The Nuclear Renaissance is Dead… Did Canada Miss the Memo?

Here's my latest post for the Centre for International Policy Studies Blog, available here.

Since the early 2000s, there has been much talk about the “nuclear renaissance” — the expected revival and expansion of the civilian nuclear energy industry. The idea has largely been kept afloat by industry efforts to promote nuclear energy as a necessary part of global climate change mitigation efforts, as well as the ambitious plans made by certain countries to greatly expand nuclear power (China, notably).

The problem is that hard facts show no evidence of a revival… at all! In fact, nuclear energy’s heyday was way back in the mid-1980s, when the world saw net gains of between 20 and 30 reactors each year. In comparison, in the last five years there has only been an average net gain of 4.5 reactors per year. In terms of global electricity production, nuclear energy peaked in 2006, at 2,660 TWh — today nuclear is producing 7% less electricity! The story for nuclear’s share of global electricity production is even worse. That figure peaked in 1996 at 17.5%; today nuclear only provides 10.5% of the world’s electricity — a decline of 40%! Clearly, there is no renaissance. If anything, the long-term trends show early signs of decline.

These are some of the key messages of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2017 (WNISR) — launched in Canada last week at the University of Ottawa, in an event co-sponsored by the Centre for International Policy Studiesand Smart Prosperity Institute. The event featured keynote speaker Mycle Schneider, Lead Convening Author and Publisher of the WNISR, with two discussants who contextualized these trends for Canada’s energy and climate policies — Ralph Torrie of Torrie Smith Associates, and Catherine Abreu of Climate Action Network Canada.

Schneider spoke of how nuclear energy is exceptionally expensive (relative, in particular, to renewables), how nuclear projects are prone to cost overruns and eventual abandonment, and how most “nuclear nations” have long ago seen the peak of nuclear production (including Canada, which today does not produce as much as it did in 1994). Further, the argument that nuclear energy is a necessary component of climate mitigation was thoroughly debunked by all three speakers, in part because reactor construction projects are so notoriously slow (it takes, on average, ten years for a reactor to be built) and expensive, that a much cheaper, quicker solution with free fuel is readily available in renewables.You would be forgiven for wondering whether this is all just a manifestation of the “Fukushima effect” — a sudden but temporary downturn since the 2011 meltdown in Japan. But you would be wrong. Although the industry’s lead lobby organization, the World Nuclear Association, paints an image of growth, particularly since 2011, nuclear’s slide in global output began over a decade ago. Just look at the financial situation of a number of global nuclear giants — including Japan-based TEPCO (operator of Fukushima-Daiichi) and Toshiba, German-based RWE and E.ON, and French-based EDR and AREVA. Many of these companies are facing crippling debts or bankruptcies, but most importantly their share prices started to plummet back in 2007/08 — yearsbefore the Fukushima disaster. While global investment in nuclear energy has ranged between $10 and $50 billion US (per year) over the last five years, investment in renewables has ranged between $240–$310 billion US (per year) over the same period.

You would also be forgiven for wondering whether nuclear’s fortunes were about to rebound once all this talk of “Small Modular Reactors” (or SMRs) — supposedly safer and cheaper fission reactors — becomes a reality. But you’d be wrong again. Despite billions spent on developing SMRs, the industry has not yet had one functional SMR come online. More importantly, investors are starting to jump ship after realizing that there is just no market for such expensive electricity when much cheaper alternatives are available. The talk of SMRs is reminiscent of the old fusion joke in nuclear circles — it’s always been just ten years away! As WNISR 2017 concludes, “there is no sign at this point that SMRs could play any major role in tomorrow’s electricity generating business.”

Finally, you would also have been forgiven for thinking that nuclear development — however expensive or slow — is nevertheless needed as a counterpoint to renewables for those times when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. This argument has been made by many pro-nuclear environmentalists, who lament how the shuttering of nuclear power plants leads to more gas-fired plants. But yet again, the speakers at the WNISR launch were unanimous in suggesting that this idea too is wrongheaded. Unlike the 20^th century, where the model was based on a few large utilities cranking out tons of baseload power at all hours of the day to satiate wanton consumption — for the 21^st century, we are working on smart grids, smart generation, and energy efficiency. Tomorrow’s model is thus diffuse and decentralized, with countless nodes of generation and storage located all throughout the network, and it is “responsive” — in generating (or releasing, from batteries) electricity when and where it is needed. The irony in the pro-nuclear argument is that technological innovation is touted as the best way to make nuclear safer, cheaper, and quicker to build, yet brushed aside for the problems of energy storage and grid transformation.

The WNISR launch was certainly enlightening, but it sure left many audience members confused about another report launched the same week — the Government of Ontario’s Long-Term Energy Plan (LTEP). Despite its decades-old nuclear power plants, Ontario is spending billions of dollars refurbishing them over the next two decades. According to one independent assessment, these expenditures on nuclear have caused Ontario’s electricity prices to skyrocket. Meanwhile, another report from 2016 discusses the significant economic benefits to be gained from decommissioning Ontario’s nuclear power plants today. As Canada’s main driver of nuclear development, Ontario seems to be headed in the wrong direction. If Ontario truly wants an affordable, low-carbon, flexible electricity grid, it may be time to jump off the nuclear renaissance bandwagon.

Energy Disorder

-->

Source: SmartPlanet.com, Intelligent Energy Blog

George W. Bush was not exactly right when he claimed that America was addicted to oil. America (and most of the industrial and industrializing world, for that matter) is addicted to consuming energy. Oil just happens to be a particularly powerful type of energy, readily available, and relatively cheap (at least for now); and thus it is the primary vessel through which this addiction is satiated. But theoretically, there is no reason why this addiction couldn’t be satiated by other forms of energy. And in fact a transition of this sort seems to be currently underway as the world undergoes an energy revolution in which oil is slowly being replaced by natural gas as the primary fuel. Unfortunately, natural gas, while slightly better than oil in terms of carbon footprint, presents other socio-ecological problems (most notably through its unconventional production in the form of fracking, which is becoming more common).

But it is a fallacy to claim that once we get off oil or even natural gas our socio-ecological woes will disappear. And that’s the problem with the oil addiction analogy. By claiming that industrial civilization is addicted to oil, we miss out on the root of the problem, the real addiction – energy consumption. Like any addiction, the overconsumption of energy is unsustainable. The particular class of energy which civilization uses most often today (fossil fuels – oil, natural gas, coal) makes this particularly evident, thanks to its dramatic impact on the environment (both in its production and its use).

Yet the overconsumption of an entirely different class of fuels (say, renewable energies – wind, solar, hydro) would also be unsustainable if used in the same quantities as presently experienced with fossil fuels. This may be less evident because this class of fuels has a far less potent and visible impact, but imagine all the damage that would accrue from exponential growth in hydroelectric dams, and mining (for the materials required in photovoltaics), and wind farms (these are completely manufactured landscapes). An addiction is an addiction. By nature it is unsustainable. Let a metaphor prove the point: Being addicted to health food, for example, is unhealthy – despite its obvious initial benefits.

When most people hear the ‘addiction’ analogy in reference to oil, they metaphorically think of an addiction to drugs. Really though, the drug analogy is not quite right, because energy is something we actually need to survive and thrive. A more appropriate analogy for addiction is food – which we also need to survive and thrive. People can be addicted to food, just as they can be addicted to energy. Some amount of food consumption is required (as with energy – heck, food is human energy), but the overconsumption of food is a serious problem. While fossil fuels are like junk food – clearly unsustainable when over-consumed; most classes of food are also unsustainable in the long run if over-consumed as well.

So just as an individual with an eating disorder must at some point face the difficult choice between drastic behavioural reform or a downward fatal spiral – so must our modern civilization. This does not mean going ‘cold turkey’, because, as the analogy reminds us, doing so simply is not possible, since we need energy to survive. What it does mean is taking a step in the right direction. When a food addict switches from a unhealthy foods to healthier foods – this is a step in the right direction, though ultimately more further action will be required. The line between ‘overconsumption’ and ‘consumption’ certainly is a blurry one. The danger in thinking about our use of oil as an ‘addiction’ is that it hides the real requirement we need as a species to use energy. It’s just unhealthy that we overuse energy, and especially because of the type of energy we tend to consume most often.