Coal use will rise an estimated 13.5 percent in Germany this year, resulting in at least 14 million metric tons of additional carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, even as the nation continues to idle two-fifths of its nuclear power fleet.
The major reduction in European energy demand and industrial output caused by the global recession has led CO2 emissions to slide faster than the emissions reductions mandated by either the Emissions Trading Scheme or the EU's commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. Yet instead of accelerating emissions cuts, the ironic economics of the carbon trading system have justified a return to coal in Germany and elsewhere, as a glut of emissions permits drives down the cost of carbon pollution and makes coal highly profitable once again.
The odd logic of the emissions targets and timetables has even been used by German greens (and their defenders internationally) to justify trading zero carbon nuclear for greater coal combustion. Germany's decision last year to power down eight of its 17 nuclear reactors leaves idle enough zero carbon power to drive down the country's CO2 emissions another 21 percent from 2008 levels. Yet instead of sounding the alarm at this huge missed opportunity as the nation instead turns back towards coal, some German greens have gone so far as to claim Germany literally "has the right" to eschew nuclear in favor of much greater emissions levels than necessary.
So much for the extreme urgency of climate mitigation...
The ongoing shale gas boom and the advent of low natural gas prices has pushed back the goal posts for clean energy technologies like wind, solar, and nuclear power, according to a new fact sheet released by the Breakthrough Institute. While significant progress has been made in low-carbon technologies in recent years, continued innovation and cost declines will be necessary for clean tech to become broadly competitive with natural gas on an unsubsidized basis.
As documented in a new and widely acclaimed report co-authored by experts at the Breakthrough Institute, the Brookings Institution, and the World Resources Institute, the impending collapse of federal support policies for clean tech present fierce challenges to the sector going forward. The report, "Beyond Boom and Bust," offers a platform for policy reform that would accelerate innovation and cost declines, pushing clean tech to broad competitiveness with conventional fossil energy technologies.
As we show in the new fact sheet, the challenges now posed by low-cost natural gas are particularly daunting for low-carbon power technologies. Efforts to reform federal clean tech subsidies must engage these challenges by supporting clean energy innovation and making unsubsidized cost parity for clean tech the top priority.
From a recent high of over $13 per mmBTU in 2008, natural gas prices have plummeted to under $2.50 per mmBTU. These cost declines have been paralleled by similar drops in prices for wind- and solar-generated electricity, but the improvements for clean tech have not yet achieved full cost-parity with natural gas.
State-led investments in energy technology are the best way to reduce economic dependence on dirty fossil fuels, according to a new Breakthrough Institute analysis of 26 developed countries.
National Decarbonization, 1971 - 2006 An Original Breakthrough Institute Investigation
Introduction
Driving down global emissions of climate destabilizing carbon dioxide by at least 50 percent by 2050 may be necessary to avoid the most dangerous impacts of global climate change (IEA 2010). To achieve these deep emissions declines while supporting continued economic growth and expanded energy access, particularly in the world's emerging economies, the world's economies must rapidly decarbonize, reducing the amount of CO2 produced for each unit of economic activity at greater than 4 percent per year (IEA 2010).
That may not sound like much, but such rates are more than three times greater than the 1.3 percent per year global average rate sustained since the 1860s (Nakicenovic 1997).
Even at a national scale, achieving a 4 percent per year or greater rate of decarbonization is unprecedented in recent history, according to new analysis from the Breakthrough Institute, which examines historic decarbonization rates among developed nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (the OECD).
Nonetheless, by examining the rates of decarbonization among these OECD nations, this analysis provides historic evidence regarding the fastest sustained rates of decarbonization achieved by developed economies to date, while shedding light on key drivers of decarbonization. Insights from the nations that have achieved the fastest reductions in carbon intensity will be critical to formulate effective policies to accelerate global decarbonization and climate mitigation.
Prominent environmentalists in the United Kingdom are at loggerheads over whether Britain should pursue new nuclear power plants, in a clash that has revealed sharply divergent approaches to energy and climate change.
Five leading environmentalists said abandoning plans for nuclear power would be a "serious environmental mistake," according to a letter submitted to Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday.
One year after Fukushima, independent scientists working for the UN say bluntly that irrational fears of radiation poisoning will cause far more harm than the radiation itself. Not a single individual from the Japanese public received a dangerous dose, according to the early and informal analyses by the scientists. (Conspiracy theories cannot survive against the constant independent radiation measurements uploaded on Twitter.) Even the 70 altruistic plant workers who stayed behind gained an additional cancer risk of just 0.002% -- effectively zero in a country where four out of ten people get cancer.
NPR's Christopher Joyce reports on the energy, economic, and climate challenges now facing Japan as its fleet of nuclear power plants sits idle following the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdowns suffered one year ago.
For the first time in decades, the nation's treasured trade surplus is gone, eroded by soaring imports of fossil fuels needed to replace the 30 percent of the nation's electricity once supplied by more than 50 nuclear reactors idled since last March's disaster.
Joyce interviews Breakthrough Institute's Jesse Jenkins, who notes the economic and climate costs facing Japan as it turns away from nuclear energy:
For the first time in decades, Japan's vaunted trade surplus is gone. The country now spends more on imports than it earns from exports. What is Japan buying? Fuel.
"The major utilities in Japan have increased their consumption of fuel oil by more than double," says Jesse Jenkins, an energy analyst at the Breakthrough Institute, a research group. The institute is in favor of nuclear power as a hedge against climate warming. Japan, says Jenkins, "has increased their use of liquefied natural gas by about 27 percent and relied more heavily on coal as a share of their energy use."
And that's expensive. One analysis by the International Energy Agency in Paris says replacing the electricity from idled nuclear plants is costing Japan an extra $100 million a day.
Then there are the climate effects. The nuclear reactors were not emitting carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Oil, coal and natural gas do.
Jenkins says Japan's goal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is now shelved. In fact, emissions are going up. "They're swapping fossil fuels for nuclear and that's driving up their CO2 emissions and the carbon intensity of their electricity supply," he says.
With essentially no domestic fossil fuel resources and a renewable energy sector that provides just about 2 percent of the nation's electricity supply today, there are no easy choices as Japan contemplates its energy future.
The Breakthrough Institute team works to publish up-to-date analysis on nuclear energy, centering around international developments in innovation and deployment and the resulting effects for climate change and the global economy. Here is our collection of analysis on nuclear energy:
Was Japan really on the verge of evacuating Tokyo in the wake of last year's tsunami? Will the partial meltdown of the Fukushima reactor spike cancer rates? Taking on the media hype.
The Fukushima disaster raised big questions about how Japan will meet its future power demands and whether it can do so without missing its emissions targets. New numbers from TEPCO are beginning to provide answers.
By Mark Caine, Research Officer at the London School of Economics, Coordinator for the Hartwell Group, and 2010 Breakthrough Generation Fellow.
[Originally published December 13, 2011; Updated and republished February 14, 2012]
UPDATE:
The Federation of Electric Power Companies, an industry group representing Japan's largest electric utilities, has just released new data on Japanese fossil fuel imports for January 2012. The data reveal that last month, despite an overall drop in economy-wide energy use, Japan imported and consumed far larger quantities of fossil fuels than it did in January 2011, before its earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster updended its economy and energy system.
In January 2012, consumption of fuel oil, crude oil, and LNG were up 118%, 115%, and 27% respectively compared to January 2011 figures. To meet surging demand for these fossil fuels, Japanese utilities increased imports of fuel oil by 165%, crude oil by 174%, LNG by 39%, and coal by 12%. It appears that much of this fuel was used for thermal power generation, which rose 29% in January 2012 compared to January 2011 levels.
Already, the high cost of these fossil fuel imports has contributed to Japan's newfound trade deficit of $32 billion, the country's first in over 30 years.
Japan's nuclear power fleet has sat idle since a powerful earthquake struck the nation in March 2011, driving a sharp increase in fossil fuel imports and a spike in the nation's carbon intensity.
Japan's nuclear power fleet has sat idle since a powerful earthquake struck the nation in March 2011, driving a sharp increase in fossil fuel imports and a spike in the nation's carbon intensity, new data shows. Together, these changes have battered Japan's trade balance, increased the carbon intensity of its energy supply, and raised important questions about its future CO2 emissions trajectory.
Japan's 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster have exerted substantial impacts on the nation's economy and energy system. Given Japan's reliance on nuclear power, its lack of domestic fossil resources, the magnitude of the earthquake and tsunami, and the technical and political implications of a major nuclear crisis, these impacts were largely predictable.
But although it was clear early on that Japan's triple disaster signalled major economic and technical changes in Japan, only recently has good data become available to shed light on the specifics of the changes underway.*
Two notable trends emerge from this data, both relating to Japanese energy supply. Together, these trends are exerting profound impacts on Japan's trade balance, the carbon intensity of its energy supply, and its future CO2 emission trajectory.
Before adjourning to watch yule logs and eat holiday hams, Congress actually managed to pass a 2012 budget bill. ITIF's Matthew Stepp provided us with an early analysis of the bill's impact on energy innovation funding. Funding for key Department of Energy (DOE) innovation offices are up by a modest 2.5 percent relative to the 2011 budget, with impacts on specific programs summarized in the table below...
The Fiscal Year 2012 budget dedicates $768 million to the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy, a nearly 6 percent increase from FY2011 levels. As with overall funding for DOE innovation offices, the 2012 budget thus halts and begins to reverse the declines in federal energy innovation funding initiated in the 2011 budget, which saw nuclear energy funding fall 15 percent (or $132 million) from 2010 budget appropriations.
In the wake of Solyndra's failure, pundits have latched on to a simple, compelling narrative: government can't do energy right.
From synfuels to solar panels to "clean coal" (written, inevitably, with knowing quotation marks), demonstration projects funded by the Department of Energy are described as one failed white elephant after another. Today the DOE is the agency everyone loves to hate (and, at least in Texas Gov. Rick Perry's case, the agency to forget).
What gets left out (and forgotten) is that virtually every one of today's major energy technologies exists thanks to sustained US government investments in research, development, and demonstration. Consider:
Solar panels were pioneered by NASA, and have seen massive price declines thanks to government research, development, and deployment. Industry leader First Solar is a direct descendant of DOE research as are Nanosolar and GE's thin film solar division.
A Breakthrough Institute op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle argues that the revival of the 'No Nukes' concert presents an inexcusable ignorance of the real 21st century threats presented by climate change.
Today's print edition of the San Francisco Chronicle featured an op-ed by Breakthrough's Jesse Jenkins and Sara Mansur. The full-text of the article is appended below; a shortened version of the op-ed can be viewed in today's print edition of the Chronicle and online here after 3 AM on Friday, August 5th.
"No Nukes" Revival is Wholly Misguided
Recent news that Musicians United for Safe Energy is reuniting for a concert protesting nuclear power strikes these two Millennials as wholly misguided. While the anti-nuclear generation can be forgiven for the tragic outcomes of their original efforts, this attempted revival exhibits an inexcusable ignorance of the real threats faced in the 21st century.
The original No Nukes concerts, held after the Three Mile Island accident, helped derail the growth of nuclear power in the United States. What resulted was not the new energy economy powered by wind and solar power imagined by many anti-nuclear activists, but rather a massive expansion of fossil powered energy that sent carbon emissions soaring by 22 percent. Now, the septuagenarian rockers will come together this August to try to repeat their past "success."
No Nukes front man Graham Nash recently trumpeted the group's continued opposition to nuclear power in Rolling Stone, insisting that "coal plants put a lot of shit and mercury in the air but a coal plant won't be poisonous for 100,000 years."
What?! Global warming is the intergenerational threat today, not nuclear power. With coal and other fossil-fuels driving carbon dioxide emissions to their highest levels in history, ours is a generation preparing for a world that will be deeply and irrevocably impacted by climate change -- a world plagued by severe heat waves, floods, droughts, and record wildfires, and the potential displacement of millions of people.
Yesterday, Freakonomics featured the Breakthrough Institute on a panel of experts debating the myriad of questions surrounding the costs of Japan and Germany's recent decisions to turn away from nuclear power. The Freakonomics Quorum posed the following question:
With Japan deciding not to expand its nuclear power base, and Germany and Switzerland vowing to phase out nuclear power altogether, how will those (and other) countries replace that electricity, and what sort of political, economic, and environmental trickle-down effects will we see?
The Breakthrough Institute's response is appended below. The Freakonomics Quorum and full participant responses can be viewed here.
In the months following the tsunami-triggered nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power station, both Japan and Germany announced major U-turns on nuclear policy. In separate, politically calculated moves, Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed to end Germany's reliance on nuclear power by 2022, while Prime Minister Naoto Kan scrapped plans to ramp up nuclear generation to 50 percent of Japan's power supply in the coming decades, each while reaffirming already-ambitious climate change goals.
The reality, however, is that turning their backs on nuclear power could push both nations' climate and environmental objectives out of reach. Simultaneously achieving both a nuclear phase-out and deep emissions cuts would necessitate an unprecedented - and unlikely - scale-up of renewable energy generation to fill the void left by the German and Japanese nuclear fleets.
The United Kingdom's plans for new nuclear plants are still on track, announced UK Energy Secretary Chris Huhne earlier today. An interim report conducted by the UK's nuclear chief inspector found that the country does not need to curb operations of nuclear power stations or plans for new nuclear reactors in the aftermath of the crisis at Fukushima's Daiichi reactors. The country has plans to construct a set of new reactors to maintain electricity supply and cut carbon dioxide emissions as a generation of older power plants is shut down. This decision comes as Germany and Japan rethink their plans for nuclear power in light of the disaster at Fukushima.
Updated 5/13/2011 to include construction costs for Japan's proposed 14 nuclear reactors.
On Tuesday, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan announced that the country would scrap its plans to increase nuclear power's contribution to electricity generation to 50 percent by 2030, in response to the crisis at Fukushima's Daiichi nuclear complex. Replacing nuclear power's sizable role in Japan's energy system with a greater reliance on imported coal or liquefied natural gas (LNG) could increase Japan's CO2 emissions by up to 26 percent relative to current levels while damaging the nation's trade balance, while replacing nuclear with renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and geothermal energy would require a roughly 50-fold increase in the electricity provided by these sources, as well as considerable replacement costs.
Japan's Nuclear Plans on Hold
Prior to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis, Japan had planned to increase nuclear power's share of national electricity generation to 50% from roughly 30% today. To achieve this increase, Japan had planned to construct fourteen new nuclear power reactors and raise the capacity factor of the country's existing nuclear power plants to 90%, an increase from roughly 72% in 2009 to a level equivalent to the capacity factors maintained by the U.S. nuclear industry. Existing nuclear plants would have their operating life extended wherever it was deemed safe to do so.
In the following scenarios, we consider the challenge of replacing nuclear power's role in Japan's energy system with fossil and renewable energy alternatives. We consider the new generation required to replace the electricity provided by the fourteen nuclear reactors planned by 2030, as well as assume that Japan does not grant license extensions to any existing plants during this period. By 2030, we therefore assume the retirement of thirty-eight existing Japanese reactors built before 1990, including the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi, totaling 28,431 MW or 61% of the nation's current nuclear capacity.
The total nuclear power generation 'lost' in this scenario totals 399 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2030. We have assumed that the country will still raise the capacity factor of the remaining twenty-one reactors still operating by 2030, providing 21,555 MW of capacity. Under this scenario, nuclear power would still provide almost 15% of Japan's projected electricity demand in 2030.
The use of nuclear power has avoided the emission of 38 billion tons of carbon dioxide over the lifetime of the nuclear industry, estimates data journalist David Kroodsma over at Climate Central. These 38 billion tons amount to about 8 percent of the cumulative C02 the world's population has added to the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels over the past 160 years.
Kroodsma's post, excerpted below, also includes an interactive map of all nuclear power facilities ever connected to the grid, and some that are planned for construction in the next few years.
Today, nuclear power plants worldwide operate on average about 80 percent of the time. In earlier years, they were shut down for longer periods, with closer to a 55 percent in service rate. Given these operating percentages, let's assume for estimation purposes that nuclear power plants throughout their entire history have operated on average at 70 percent of their capacity. In that case, the nuclear power industry globally has produced about 60 trillion kilowatt hours of electricity.
If these power plants had not been built, let's assume the electricity would have been generated instead from a mix of coal, natural gas, and hydropower in the proportions that these are used today (roughly 2:1:1). Given how much CO2 these sources emit on average per kilowatt hour (natural gas: 590 grams of CO2; coal: 907 grams; hydropower: 0 grams), we can estimate that each kilowatt-hour of nuclear power avoided about 600 grams of CO2 from entering the atmosphere.
That means that the nuclear industry has avoided emissions of about 38 billion tons of CO2. That is one third more CO2 than humans put into the atmosphere every year from burning fossil fuels. It is also about one-twelfth of the cumulative CO2 people have added to the atmosphere during the past 160 years from burning coal, natural gas, and petroleum. This is a rough estimate, yet it shows that nuclear power has played a major role in lowering CO2 emissions.
Breakthrough Institute President Michael Shellenberger debated the future of nuclear power today on KQED Radio'sForum, joining host Dave Iverson and the Sierra Club's David Hamilton to discuss the impacts and implications of the Fukushima nuclear crisis in Japan.
The Breakthrough Institute welcomes listeners of KQED and other readers interested in exploring the relative risks and benefits of nuclear power and the future of this low-carbon energy source.
Listen to the debate here:
Alternately, you can download the mp3 directly by clicking here.
Phasing out the United States' entire nuclear power supply by 2030 would increase the country's carbon dioxide emissions by at least 5% and as much as 13%, depending on what mix of power plants replace the aging nuclear units. If the United States phased out the twenty-three nuclear power plants with the same design as Japan's troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex by 2030, carbon dioxide emissions in the United States would increase overall by at least 1 percent.
As the crisis at the Japanese Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex continues to captivate global media attention, President Obama's domestic energy plans, which have long-included a push for the construction of new nuclear reactors, are beginning to be called into question. Two days ago, Senate Democrats demanded a broad review of the safety of the country's nuclear plants, with nine Democrats even seeking to delay legislation to allow the construction of a new plant in Iowa.
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicts that, by 2030, nuclear power will supply about 18% of the nation's electricity, as compared to roughly 20% in 2011.
Below, we illustrate the consequences for overall United States carbon dioxide emissions if the United States phases out its entire nuclear fleet. Three scenarios project the effect of replacing lost generation either entirely by coal generation, entirely by natural gas generation, or by an equal split of both.
If nuclear power were to be completely taken out of the United States' power supply by 2030, United States carbon emissions would rise by at least 300 million tons over baseline scenarios. Carbon emissions would increase by at least 5% and as much as 13% across the entire economy, while power-sector emissions would soar by 12% to 33%, depending on the mix of replacement power.
The lowest value corresponds to a scenario in which the nuclear plants are replaced by new natural gas-fired units, perhaps the most likely scenario given recent discovery of plentiful new natural gas supplies in North America.
While a number of G20 economies appear to be backtracking on their nuclear plans, the key Canadian province of Ontario has reiterated its commitment to nuclear power.
The Globe and Mail yesterday reported that a number of key Canadian provinces have "reaffirmed their support for nuclear power" and that "the national regulator declared the country's generating stations safe even as Japan's crisis spurred other nations to back away from nuclear."
The province of Ontario, the nation's most populous and home to five of Canada's seven nuclear power plants, affirmed that "there was no change in its plans to keep the nuclear-powered portion of its electricity output at 50 per cent."
Chinese government announces temporary halt of ambitious nuclear program, suspending plant approvals and calling for thorough investigation of safety standards.
In a highly significant move, the Chinese government today appeared to be following Germany in announcing the suspension of its approval process for new nuclear construction projects. China is the world's leader in nuclear expansion, with 28 plants currently under construction -- or roughly 40 percent of the world total. The New York Timesreports that it remains "unclear how many would be affected by the new order."
After discussions with the State Council, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao further announced thorough safety checks of existing plants. A statement on the government website read that "we must fully grasp the importance and urgency of nuclear safety, and development of nuclear power must make safety the top priority. Any hazards must be thoroughly dealt with, and those that do not conform to safety standards must immediately cease construction."
Last update to post at March 29 at 7:00pm, Pacific time; please check timestamps for individual sections below to find out when information was last updated.
Live Updates via Twitter
Track live updates and breaking news relayed via Twitter below. Breakthrough Director of Energy and Climate Policy Jesse Jenkins has been covering the crisis in Japan since it began @JesseJenkins. See this "Nuclear Crisis" list for a curated feed of other sources of news on the nuclear crisis at the damaged Fukushima nuclear power station.
Note: The Twitter widgets have at times been unreliable and if the widgets above do not load properly, click on the links to the direct Twitter pages in the first paragraph above
