IEA fears consequences of abandoning of nuclear power

• 12 years ago (2011-06-17)
• Junior Isles

Asia 846 Europe 1061 Nuclear 639 Renewables 751

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The International Energy Agency (IEA) has forewarned that the global consequences of abandoning nuclear power would be greater costs, emissions and power uncertainty.

Executive director of the IEA, Mr Nobuo Tanaka has indicated that the organisation is likely to cut its estimates for nuclear generation’s contribution to global power in light of the response to the Fukushima crisis.

The IEA had estimated nuclear would generate 14 per cent of all electricity by 2035, but this will now be revised downwards since Japan, Germany and now Italy have all indicated their intention to cut nuclear from their power portfolios.

"If nuclear is not 14 per cent, but say 10 per cent, then it means more gas and more coal as well as more renewables," said Tanaka at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum. "It will cost much more, be less sustainable and there will be less security. These are the consequences of lower nuclear."

The IEA has significant doubts about Germany’s goal to replace nuclear with solar and wind, with 35 per cent of its power to come from renewables by 2022. Laszlo Varro, head of the IEA's gas, coal and power division, said the targets were possible for Germany’s sophisticated economy, but there would have to be a difficult and expensive upgrade of infrastructure to handle the more diverse and geographically spread power supply. "Our view is that reaching its goals without nuclear is not impossible but it will be more challenging and more expensive."

The IEA believes nuclear’s real future prospects will be decided by China, India and Russia, as they account for 80 per cent of prospective new atomic power plant projects.

Varro commented that all three governments had made statements supporting their commitment to nuclear power, but that many independent experts predicted the scale of nuclear projects to slow. China, particularly, has enjoyed recent success with wind and several successful stock market flotations of wind power companies. It is likely that in the face of the Japanese disaster, China may eschew some nuclear in favour of pursuing its competitive advantage in wind.