Europe's nuclear debate has been resuscitated, but many of the old scientific and safety concerns remain valid
By Vaida Pilibaityte
In February 2009, after decades of determination to phase out nuclear power, the Swedish government unveiled plans to reverse its 30-year ban on building new nuclear capacities. This sparked heated debate on nuclear revival in the European Union (EU), where opinion on nuclear energy is divided. In the currently 'pro-nuclear' camp, with climate change and energy security the top concerns, nuclear energy is presented as a clean and safe option.
But a closer look at scientific studies belies such claims; and a review of energy lifecycle studies shows that nuclear energy is not as environmentally sound as its proponents claim - that nuclear power is, at best, most comparable to gas-fired plants, according to other estimates. Moreover, newly ordered and constructed reactors are based on the 20-year-old technology; the development of innovative, safer, more efficient and proliferation-resistant reactor designs is likely decades away.
A nuclear renaissance?
Europe felt a frisson of excitement when Sweden's government unveiled plans to reverse a 30-year ban on building new nuclear capacities. The Economist called the Swedish prime minister's move the "boldest move so far", concluding that "[...] a combination of tight climate-change targets, energy-security worries and a wobbly economy has now caused a rethink." International media picked up the news with enthusiasm, providing catch-phrases such as 'Europe's march to nuclear power', 'nuclear renaissance' and 'waning opposition', while pointing simultaneously to recent signs in Italy and Germany or similar reconsiderations of anti-nuclear policies.
An incident in July at the Kruemmel nuclear power plant near Hamburg restarted the nuclear debate in Germany. The facility, shortly after reopening following a two-year closure for a transformer fire in 20007, was shut down again due to a transformer short-circuit. Despite the incident, German Chancellor Angela Merkel maintains that nuclear will remain a fixture unless or until there are more commercially attractive alternatives. She therefore opposes the planned phasing out of 17 old plants by 2021 - a stance defended by her coalition partners.
Outspoken support from influential figures is making such momentum hard to reverse: James Lovelock, the 'father of Gaia Theory', claims that "nuclear power is the only green solution", while a prominent young environmentalist writer like Britain's Mark Lynas, author of the award-winning Six Degrees, argues that with climate change posing the greatest post-Cold War threat, nuclear power, "instead of being part of the problem, can be part of the solution."
The European Commission seems to be more open to the nuclear energy option, as well. Both EC President Jose Manuel Barroso and EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs claim that nuclear facilities have a role to play in the EU's energy mix so long as safety is ensured and the public is persuaded.
Now, more than two decades after major industrial accidents at Three Mile Island (United States) and Chernobyl (Ukraine), public opinion might be shifting again. In the 1970s, amid a global oil crisis, nuclear was almost universally regarded as the energy technology of the future, but by the late 1980s it turned into a major public health concern, and many developed countries halted their nuclear programs or abandoned nuclear power altogether: Sweden, Germany and Belgium introduced policies mandating a complete phase-out.
The amount of nuclear electricity produced today equals the total of all combined sources in 1960, and constitutes nearly 16 percent of global electricity needs in 31 countries.
About 45 percent of the global nuclear power-generating capacity is located in Europe, where it accounts for nearly a third of the total electricity supply; and France, Lithuania, Slovakia and Belgium now rely on nuclear facilities to provide more than 50 percent of power generation. Yet between 2000 and 2006, there was no net increase in reactor numbers, while 2007 was the first year when no new nuclear reactors were connected to the grid and performance dropped by 50 terrawatt hours (TWh) due to ageing plant closures in Germany, Japan and the UK.
Meanwhile, renewable energy exhibits impressive annual growth rates. It has shown the largest annual increases in Europe (3 percent) since 1990, followed by natural gas (2.8 percent), while nuclear energy has grown the least (1.8 percent), mainly through increased efficiency of existing plants.
There are only two modern reactors currently under construction in the EU, one in France and the other in Finland (the latter consortium is facing huge delays and cost overruns). Two more reactors, based on former Soviet technology, are being upgraded in Bulgaria.
As climate change and the economic crisis now command global attention, nuclear lobbyists are stressing to advantage their industry's CO2 emission savings, energy security gains, good 'safety record' over the past two decades, and other alleged economic pluses.
Conversely, some experts and green NGOs argue that the nuclear option is anything but climate-neutral, and that even if construction of new facilities started today, nuclear plants would contribute too late and too little to climate change mitigation. Greenpeace in the UK has cited that ten plants built in ten years' time would only bring down emissions by 4 percent.
At the same time, experts, while acknowledging the existing fleet's two decades of safe operation and low operational and environmental impacts, also note industry's vulnerability to potential catastrophic events and associated proliferation. The nuclear industry, for its part, is trying to deflect such 'common misconceptions' about risks, while criticising its own 'failure to communicate' the benefits of this energy source.
In fact, one can contest all four major arguments about nuclear power; namely, that it is a low-carbon option, a tool for ensuring energy security, technologically safe, and economically competitive.
There are two allegedly 'solid' reasons to consider nuclear power: low carbon emissions and technological safety.
Zero Carbon? Low Carbon? How Much Carbon?
The United Kingdom is one of the countries whose government has recently put the nuclear debate back on the table, using the climate argument. UK Environment Secretary David Miliband said recently: "If you believe that climate change is the number-one issue facing the planet, which I do, it seems to me I can't come and say: 'By the way, I've taken off the table one way in which to generate power in a zero-carbon way.'"
EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs, a consistent advocate that nuclear should be a part of the EU's energy mix, claimed recently that nuclear energy is a "nearly carbon-free energy source, generating at present two-thirds of the EU's CO2-free electricity." This is just one of numerous mixed messages coming from the media, politicians, institutions, industry and various international organisations.
But is 'nearly free' the same as 'free'? And how much is 'nearly'?
One of the most accurate statements about nuclear power is probably that of the Nuclear Energy Institute: "Nuclear power plants do not emit criteria pollutants or greenhouse gases when they generate electricity" (emphasis added). However, full lifecycle emission assessments that include uranium mining and milling, plant construction, operation and decommissioning introduce more confusion to these discussions.
The most common publicly speculated figures about complete lifecycle CO2 emissions from nuclear power are - unsurprisingly - the lowest ones, presented by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and that is a mere eight to 24 grams of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour (gCO2-eq/kWh), the lowest of all energy sources, including renewables. According to IAEA and the World Energy Council, who use the same vocabulary when discussing the matter, this is tantamount to "virtually no air pollution or greenhouse gases", considering the complete energy production chain, from uranium mining to waste disposal, and including reactor and facility construction (emphasis added).
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also tags nuclear as an "effective GHG mitigation option", but holds a slightly different view when it comes to its CO2 contributions. IPCC experts use the 40gCO2-eq/kWh (10gC-eq/kWh) figure, but also concede that there are authors who provide much higher calculations.
The authors in question are Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen and Philip Smith, who have elaborated perhaps the best known alternative, and have provided a very detailed assessment of nuclear contributions to climate change over several years based on methodology first published in 1985. Storm van Leeuwen and Smith are said to have looked at every single subcomponent of the fuel cycle, while using only empirical and industry data to come up with one of the highest estimates that exists: 112-166gCO2/kwh, positioning nuclear between renewable sources and gas.
Storm van Leeuwen points out that even calculation of the energy lifecycle over 20-30 years creates many uncertainties, and that nuclear projects take 50-170 years to complete. Besides, he emphasises the importance of taking into account the quality of uranium ore being used and the energy used in the full nuclear-energy cycle: The lower the ore quality and the more fossil-fuelled energy that the whole process requires, the more pollution that will occur. Moreover, the easiest to find and the majority of uranium deposits are said to be already identified, and the chances of finding new, high-quality deposits are reportedly slim; therefore, fuelling future nuclear plants will require more and more dirty energy.
Although these research results are not universally acknowledged, analysis of nuclear lifecycle assessments (LCAs) reveals considerable bias, depending on whether the intent is to make nuclear energy appear better or worse than it actually is. One recent study, in which more than 100 LCAs were screened, concluded that 39 percent of lifecycle assessments relied on data that was more than a decade old; 34 percent did not explain the methodology used or relied on secondary sources; and 9 percent cited inaccessible literature. In all, 81 percent are found significantly wanting.
Technological safety: high hopes, slow progress
Fewer technologies, perhaps, bring greater differences of opinion between experts and the public than nuclear power. Ever since its inception half a century ago, nuclear reactors have been called everything from an 'attractive prospect' and 'elegant solution' to a 'Faustian bargain' and 'dangerous water cookers'.
Indeed, Europe-wide surveys show that the public remains sharply divided over nuclear electricity generation. Around one-third supports closure of existing plants, while another third does not mind extended operation of old ones, and nearly the same number of people opposes any new construction. Such views may be explained both by the fact that memories of Chernobyl have not completely faded away, while at the same time there have been recent headlines of operational incidents.
In recent decades following the Chernobyl accident, several incidents, classified under the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES), have been recorded in Europe. Among the most recent are the release of a large quantity of radioactive material from the UK's Sellafield reprocessing plant in 2005 (a 'category 3' incident) and an emergency power supply system failure at Forsmark in Sweden in 2006 (a 'category 2' incident). In June 2008 Europe saw two nuclear safety scares within 48 hours: a water leak at a Slovenian plant triggered the European Community Urgent Radiological Information Exchange (ECURIE) mechanism, and another Czech plant automatically cut output from one of its four reactors after a worker mistakenly switched off coolant pipes.
Nonetheless, the nuclear industry continues to argue that overall operational safety has improved and that the probability of another reactor core meltdown has declined significantly in the past two decades. It is telling, however, that the insurance sector still refuses to grant full indemnity insurance for nuclear activities, and that states themselves retain full liability. International regimes such as the Vienna and Paris conventions on civil liability for nuclear accidents also lack widespread international support from major nuclear states.
One answer to prevailing operating concerns is 'inherent reactor safety' technology, which is said to effectively eliminate the possibility of reactor core meltdown. The proposed reactor designs would allow the entire system to be submerged into a cooling pool with a strong neutron absorber, thus cooling by conduction, convection and radiation, or even operating within a closed cycle without human access for up to 30 years. However, none of these reactors has been thus far commercialised, and it seems unlikely that any will appear in the foreseeable future.
Another innovative nuclear technology, so-called Generation IV reactors, is designed to mitigate environmental harm by reducing waste volume and toxicity, thereby boosting safety and proliferation resistance and improving cost-effectiveness. Commercial deployment is planned for 2020-2030, but there are still many technological challenges to overcome.
In essence, all of the units under construction or on order today are identical, if somewhat improved, water-cooled reactors introduced two generations ago. In fact, AREVA's Generation III+, the EPR, is currently under construction only in Finland and France. Two similar units will soon debut in China, featuring 'core catcher' and other 'improved', 'major' or so-called 'passive safety systems'. But it must be noted that these are not the same as 'inherent safety' design features; and even with these improvements, core containment dry-out and subsequent meltdown cannot be ruled out, and a terrorist attack would still result in a major release of radioactivity.
IAEA experts also admit that the nuclear future is uncertain due to safety and security issues, the linkage between nuclear power and nuclear weapons, and the environmental and economic aspects of nuclear power and its fuel cycle.
Although nuclear proponents can succeed by playing the low carbon card, management of long-life radioactive waste and lack of a solution for spent nuclear fuel storage remains another key safety issue. This is becoming even more of a concern as plant operators run out of interim storage capacities, and because construction of geological repositories and/or multinational disposal facilities advocated by the IAEA have been further delayed by political and public opposition or cost overruns.
Given the current realities, the future of nuclear energy is cloudy at best.
