Proposals to revive commercially viable large-scale nuclear energy are farcical in the extreme, but what’s behind recent talk of a nuclear “renaissance”? It arose in the late 1990s and early 2000s, driven by concerns about the need to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, decarbonise the electrical grid, and respond to an ageing nuclear fleet due for decommissioning.
Nuclear was claimed to be the only “reliable” alternative to fossil fuels, a coded way to reproduce as much as possible of the political-economic and technical incumbency effects connected to the centralised generation of electricity.
As we’ve been told, nuclear power — being low-carbon in operation mode — would be necessary to decarbonise. So the main problem with selling new nuclear as necessary is that it is no longer, well, necessary.
Non-hydro renewables have overtaken nuclear power, with wind and solar alone reaching 10.2% of global gross power generation in 2021, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) says. Investment in non-hydro renewable electricity capacity is now 15 times that of reported global investment decisions for nuclear construction.
The GenCost 2022 report by Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), in conjunction with the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), found renewables vastly cheaper than nuclear even after factoring in integration costs such as storage and transmission.
The distinctly non-radical BP Statistical Review of World Energy from 2022 confirms that picture of the nuclear v renewables debate. The share of all-renewables (excluding hydropower) in global power generation reached 13% in 2021. In 2019-21, non-hydro renewables’ share of power generation grew more than the combined total of coal and natural gas, and in 2015-21, non-hydro renewables generation accounted for 60% of the growth in global power generation.
The 2021 BP Statistical Review of World Energy showed that nuclear power’s share of global electricity generation had started declining as early as 1999. And in that year, the percentage share of natural gas “crossed over” nuclear power’s share, replacing it, while nuclear continued to decline, being replaced again by the upward swing of non-hydro renewables in about 2020.
But is nuclear power there when you need it, as renaissance rhetoric suggests? The short answer is no. That’s also the long answer.
Nuclear advocates fetishise baseload and availability. The pin-up celebrity for baseload is France, with a fleet of 56 reactors supplying 70% of its electricity. But as gas shortages hit Europe in 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Électricité de France (EDF) fleet suffered an annus horribilis. More than half the fleet was shut down for repairs and maintenance due to cracking and corrosion issues, resulting in record unplanned outages and nuclear output at a 30-year low.
Or consider the Japanese nuclear fleet post-Fukushima. Gross electricity generation dropped from 275 TWh in 2011 to about 50 TWh as of July 2022. As the World Nuclear Industry Status reports have documented in the past decade, the IAEA has misrepresented the health of the Japanese fleet, routinely listing reactors in long-term outage (LTO) as “operational”.
Of the IAEA’s listed “33 operating reactors” reactors for 2022, only 10 are operating and 23 are in LTO. Neither reliable nor resilient, nuclear power is often not there when you need it.
What about the proposition that a “boutique” nuclear fleet can be built quickly to fill the energy gap? Construction times for reactors completed in the 1970s and ’80s were homogenous — about four to eight and a half years on average. But since 1990, this has started to vary widely, bordering on limited predictability: six to 10 years on average through the ’90s before exploding post-2000 into a six- to 20-year free-for-all. In 2019-21, the mean construction time for reactors connected to the grid was just over eight years.
“Generation III+” reactor projects have all experienced cost and construction blowouts. Prime examples are: Olkiluoto-3 in Finland (expected 2009, became 2023, costs quadrupled); Flamanville-3 in France (expected 2012, still building, costs up fivefold); Vogtle 3 and 4 in the United States (expected 2016-17, still building, costs up fivefold).
The nuclear power industry is forgetting by doing — a negative not positive learning curve.
Can nuclear power change? Advocates pin their hopes on small modular reactors (SMRs), defined as sub-300MWe reactors designed for serial construction or as sub-15MWe reactors designed for remote uses. They are being sold with the same style of utopian rhetorical visions seen decades ago in the industry development stage, only now as risk-free, as environmental saviours, and even as vehicles for Indigenous autonomy.
The reality is less glowing (or more). As documented by independent energy analysts at the IEEFA, the NuScale SMR-plant proposal offered to the US state of Utah has already seen a reduction in units and a 53% jump in costs that render it even less cost-competitive with renewables than its originally uncompetitive offer.
In fact, the visions of the proponents of SMRs might also have the effect of reversing or stalling decarbonisation.
Consider a 2021 University of Queensland study of what would be required for SMRs to be operating in Australia from the 2030s, which suggested SMRs could be sited on disused coal plants and be integrated into the existing electricity infrastructure. The study breezily concluded deployment of SMRs “would not require additional large investments in transmission and storage”.
Nuclear lobbyists then used this study in August 2022 Senate hearings on the Climate Change Bill (emissions reductions) to argue against grid upgrades. Nuclear was presented as a cheaper option for decarbonising the grid because “if we particularly use suitably-sized nuclear power plants on our grid, we do not need to expand the grid”.
Since every AEMO projection suggests that grid upgrades are essential to achieve greater penetration of renewables into the national electricity market, the SMR push represents a “crowding-out process”. Countries with greater attachment to nuclear will tend to have lesser attachment to renewables and vice versa.
Any talk of SMRs should be interrogated for signs of material commitments, such as opposing grid upgrades, that mitigate against renewables.
Any new push for nuclear will involve a massive waste of resources, decades of false paths, and take the process of creating a green energy system backwards. Less tragedy then farce, than farce followed by more farce.
This is an edited extract from the essay “Nuclear Afterlife” from “Set It On Fire With Your Love”, a special issue of Arena Quarterly on nuclear power, technocracy and catastrophe, available now.
It’s funny the amount of people who think the reason the nuclear renaissance hasn’t arrived is purely political, when it’s overwhelmingly down to economics, timing and the overall “deliverability” of nuclear projects.
As an aside, I think the article is a little too dismissive of the value of the existing nuclear fleet in Europe. The early decommissioning of several plants and the subsequent surge in coal and gas consumption has got to be one of the worst policy decisions for the climate in a long time.
YES- can we please use the ‘number’ of people NOT the amount?? Thanks Spicelab, its infuriating!!!
That ship has sailed. So too on the one which bugs me, “people that…”
Thanks John. As a fellow pedant I’m happy to be corrected!
Spicelab, the word “surge” is possibly the key here? One estimate I saw from Germany was that nuclear emissions were 68g CO2eq /kWh, versus natural gas 430g CO2eq /kWh and lignite more than 1kg CO2eq /kWh. So there is the surge. But with the accelerated expansion of renewables, which in Germany’s energiewende have seen RE grow 8-fold while coal use was halved, the question is how temporary is the surge? The other factor that is necessary for assessing the early closure policy is the degree to which it is thought that keeping nuclear crowds out RE; or, put differently, is it true that nuclear and RE are perfect matches, or that they trade off against one another (operation, investment, grid restructuring, etc)? I know it is trite to say “it’s complicated”, like we are writing a RomCom, but I think it’s complicated enough that I’m not convinced history won’t record it as a good move.
In a place like Australia pursuing the nuclear path will be a massive distraction, soaking up policy headspace and taxpayers money to deliver the mirage of cheap, clean energy it has never, and will never deliver. It’s an emotional connection many have to the sepia toned promotional documentaries of the 50’s and 60’s. Never realised and still grinding along in some countries as a lumbering, inefficient, massively expensive state subsidised clunker. We’ll be able to deploy renewables faster, cheaper, with drastically less downside and considerably more potential for innovation and independence in energy. We’re already doing it despite state and federal govts, mainly of right wing pursuasions, throwing everything but the kitchen sink to try to hinder, harrangue and halt the industry. We can’t afford to waste taxpayers money, time and valuable policy headspace on nostalgia for a time that never really was and won’t be coming. Crack on with renewables, upgraded grids, innovative storage and don’t get bogged down in contrarian fantasies around nuclear duds.
Of the 674 nuclear reactors built since 1950, not a single one has ever made a profit……………….
……….the AVERAGE loss has been FIVE BILLION EUROs.
Much is made of how cheaply they supply electricity in France…………
………..except that the retail price is mandated by the French government and the difference (about EUR 3.5 Billion p.a.) is raised through general taxation.
They also suffer from exactly the same problems as coal-fired plants do…………………..
…….essentially they create heat, which drives steam turbines, which generates electricity.
So when there was a drought in Europe a couple of years back, they were off-line because there wasn’t sufficient water available to boil.
Likewise, when it’s too hot (i.e. when you actually need them to operate) they overheat and have to shut down………………..
The same situation applies in Australia (only worse).
It is worth noting that the idea of a “Small Modular Reactor” was first floated in 1950………….
………..and has been “ten years away” ever since.
The thesis is that they will be pumped out of a production line like washing machines………….
……….except that such production lines don’t exist, and the most that have ever been tried to build at once is TWO.
And that sent the builder (Westinghouse – founded 1886) bankrupt.
You are so right, Thucydides. The number of times I read about how SMRs are the answer to electrical supplies in the outback (or even local supply in the suburbs) makes my power station engineer blood boil. Nuclear power requires just as much water to operate (both for cooling purposes and for process steam) as coal fired electricity generation.
Having said that, an SMR could relatively easily slip into the site of a defunct coal fired generator (there are increasingly more of these) but it is a matter of economics as to whether this happens.
Well, there’s also a supply problem: the first SMRs are still being built. There’s still not a single SMR powered electricity generator operating anywhere in the world. I wouldn’t be holding my breath for the roll out of SMRs to save the planet.
We could put the proponents in hamster wheels driving generators. All that would be required is free beer.
It’s been convincingly argued that nuclear cannot be delivered at scale in time to have any impact on progress to net zero by 2050 – that doesn’t mean nuclear should be discarded out of hand only that other priorities are more practical.
The most beneficial change and the most practical is reduction in demand.
Rather than an ever escalating consumption of power we should look at ditching as much as possible. This is not part of any political party’s plans which at best can be summarised as “everything the same, but green” – add to that an 8x – 16x growth in activity by 2050 and net zero looks like a cynical joke.
I doubt we will be able to build a sustainable net zero world without decarbonising steel and concrete. Both are required in huge quanties to build renewable infrastructure itself.
Like I said we need to reduce demand.
Nick, do you mean demand for electricity? That proposition could be cashed out two ways, either as a degrowth proposition, or as a reflection of minimum operation demand falling quite ‘naturally’ as rooftop solar expands. Seems to me all the panic about baseload overlooks the latter? As for minerals use growth, one striking feature of discussion of the likely growth in key minerals use is the centrality of talk of sustainability, supply chain resilience, recycling, and so on. See IAE papers, for instance. In modern times we know BIG Oil and Big Gas often engage in Big Talk about green practices, and we should be rightfully cynical, but it is nevertheless the case that these newer, greener norms have a foothold in the expanding minerals sector, and I guess the rest of us, those not pulling the strings in the extractive industry, have to hope regulators enforce these norms?
This author seems to think that if he can prove a case against nuclear power, it’s game over. But I don’t think its proponents will be convinced – they don’t want a good source of energy, they want a wedge.
What they want is to maintain a heavily centralised power grid.
That certainly is an under-current in most talk of ‘when wind doesn’t blow sun don’t shine”
Hi Woopwoop. I won’t leave you speculating on what “this author seems to think”. This author does not assume a case against nuclear power is “game over”. I agree wedge politics, which in this case relies on a form of cosplay about seeming green, is a major part of Australian nuclear proponents’ strategy. But note how a political wedge works: you argue for X, trying to force your opponent into arguing for Y, where Y is something unappealing, especially to centrists. Deconstructing the argument for nuclear power can lessen the degree of ‘unappealing’ attached to opposing it, eating into that wedge. Obviously more work to do but you’re right about the role political wedges are playing.