Nuclear Power’s Pivotal Moment at COP28
Saleem H. Ali
Contributor
Environmental systems scientist at the University of Delaware
Dec 10, 2023,
Among the less publicized achievements of COP28 has been a notable declaration by at least 20 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Canada to triple nuclear power capacity by 2050. This is a sensible science-based declaration, supported by the IAEA and the IPCC’s view that atomic energy has a role to play in decarbonization. The declaration thus deserves the attention of investors and the wider public. For too long, nuclear power has been stigmatized out of emotional fear rather than facts. The quest for a holy grail of global energy supply remains elusive, but much research continues to be cultivated and curated according to preferences and assumptions about a desired outcome.
The critics of nuclear energy tend to use selective science which needs to be confronted head-on. Let us use the example of a paper published a few years ago in the prestigious journal Nature Energy which reflects proclivities in favor of renewable energy with a clear objective of marginalizing nuclear power. Despite a very elegant hypothesis-driven conceptual framework, the authors have designed a study that diminishes the carbon benefits of nuclear by using a regression analysis that is not well-suited to the core societal question at hand: is the future of nuclear power likely to assist with carbon mitigation?
Instead of addressing this question, the authors use aggregate carbon emissions data for countries and compare nuclear energy versus renewable energy dominance for two historic periods until 2014. The correlations are based on asymmetric units of comparison (given that only 31 countries are nuclear power producers while the full sample of countries with renewable portfolios is 123 in their data set). What the analysis does usefully show is that a switch to renewable energy technologies has definitively led to reduced carbon emissions, and that there can be some competition between the energy sources in terms of investment prioritization.
The history of carbon comparisons research on nuclear is highly contentious as the range of life cycle analyses (LCA) and environmental product declarations (EPD) methods used to compare carbon footprints from mines to markets makes outputs astronomically different. Indeed, composite literature reviews conducted earlier reveal widely divergent assessments from 4 to 220 gCO2/kWh giving ample space for activist anti-nuclear scholars to pounce upon.
As further analysis by the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency has shown, much of the inflated carbon range with nuclear stems from assumptions about concentrations of uranium ore and the construction materials (specially concrete) of conventional plants. However, much less of this will likely be relevant with future nuclear development and that is where industrial ecological research investment should be made. The high capacity factors of nuclear as well as clearly demonstrable reduced carbon of future nuclear power has now been firmly acknowledged by the International Energy Agency.
China Launches World's First Fourth-Generation Nuclear Reactor
- China started up the world's first fourth-generation nuclear reactor this week.
- The Shidaowan nuclear power plant, which features the world's first fourth-generation reactor, started commercial operations on December 6.
- Lantau Group's David Fishman: "China is arguably peerless in actually building and commercializing next-generation nuclear power technology."
China has taken a step ahead of competitors in civil nuclear energy technology as it started up the world's first fourth-generation nuclear reactor this week.
As many countries are starting to recognize that nuclear power generation will play an important role in the energy transition by providing additional net-zero electricity, the race for developing the latest generation of civil nuclear technology has begun.
And this week, China gained an advantage in that race.
The Shidaowan nuclear power plant, which features the world's first fourth-generation reactor, started commercial operations on December 6, China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), one of the project's developers, said.
"China's independently developed high-temperature gas-cooled reactor demonstrator commenced commercial operation," CNNC said in a statement.
"It signifies that China has completed the world's first commercially operational modular nuclear power plant with fourth-generation nuclear technology, marking the transition of fourth-generation nuclear technology from experiments to the commercial market."
Generation IV reactors are considered safer and more efficient.
"The tests confirmed that commercial-scale reactors could be cooled down naturally without emergency core cooling systems for the first time in the world. It is the so-called inherently safe reactor," Tsinghua University, one of the joint developers of the reactor, said.
Such reactors can produce heat, electricity, and hydrogen and would help China and the world "become carbon neutral," Zhang Zuoyi, dean of the Tsinghua University Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology and chief designer of the Shidaowan reactor project, told South China Morning Post.
The fourth-generation reactor in operation now puts China "ahead of other countries in terms of nuclear technology research and development," Francois Morin, China director of industry group World Nuclear Association, told The Wall Street Journal.
According to Morin, Western countries are set to launch their fourth-generation nuclear reactors only in the early 2030s.
David Fishman, a China-based senior manager at energy consulting firm Lantau Group, told the Journal that "China is arguably peerless in actually building and commercializing next-generation nuclear power technology."
Many countries in the West, with the notable exception of Germany, have recognized that nuclear power generation would help them achieve net-zero emission goals.
At the COP28 climate summit currently underway in Dubai, the United States and 21 other countries pledged to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050, saying incorporating more nuclear power in their energy mix is critical for achieving their net zero goals in the coming decades.
The United States, alongside Britain, France, Canada, Sweden, South Korea, Ghana, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), among others, signed the declaration at the COP28 climate summit.
"The Declaration recognizes the key role of nuclear energy in achieving global net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and keeping the 1.5-degree Celsius goal within reach," the U.S. Department of State said.
China is not a signatory to that declaration, but it aims to develop more nuclear energy capacities to reduce emissions as its demand for electricity rises.
As of 2020, nuclear energy accounted for 5% of China's generation mix, which continued to be dominated by coal, per data from the World Nuclear Association.
By 2035, nuclear energy is expected to make up 10% of the electricity generation mix and 18% by 2060, Chinese media quoted the China Nuclear Energy Association (CNEA) as saying earlier this year.
As of September 2023, China had 55 nuclear power units in operation with a combined installed capacity of 57 GW, and 24 units under construction with a total installed capacity of 27.8 GW, Xinhua quoted CNEA official Wang Binghua as saying. By 2060, that capacity is expected to jump to 400 GW, the official said.
China is also expected to approve six to eight nuclear power units each year "within the foreseeable future."
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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