Nuclear Energy and Climate Change: Our Planetary Savior?

When a former anti-nuclear campaigner and founding member of Greenpeace proclaims in the Washington Post that "the environmental movement needs to update its views…because nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster," we should pay attention.

Patrick Moore and many others feel that nuclear power is the only energy source that can replace the carbon-emitting coal and natural gas power plants that currently generate the bulk of the world's electricity. Unlike renewables, nuclear power is large-scale (most plant designs today are at least 1000 MW), provides constant rather than intermittent power and is relatively carbon-free. Despite continuing concerns about waste, reactor safety and nuclear weapons, the odds certainly seem stacked in favor of nuclear power in a world that is apparently alarmed about the consequences of climate change.

Despite efforts by some governments and multilateral accords like the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol, greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at an alarming rate. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), carbon emissions increased from external page20.9 gigatonnes (Gt) in 1990 to 28.8 Gt in 2007call_made. If government policies continue along their current trajectory, it projects this number will rise at a rate of 1.5 percent per year to 40.2 Gt by 2030.

The external pageFourth Assessment Reportcall_made of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that some of the major stresses of climate change on, inter alia, food production, biodiversity and water security will become increasingly noticeable by 2020, and certainly by 2030. NASA's Jim Hansen, perhaps the world's foremost climatologist, warns that the situation is so dire that "the entire world needs to be out of the business of burning coal by 2030 and the western world much sooner."

A nuclear solution?

Meanwhile, the contribution of nuclear energy to global electricity production declined from just shy of 17 percent in 2001 to just above 13 percent in 2009. One cause is the atrophy of the industry's capacities since its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s due to the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents, interest rate increases, cost overruns, construction delays and the resulting cancellations of scores of projects. Industry advocates like Steve Kidd attempt to assuage concern about the slow pace of nuclear energy's resurgence by external pagearguingcall_made that the industry is undergoing fundamental changes that will bear fruit in perhaps five to 10 years in the form of serial production of reactors, higher industrial learning rates and falling costs.

But can nuclear energy be nimble and flexible enough to seriously contribute toward reducing carbon output in the short term? During the 1980s, when more nuclear reactors were built worldwide than in any other decade, the median construction time for a single plant was just over eight years. For countries embarking on a nuclear program for the first time it can take at least 10 years from the decision to proceed with the first power plant to its connection to the electricity grid. If it takes the nuclear industry five to 10 years to resuscitate itself and then roughly eight to 10 years to build each reactor, it seems doubtful that nuclear energy can make a major short-term contribution toward carbon reduction, especially when there is a need to replace existing reactors with new ones.

In assessing options for reducing carbon emissions cost is key. In deregulated electricity markets governments and utility companies will pursue the best value for money to displace carbon. Nuclear power's high and rising costs and long lead times are likely to drive investors elsewhere, at least in the short term. Other alternatives for reducing carbon include renewables like wind and solar, cogeneration, technologies still in development such as carbon-capture and storage (CCS), and perhaps the best value for money of them all - end-use efficiency and conservation.

The major comparative disadvantage of nuclear power relative to these other options is that a nuclear power plant has a multi-billion dollar up-front price tag and takes many years before it produces its first kilowatt. For investors, this means nuclear projects are high risk, which, in turn, is reflected in the cost of capital, making them prone to cost overruns when delays occur.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's 2003 study, external pageThe Future of Nuclear Powercall_made, makes the case for nuclear power as an important component of a strategy to combat climate change and advocates solutions to some of the challenges it faces. Such solutions include government subsidies for first entrants, a tax on carbon and moves by the industry to become more cost-effective through such means as serial production. Lamenting the lack of action so far, a 2009 update of the study warns that "If more is not done, nuclear power will diminish as a practical and timely option for deployment at a scale that would constitute a material contribution to climate change risk mitigation."

This warning is exactly right: Without major policy shifts in the immediate future nuclear energy's impact on carbon mitigation, apart from the carbon the current nuclear fleet is already displacing, will not just be minimal, it will be virtually unnoticeable.

Putting a price on carbon

At the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit the international community tried to agree on a new legally-binding deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol that would have mandated deeper cuts in carbon emissions. As in the case of Kyoto, states would have been able to choose their own method of achieving their targets, including through a carbon cap and trade system or a carbon tax. Although major emitters agreed to non-binding cuts, no new legally binding global regime emerged, and efforts will continue in Mexico later this year. There were also no proposals on the table for giving nuclear energy a privileged position in meeting greenhouse gas targets.

Without legally binding greenhouse gas reductions states are less likely to put a price on carbon, and nuclear power will remain more expensive than coal and gas. Even if a carbon price is eventually imposed, it will take years for it to reach a sufficiently high and stable level for investors to be drawn to nuclear energy. Moreover, such a price would benefit all low carbon alternatives, not just nuclear. Given that the price of such alternatives as solar and wind is dropping rapidly while nuclear is becoming more expensive, a price on carbon may not make as much of a difference as presumed.

The nuclear industry and environmentalists alike both correctly argue that the externalities of coal and gas - in this case the consequences of the pollution they emit - are not currently accounted for. The harsh reality, however, is that without progress at the individual state and international levels toward carbon pricing, nuclear power will not be economically competitive. In many countries real decisions about pricing carbon are years away, while decisions about nuclear energy need to be made now if it is to contribute in a meaningful way.

Predicting the future

The final report of the Nuclear Energy Futures (NEF) Project - a joint project of the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and the Canadian Centre for Treaty Compliance (CCTC) at Carleton University - titled The Future of Nuclear Energy to 2030 and Its Implications for Safety, Security and Nonproliferation, details the numerous constraints that are likely to prevent a significant revival of nuclear energy. Among these, the high cost of nuclear power relative to other ways of reducing carbon looms large. Other constraints include industrial bottlenecks, personnel shortages, waste management and, for aspiring nuclear energy states, many of which are developing countries, the additional hurdles of institutional capacity, physical infrastructure and finances.

Plans for new nuclear build have been announced in 19 of the current 31 countries with nuclear energy, the most extensive of which are in China, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, Ukraine, the UK and the US. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) currently lists 16 reactors under construction in China, the most of any country by far. But even China's most ambitious plans will see an increase to just five percent of its total generating capacity provided by nuclear power. The US, currently the world's largest producer of nuclear power, has 104 reactors generating 101 MW of electricity, roughly 20 percent of its total electricity. For nuclear power to maintain that market share, taking into account rising energy demand and the need to replace the existing aging fleet, about 50 reactors would need to be built in the next 20 years. Given that only one is currently under construction, a build rate of over four reactors per year would likely be necessary after 2015. Although the Obama administration has recently shown some additional support for nuclear power, it is not enough to ensure the construction of 50 new reactors by 2030.

In addition, there are 34 countries that currently do not have nuclear power that have declared their intention to pursue it. The NEF Project's external pageSurvey of Emerging Nuclear Energy States (SENES)call_made tracks the progress of these states. So far it has been slow, with most only taking some of the easy initial steps, and only a handful having a chance of succeeding before 2030. Past plans for nuclear builds have invariably been overly optimistic, and there are few indications that the current grand plans of most states will be fulfilled.

Despite attempts in the past decade to revive nuclear power, the bottom line on nuclear energy and climate change is this: Nuclear energy may be relatively carbon-free and able to provide reliable baseload electricity, but it is not cheap, quick or flexible enough to have a significant impact on carbon mitigation in the next couple of decades. It will take a range of policy initiatives and technologies to tackle climate change, beginning with those that can have the most immediate impact for the least cost.