Japan nuke disaster to change EU energy mix

The European Union’s target to de-carbonize its energy sector by 2050 would entail an increase in nuclear power use although Japan’s crisis might change the ultimate mix, Artur Runge-Metzger, the EU chief climate change negotiator, was quoted as saying by the press on 5 April.
“The policy changes that might happen as a result of Fukushima are not known yet,” he said in a reference to a Japanese nuclear power plant that was crippled in the 11 March earthquake and tsunami and has been leaking radiation.

Runge-Metzger was in Bangkok to attend UN-sponsored global climate talks that were seeking to push forward progress made at December’s climate summit in Cancun, Mexico. Under the Cancun Agreement, 193 countries agreed to keep global temperatures from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius by 2050. Scientists have said a greater rise would result in catastrophic climate change.

The EU said it is on track to reduce its own emissions by 20% by 2020 compared with 1990 levels. Last month, it published a road map on what needs to be done for the bloc to collectively reduce emissions by 80% by 2050. The road map included a target to “de-carbonize” Europe’s energy sector over the next four decades by shifting to renewable power sources and other non-carbon-producing technologies.

Runge-Metzger acknowledged that nuclear power figured prominently in Europe’s plans to reduce its carbon emissions from the energy sector to zero by 2050. “If you look at the model, there will be a higher amount of electricity production in 2050 from nuclear, but it’s less than a 20-percent increase,” he said. Under the EU 2050 road map, the bloc also plans to reduce carbon emissions from households to close to zero. Runge-Metzger admitted that it would be more difficult to de-carbonize energy-intensive industries and agriculture. “It’s very hard to stop cows from farting, and that’s the issue of methane emissions,” he said.

Meanwhile, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Yukiya Amano said on 4 April at the start of a nuclear safety conference in Vienna that nuclear power must be made safer to prevent accidents like the one in Japan. “We cannot take a ‘business as usual’ approach,” Amano said at the fifth review conference on the Convention on Nuclear Safety. “The worries of millions of people throughout the world about whether nuclear energy is safe must be taken seriously.” “It is clear that more needs to be done to strengthen the safety of nuclear power plants so that the risk of a future accident is significantly reduced,” Amano said.

Safety measures at the stricken Fukushima 1 power plant were not sufficient in hindsight, Amano said on 4 April, toughening his stance against the power company that operates the plant. One of the roles of the IAEA is to promote nuclear power, and the agency’s director general said that the Fukushima accident poses a major challenge for the nuclear energy sector, especially in terms of public opinion. “Thinking retrospectively, the measures taken by the operator were not sufficient to prevent this accident,” he said.

The IAEA director general’s statement marked a shift from his initial reaction after the 11 March earthquake and tsunami, when he said that unprecedented natural forces were to blame for the situation at Fukushima, which is run by the Tokyo Electric Power Company.

Since the Fukushima incident, Germany has put a moratorium on its nuclear plant construction, and Italy, which currently has no nuclear power plants, is reconsidering its nuclear investment plans.

An ethical review board convened by Chancellor Angela Merkel met on 4 April to discuss the future of nuclear power in Germany, after the reactor disaster in Japan shocked the country. “It is important to me that we have brought together a broad social spectrum in this committee,” Merkel said. The panel is headed by former environment minister Klaus Toepfer and includes leading figures from the fields of politics, science, industry and religious groups. They have until late May to evaluate the risks associated with nuclear energy and the drawbacks of switching to alternative energy sources, such as the environmental impact of relying to a greater degree on coal.

France is currently Europe’s main producer of nuclear energy. However, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon called on 3 April for tougher international safety rules to assure the future of nuclear power. He was speaking at the inauguration in Germany of the Hanover Fair, the world’s top expo for engineering companies.

Fillon said the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan had shaken trust in nuclear technology and the European Union must act. “Our duty is to learn the lesson,” he said, noting all French reactors would face a safety review and France would take action if any turned out to be deficient. “If certain plants have to be shut, it will be done.”

His pro-nuclear message contrasted with the views of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has become a nuclear skeptic amidst the Japan disaster. She called in her speech for a faster transition to power generation using the wind, sun, biomass and hydro power. “If we want to reach the era of renewables, we must have the courage to rethink and try new things,” she said. “The word Fukushima has brought new meaning to the expression residual risk.”

But she voiced confidence in German nuclear reactors, saying they were among the safest in the world. She has ordered a three-month review of Germany’s existing timetable to gradually close all its reactors. The fair was expected to be a gauge of the revival in European Union manufacturing after the recession.

At the Hanover Fair, Germany’s wind turbine industry said on 5 April that it could replace the country’s nuclear power production with ease – provided conservationists dropped opposition to the turbines spoiling local skylines, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) reported. The Federal Wind Energy Federation (BWE) said its member companies could build erect turbines in two to three years to replace the power generated by the eight idle reactors. BWE quoted a study it ordered from a scientific team suggesting that wind could generate 390 terawatt hours of electricity per year in Germany, provided 2% of the country’s land area was available to build wind towers on. That generating capacity would be double the current input from nuclear power. In recent years, one quarter of German electricity has been nuclear-generated. But BWE warned that wind power varies with the weather, and needs back up from reservoirs.

Hermann Albers, the BWE president, said this would require a change in attitude from southern regions of Germany, where conservationists object to dams being built and turbines being erected on hilltops. In storage schemes, surplus wind-generated electricity is used to drive pumps that lift water uphill into reservoirs. When the wind dies, the water runs downhill again and drives hydro turbines to keep the electricity supply to customers constant. Most wind turbines have so far been built in Germany’s flat north or in shallow offshore seas.

New Europe