions" consider the numerous programmes
to fade out nuclear energy and the currently low chances to revert to
an unequivocally positive global investment climate for nuclear
energy? The OECD International Energy Agency (IEA) "World
Energy Outlook 2002" suggests that under status quo conditions
with nuclear energy continuing to decline and no new stations built
beyond those 30 or so already planned, its share of world electricity
production would drop from currently about 16% to 12% by 2030.
Consequentially, the relative contribution to fighting global
warming would also decline. Also the IAEA analysis of the SRES
scenarios suggest that its figures related to nuclear energy increase
are based on assumptions which do not sufficiently represent the
current political and investment climate. According to IAEA
nuclear power currently presents more of an investment risk in the
relatively liberalized markets of Western Europe and North
America particularly relative to new natural gas fired capacity, as
recent investments in these regions have steered away from nuclear
and most often toward natural gas. Furthermore, IAEA
communications consistently suggest that any increase in avoidance
of GHG emissions through nuclear energy would only be realistic if
calculated with a very long term economic perspective and under
the condition that there is a global revision in political thinking
back to supporting nuclear energy. Currently, the public and
political opinion in many parts of the world is still dominated by
the perception of "high relative costs; perceived adverse safety,
environmental, and health effects; potential security risks stemming
from proliferation; and unresolved challenges in long-term
management of nuclear wastes" (MIT 2002). For Reference: (1)
International Energy Agency (IEA), World Energy Outlook 2002,
IEA, Paris, 2002. (2) Alan McDonald, Keywan Riahi, and Hans-
Holger Rogner, “Elaborating SRES Scenarios for Nuclear Energy,”
Risø International Energy Conference on Energy Technologies for
Expert Review of Second-Order-Draft
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