Wind farms blowing away nuclear power

The answer to whether renewable energy can fill the gap left by declining nuclear power is yes — we do not need nuclear energy to meet our future needs

By Christian Kjaer





It has been evident for years that Europe needs an energy system that can cut dependence on fossil fuels, bring down future energy costs and fight climate change, but the accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan a year ago underscored the need for an energy source that will fill the gap left by declining nuclear power. Many ask: Is renewable energy up to the task?

In the aftermath of the Fukushima meltdown, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said that now is the time for the renewables sector to “prove itself as a scalable, affordable and secure energy source ... I believe that is going to happen.”

Germany plans to abandon nuclear power by 2022 and Switzerland by 2034. Italy has voted against restarting its nuclear program, which was halted after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, while Belgium has resolved to decommission the country’s two nuclear plants. In France, nuclear power is becoming an election issue, with the opposition proposing to reduce its share of electricity production from 74 percent today to 50 percent by 2025.

Illustration: Yusha

However, the decline of nuclear power is nothing new — between 2004 and last year, more nuclear-power capacity was decommissioned worldwide than was installed. Last year alone, the world installed 50 percent more new wind-power capacity (41.2 gigawatts) than all new nuclear capacity installed from 2002 to last year (27.3 gigawatts). In terms of electricity production, the wind-power industry has installed the equivalent of 1.3 nuclear reactors per month over the past three years.

In Germany, where nuclear power accounts for 22 percent of electricity production, replacing reactors with renewables is already viewed as a realistic alternative. Indeed, according to a report by the German government’s Ethics Commission, Germany should be able to replace nuclear power with renewables in a decade. The German government estimates that domestic electricity prices would rise by just 0.01 euro per kilowatt/hour, equivalent to 3 euros (US$3.90) per month for an average German household, if it phased out its nuclear fleet.

If Germany can do it, so can Britain (where nuclear power accounts for 16 percent of electricity supply) and Spain (where the share is 20 percent of electricity supply).

The European Commission, too, envisages a significantly higher share for renewables in Europe’s energy mix. According to its estimates, 3 percent of all new power capacity installed from last year to 2020 will be nuclear, compared with a 71 percent share for renewables.

Opponents argue that renewables are expensive and dependent on subsidies, but a report last year by the UK government’s Committee on Climate Change said that the cost of onshore wind power was cheaper than new nuclear power last year and predicted that it would remain lower in 2020, 2030 and 2040.

Likewise, France’s Court of Auditors has said that the cost of electricity from new nuclear capacity could jump to between 70 and 90 euros per megawatt/hour in 2020 — a level with which onshore wind power could easily compete in most parts of Europe.

Private investors concur with such assessments. Uncertainty in the Britain over nuclear planning, construction costs, electricity prices, operating costs, waste and decommissioning creates risks that are “way too high to give you an electricity price which is affordable,” according to Citigroup.

Investors will steer clear “unless the British government is willing to fully underpin construction, power price and operational/safety risk,” it said.

In October last year, former British energy secretary Chris Huhne said that two-thirds of the budget for the government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change, or US$3.2 billion a year, is spent on nuclear power, but that is a drop in the ocean compared with decommissioning costs.

“The provisions for nuclear decommissioning costs in total were ￡2 million [US$3.2 million] in 1970, ￡472 million in 1980, ￡9.5 billion in 1990, ￡22.5 billion in 2000 and, now, ￡53.7 billion. When nuclear power was held up to the cold, hard light of the market, it proved to be uneconomic,” Huhne said.

Wind power has received a fraction of the financial support that nuclear energy has received — and yet wind can provide electricity at less than half the cost of new nuclear power plants. According to the European Environment Agency, 80 percent of the total energy subsidies in the EU is paid to fossil fuels and nuclear energy, while 19 percent goes to renewables.

Moreover, wind energy has zero fuel costs, minimal waste disposal and decommissioning costs, and a tiny fraction of nuclear power’s risk to human health or the environment.

Already, EU governments plan to meet 14 percent of the bloc’s electricity demand with wind power by 2020.

The industry believes that it can meet 50 percent of demand by 2050. With high oil prices, a higher EU carbon price from 2013 and the high cost of nuclear energy, onshore wind power is the most economically viable carbon-free power option.

Meanwhile, offshore wind is already competitive with new nuclear energy and there are at least 10 other renewable energy technologies that are smarter, cleaner and less risky than nuclear power.

Indeed, it is nuclear power, not renewables, whose future in Europe presupposes continued massive government subsidies.

In short, the answer to whether renewable energy can fill the gap left by declining nuclear power is yes. Europe does not need nuclear power to meet its future energy needs.

Christian Kjaer is chief executive of the European Wind Energy Association.

Copyright: Project Syndicate