Nuclear plants like this one in Rockford, Illinois could become more commonplace in developing countries (Image: Susan E. Benson / Rex Features)

For the first time in eight years, countries are contemplating giving nuclear stations carbon credits in the run-up to the crucial world summit on climate change in Copenhagen in December. This could greatly boost prospects of a global nuclear expansion.

Draft text currently under negotiation at climate change talks by 182 countries in Bonn, Germany, includes an option to make nuclear facilities eligible for funding from 2012 under two schemes meant to help poorer countries develop low-carbon technologies: the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation.

Nuclear power was excluded from these schemes under the Kyoto protocol in 2001, after opposition from European and developing countries. Now the nuclear industry is hoping to overturn that, and open the door for funding to flow to nuclear stations across the developing world.


“The whole world will benefit if we can encourage developing countries to meet their rapidly increasing energy needs through low-carbon technologies like nuclear energy, drawing on international support,” says Jonathan Cobb, from the World Nuclear Association (WNA).

New figures from the association reveal that the amount of nuclear electricity generated globally in 2008 was the lowest for five years because of a number of decommissions. The WNA is, however, expecting a “new wave of nuclear build” after 2012.

‘Safety and security issues’

But, “it’s a survival strategy for the nuclear industry not the planet”, according to Shaun Burnie, a nuclear energy consultant and former Greenpeace campaigner: He estimates that carbon credits could cut the capital cost of building new nuclear stations by up to 40%.

Climate change experts are cautious. Kevin Anderson, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at Manchester and East Anglia universities in the UK, has “serious reservations” about the CDM. However, he thinks that nuclear power should be considered “provided safety and security issues are satisfactorily addressed”.

Robert Stavins, director of a project on international climate agreements at Harvard University, argues that a “carefully designed” provision to include nuclear power could be “helpful” in combating climate change. “But the promotion of nuclear power also brings with it a host of other environmental concerns,” he says.