Nuclear energy is a relatively minor industry with major problems. It covers just one sixteenth of the world’s primary energy consumption, a share set to decline over the coming decades. The average age of operating commercial nuclear reactors is 23 years,64 so more power stations are being shut down than started. In 2008, world nuclear production fell by 2%, compared to 2006, and the number of operating reactors as of January 2010 was 436, eight fewer than at the historical peak of 2002.
In terms of new power stations, the amount of nuclear capacity added annually between 2000 and 2009 was on average 2,500 megawatts (MW). This was six times less than wind power (14,500 MW per annum between 2000 and 2009). In 2009, 37,466 MW of new wind power capacity was added globally to the grid, compared to only 1,068 MW of nuclear. This new wind capacity will generate as much electricity as 12 nuclear reactors; the last time the nuclear industry managed to add this amount of new capacity in a single year was in 1988. Despite the rhetoric of a “nuclear renaissance,” the industry is struggling with a massive increase in costs and construction delays as well as safety and security problems linked to reactor operation, radioactive waste and nuclear proliferation.
The promise of nuclear energy to contribute to both climate protection and energy supply must be checked against reality. The International Energy Agency’s (IEA’s) report Energy Technology Perspectives 2008,66 for example, has a “Blue Map” scenario that outlines a future energy mix which would halve global carbon emissions by the middle of this century. To reach this goal, the IEA assumes a massive expansion of nuclear power between now and 2050, with installed capacity increasing four-fold and electricity generation reaching 9,857 terawatt-hours (TWh) /year, compared to 2,608 TWh in 2007. In order to achieve this, 32 large reactors (1,000 MW each) would have to be built every year from now until 2050. This is unrealistic, expensive, hazardous and too late to make a difference. According to the IEA scenario, even such a massive global expansion of nuclear power would only cut carbon emissions by less than 5%. unrealistic: Such a rapid growth is practically impossible, given the technical limitations.
This scale of development was achieved in the history of nuclear power for only two years, at the peak of the statedriven boom of the mid-1980s. It is unlikely to be achieved again, not to mention maintained for 40 consecutive years. While 1984 and 1985 saw 31 GW of newly added nuclear capacity, the decade average was 17 GW each year. In the past ten years, less than three large reactors have been brought on line annually, and the current production capacity of the global nuclear industry cannot deliver more than an annual six units. expensive: The IEA scenario assumes very optimistic investment costs of $2,100/ kilowatt (kW). This estimate reflects the nuclear industry’s cost targets for its Generation III reactors. In 2002, for example, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) claimed that its Generation III reactor design, the Advanced CANDU, would cost $1000/kW installed.67 Nuclear vendors in Canada and internationally have been unable to meet these cost targets.
In 2008, US business analysts Moody’s put the cost of nuclear investment as high as $7,500/kWe.68 In 2009, the Ontario government suspended its procurement of new reactors when its competitive bidding process revealed new reactors were three to four times more expensive than expected.69 The AECL’s Advanced CANDU design was reported to cost $10,000/kW, or $26 billion, for a 2,400-MW station This is ten times more than AECL’s 2002 cost projection for the Advanced CANDU. Areva’s EPR design was reported to cost $7,375KWh or $23.6 billion for a 3200 MW station.70 Building 1,400 large reactors of 1,000 MW, even at the current cost of about $7,000/kW, would require an investment of US$9.8 trillion. hazardous: Massive expansion of nuclear energy would necessarily lead to a large increase in related hazards.
These include the risk of serious reactor accidents, the growing stockpiles of deadly, high-level radioactive waste which will need to be safeguarded for hundreds of thousands of years, and potential proliferation of both nuclear technologies and materials through diversion to military or terrorist use. The 1,400 large operating reactors in 2050 would generate an annual 35,000 tons of spent fuel (assuming they are light-water reactors, the most common design for most new projects). This also means the production of 350,000 kilograms of plutonium each year, enough to build 35,000 crude nuclear weapons. Most of the expected electricity demand growth by 2050 will occur in non–OECD countries.
This means that a large proportion of the new reactors would need to be built in those countries in order to have a global impact on emissions. At the moment, the list of countries with announced nuclear ambitions is long and worrying in terms of their political situation and stability, especially with the need to guarantee against the hazards of accidents and proliferation for many decades. The World Nuclear Association compiled a list of the emerging nuclear energy countries in February 2010. In Europe, this included Italy, Albania, Serbia, Portugal, Norway, Poland, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Ireland, and Turkey. In the Middle East and North Africa: Iran and Gulf states, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Yemen, Israel, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Algeria and Morocco. In central and southern Africa: Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and Namibia. In South America: Chile, Ecuador and Venezuela. In central and southern Asia: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Bangladesh. In South East Asia: Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand.
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