Renew On Line (UK) 46

Extracts from NATTA's journal
Renew, issue 146 Nov-Dec 2003

11. Nuclear Power- 2003's global ups and downs

Nuclear power looks unlikely to be resuscitated in Western Europe, Finlands single proposed new reactor aside. There are even signs that the EU may oppose the UK government bailout of British Energy- which recently announced that it had made a £4.29bn loss for 2002-03. Evidently its not just the short term loan that worries the EU, but the £2bn that the government has offered to pay towards BE’s nuclear liabilities- later expanded to £3.9bn, in the complex rescue deal proposed in Oct.  Meanwhile, AEA Technology, which was spun out of the UK Atomic Energy Authority in 1995 as a high technology consultany company, made a pre-tax loss of £5.4m in the last financial year. That was partly due to its diversification effort, but it is now divesting itself of its remaining nuclear activities in the hope of returning to profit (FT 20/5/03). Compared with that, BNFL’s loss for 2002-3, just over £1bn, looks almost reasonable (WISE Nuclear Monitor 590).  Even so, in Aug. BNFL told the Guardian that it planned to close the nine year old £1.8bn THORP reprocessing plant by 2010.  If true, that’s a major policy shift.

In the USA, despite a lot of speculation about restarting a nuclear programme, and some special funding arrangements from the government, the spate of financial loses, scandals and generation over capacity in the US electric utility sector has meant that ‘no serious movement in that direction’ has occurred there, according to the Worldwatch Institute, in the latest edition of its useful statistical digest ‘Vital Signs’. Not much movement is detected on new plants in Eastern Europe either-apart from Russia, which has two reactors under construction. 

However, Worldwatch report that significant expansion is occurring in China and India. Last year, construction started on six new plants in India, while in China four new plants were grid connected, and China expects to complete construction of  four new plants over the next few years. S. Korea completed two new plants in 2002 and has two more under construction and N. Korea  also has two plants under construction- although their nuclear programme is under a cloud following allegations of a weapons production link.   Similar concerns have been expressed about Irans plan for 6 GW of new plants- to be built with Russian help.

Globally, at present, 25 new reactors are under construction, including the Chinese, Indian and Korean programmes, with a combined capacity of nearly 21GW. By 2020 both India and China expect to have 20GW of nuclear  capacity.

In Japan however nuclear power has been facing major problems. Worldwatch notes that in 2002 ‘it was disclosed that the country’s largest utility and nuclear operator, Tokyo Electric (Tepco) had been systematically falsifying safety inspections since the late 1980’s’. Permission for two new reactors was withdrawn and opposition to the use of MOX in existing reactors has spread. As reported in Renew 144, it seems that Tepco had to consider withdrawing 17 plants from service-  creating a major energy problem.

Meanwhile, globally, as plants reach the end of their useful life, the decommisioning programme is continuing. To date, 106 reactors -31GW in all- have been closed, which, co-incidentally, is nearly equal to the wind generating capacity now in place globally (32GW). Of course, the load factors differ by a factor of around two, so its not a full replacement.  And the withdrawl of these retired plants still left, by the end of 2002, 357GW of nuclear capacity from 437 plants- and that was a 5GW (1.5%) net increase from 2001, due to the flurry of new build and an increase in rated output from some existing plants. The longer term projections are however for a gradual decline in total  global nuclear capacity- on the basis of then current plans, global nuclear capacity was seen by the Royal Society/Royal Academy of Engineering (‘Nuclear Energy: the Future Climate’ 1999), as reaching a peak at around 2010 and then falling off dramatically.  Certainly, if no more new starts are made beyond those currently planned, by 2060 all existing and planned plants will have been closed- though there will still be their radioactive waste legacy to deal with.

De-nuke the FSU

As a result of pressure from the G7 and the EU, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine has been closed.  Other early Soviet design reactors are likely to be closed in the Former Soviet Union countries over the coming decade. The UK Department of Trade and Industry is supporting a £750,000 programme to help reduce the local impacts. The DTI’s  website notes that: ‘Securing closure of, or closure commitments for these reactors, has been a difficult task. One of the reasons for this is that the plants are located in isolated and otherwise economically limited areas of the Former Soviet Union (FSU)/Countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), where they are the only source of significant employment. There is thus considerable domestic opposition to closure- and workers or locals do not generally accept the safety argument for closure.’    The DTI says the programme aims to ‘try and ease the pain of closure and help tackle the potentially negative social and economic impacts that closure will bring to these areas, through efforts to promote economic diversification and regeneration.  Such efforts can help to keep FSU states committed to closure  programmes, and can generate significant goodwill.’ 

See  www.dti.gov.uk/energy/nuclear/fsu/scp.shtml

* The OU Energy and Environment Research Unit  is trying to help out with diversification efforts in Lithuania, focussed on renewables. As part of Lithuanias bid to be eligible to join the EU, it has, like the other accession states, to develop its renewable capacity.  See our Groups section.  Lithuania is about the worst case- it gets more than 80% of its electricity from the 2.4GW Ignalina plant.  And with the first reactor there scheduled to close in 2005 and the second in 2009, they will really have to get a move on to replace the energy lost.  The risk is that, like Finland, they may look to another nuclear plant, although it seems unlikely that they would get funding for that from the EU.

The DTI conversion assistance programme is in parallel to the actual decomissioning programme, which it is also supporting. Overall, the DTI’s  ‘Nuclear support to the Former Soviet Union’ is projected to reach £32.2m in 2003-4 as part of the UK’s £84m fund announced in 2000, which the DTI says is ‘to help tackle a range of nuclear problems faced by states in former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe over the next three years’.