Global Nuclear Power: Past,
Present & Future
Dr John Walls
Introduction
• At present there are over 440 nuclear power
reactors operating in 30 countries. In total, they
provide about 15% of the world’s electricity.
• With 55 nuclear reactors currently under
construction and many more ordered we
frequently hear talk of a ‘‘Nuclear Renaissance’’.
• Enthusiasm for new nuclear build at present is
concentrated in Asia and Russia with relatively
weaker enthusiasm in Europe and USA.
A Brief History of Nuclear Power
• The first nuclear reactors were all
designed to produce plutonium for their
respective nuclear weapons programmes.
• ‘‘The development of atomic energy for
peaceful purposes and the development of
atomic energy for bombs are in much of
their course interchangeable and
interdependent’’. (Acheson–Lilienthal
• Report 1946)
A Brief History II
• In the post war era, as Britain still had to import relatively
expensive oil, policy makers thought that nuclear
energy could be a cheap alternative.
• The shift from military to peaceful uses of nuclear power
gained traction in 1953 when President Eisenhower
proposed his ‘‘Atoms for Peace’’ programme, suggested
nuclear materials be used to provide ‘‘abundant electrical
energy in the power-starved areas of the world’’.
•
This was beneficial to governments who were keen to
develop their nuclear weapons programme away from
the glare of public scrutiny.
A Brief History III
• The optimism and almost euphoria about the
possible manifold peaceful uses of the atom
captured the imagination of writers and
scientists, with claims we would see:
‘‘nuclear powered planes, ships, trains . . .
nuclear energy would genetically modify crops
and preserve grains and fish’’. (Scurlock 2007)
• The cold war enabled nuclear power to be
constructed as vital for national security,
research into potential safety problems and risks
were discouraged.
Expansion of Nuclear Power
• The large scale use of nuclear power during the
1950s and 1960s was concentrated in the USA,
UK, Russia and Canada.
• The Euratom Treaty signed in 1957 is one of the
founding treaties of the European Union:
– ‘‘nuclear energy represents an essential resource for
the development and invigoration of industry’’.
• It was also touted as a solution to the urban
pollution caused primarily by coal-fired power
stations.
Expansion of Nuclear Power II
• As a result, the federal government financed and built a
number of demonstration reactors to prove to the Energy
companies that nuclear was feasible.
• A pamphlet published by the nuclear company
Westinghouse in the 1960’s captures the prevailing
optimism about the promise of nuclear power:
• ‘‘It will give us all the power we need and more.
That’s what it’s all about. Power seemingly without
end. Power to do everything that man is destined to
do. We have found what may be called perpetual
youth’’.
Expansion of Nuclear Power
• One event was to provide a huge boost to the
fortunes of the nuclear industry: the OPEC oil
crises of 1973–1974. Oil prices quadrupled
overnight, making energy independence and
energy security key policy issues worldwide.
• The period following the oil crisis then witnessed
the biggest increase in nuclear plant orders even
seen in France, Belgium, Sweden, Japan and
the USSR.
• In this period of exponential growth a total of 423
nuclear reactors were built from 1966 to 1985
(IAEA 2008).
A Period of Decline
• The nuclear industry thought the fourfold
increase in oil would make nuclear more
economic than coal.
• Indeed, no new stations were ordered in
America after 1978. From the mid 1970s
to the mid 1980s 100 nuclear plants were
cancelled in the US alone.
• During the late 1970s protests against the
construction of nuclear plants increased
Chernobyl
New Nuclear Build since Chernobyl:
Possibilities and Challenges
1. The realisation of the scale of projected
increased demand for electricity worldwide,
particularly in developing countries.
2. A growing awareness of the importance of
energy security and
3. The urgent need to encourage low carbon
energy generation technologies to help
mitigate the threat of dangerous climate
change.
‘‘the life cycle GHG emissions per kWh from nuclear
power plants are two orders of magnitude lower
than fossil-fuelled electricity generation and
comparable to most renewables’’. (IPCC)
A Nuclear Renaissance?
A Nuclear Renaissance?
• Worldwide there are 60 new nuclear plants
under construction with 131 more proposed,
• The new build programme in Europe (excluding
Russia) amounts to just six reactors in four
countries: Finland, France Romania and
Slovakia.
• Plans in Europe and North America are
overshadowed, however, by those in China,
India, Japan and South Korea.
• China alone plans a six-fold increase in nuclear
power capacity by 2020, and has more than one
hundred further large units proposed and
backed by political determination and popular
support.
Why is China pushing new nuclear?
• ‘‘blackouts rolled in and factory lights flickered; the grid
sucked dry by a decade of breakneck industrialization.
Oil and natural gas were running low’’.(Yi-Chong 2010 in
2002)
• China’s electricity consumption quadrupled between
1980 and 2000.
• Air pollution as a result of burning fossil fuels is
estimated to kill 750 000 people a year and economic
loss is put at 6% of GDP. Three coal-fired stations are
coming online each week in China.
• A recent study by BP suggests that ‘‘China can only
continue at current rates of production for 38 years
before its coal reserves are exhausted. That compares
with 245 years in the USA and 105 years in India’’.
However
Yet again…
Fukushima
Fukushima: Consequences
•
•
•
•
Germany will phase out its nuclear plants by
2020
Italy has imposed a one year moratorium on
the construction of nuclear power plants.
A small number content to proceed with new
build proposals such as Slovakia with China
announcing a pared back nuclear expansion
programme.
A report from UBS suggests that at the very
least around 30 nuclear plants may have to
close as a result of Fukushima, in particular
those in seismic zones or close to national
boundaries
Six Challenges to the Nuclear
Renaissance
1. Uranium: A Sustainable Energy
Source?
• Central to assessing to what extent the current
expansion of nuclear power is sustainable is an
assessment of the given the reserves of uranium.
• Known reserves of uranium are found in relatively stable
industrialised countries (Australia 23%), Kazakhstan
(15%), Russia (10%), Canada (8%), South Africa (8%)
the USA (6%).
• Current usage is about 68 000 tonnes of uranium per
year, with current resources of uranium estimated at
5.4Mt. At current rates of consumption this will last 80
years.
• The investment bank RBC Capital has recently said that
the uranium market has moved from oversupply to
undersupply in just a few months as China has begun to
purchase long-term supplies for new reactors.
2. Nuclear Power Economics
• Nuclear power plants are very expensive to build
relative to all other forms of electricity
production, with a Front-loaded cost structure
(high initial investment then relatively low
running cost)
• A recent MIT report argues that:
• ‘‘The track record for the construction costs of
nuclear plants completed in the USA during the
1980s and early 1990s was poor. Actual costs
were far higher than had been projected . . . The
first few US plants will be a critical test for all
parties involved’’.
Why would you want to
spend €3 billion on one
of these?
Why would you want to
spend €4 billion on one
of these?
Why would you want to
spend €5 billion on one
of these?
Why would you want to
spend €6 billion on one
of these?
The sequence of events…
•
•
•
•
•
•
2011 Decide to build a nuclear station
2014 Get permission to go ahead
2015 Start building the station
2020 Start selling electricity
2080 Stop selling electricity
2081 Start paying for the clean-up
Nuclear Power Economics II
• The last reactor to be built in the UK, Sizewell
B, cost £1.8 billion as opposed to a projected
£300 million, and the new EPR reactors being
built in Finland and France are both over time
and budget.
• However, in China new nuclear plants are being
built on time and on budget. Reported capital
costs are in the range of $1296 – $1790kW–1
“Levelised costs”
£/MWh
Nuclear
Gas CCGT
49.6
11.2
71.7
Fixed operating costs
9.1
3.7
14.6
Variable operating costs
1.8
2.3
Fuel
5.2
49.8
Capital Costs
Carbon
Decommissioning
Total cost
Onshore wind
29.6
2.1
11.2
67.8
96.5
86.3
Data from Mott Macdonald 2010 Report to DECC, 2017 “n of a kind”, 10% interest rate
3. Shortages in Skilled Labour and
Materials
• This includes a lack of skilled engineers,
as well as a backlog in orders for machine
parts and for reactors vessels.
• Labour shortages may impact upon
ambitious new build programmes.
• Only one facility in the world (Mitsubishi
Heavy Industries, Ltd) has the forging
capability to manufacture large reactor
vessels, which raises questions about the
ability of the firm to meet the increasing
global demand
4. Nuclear Safety
• During the fifty years that commercial
power plants have operated worldwide,
there have been three serious accidents.
• All the serious reactor incidents
(Windscale, Chernobyl, Fukushima)
involved human error.
• The safety record of existing nuclear
reactors has improved over time as safety
regulations have been upgraded.
Nuclear Safety II
• There is no nuclear plant design that is
totally risk free.
• A recent MIT study based on probabilistic
risk assessment (PRA), suggests one to
expect four core damage accidents up to
2050
• They concluded that this was an
unacceptably high number – it should be 1
or less, which is the current expected
safety level.
Nuclear Safety III
• The restructuring of electricity sectors
around the world has motivated some
operators to place profits before safety.
• Undue solicitude for profits of the licensee
has played a large role in explaining the
mishaps that have occurred at nuclear
power plants.
• Nuclear power is least safe in
environments where complacency and
pressure to maximize profits are the
greatest.
Nuclear Safety. Fukushima
•
In 2002, the company predicted that all of its seventeen plants
might have to be shut down for inspection and repairs, because of
falsified inspections and concealment of faults found in inspections
that the government ordered; some of the faults were potentially
catastrophic’.
•
As a result a top company official was charged with giving specific
orders to hide large cracks in the “shrouds,” or steel casings around
the reactor core, in two of the thirteen reactors at which false
inspection reports had been filed.
• The company ‘repeatedly missed safety checks over a 10-year
period up to two weeks before the 11 March disaster, and allowed
uranium fuel rods to pile up inside the 40-year-old facility.
• This exposes the problem of cost cutting initiated by the chief
executive, Masataka Shimizu, in that the company opted to save
money by storing the spent fuel on site rather than invest in safer
storage options
5. Nuclear Waste Disposal and
Decommissioning
Nuclear Plants
Nuclear Waste
• Radioactive waste is created at all points
in the nuclear fuel cycle:
– from uranium mining,
– fuel enrichment and
– discharges from plants, to the
– highly radioactive waste resulting from
reprocessing spent fuel and
– decommissioning contaminated sites.
Radioactive Wastes – the legacy that the UK must
manage
(UK material only, eventual projected volume at
approximately 2120)
Material
HLW
Packaged % Volume Activity
Volume
(TBq)
(m3)
1290
<0.3
39 million
ILW
353,000
% Activity
50
73.9
2.4 million 3
LLW (Non- 37,200
Drigg*)
Plutonium 3,270
(separated
)
Uranium
74,950
7.8
<100
<0.001
0.7
4 million
5
15.7
3,000
<0.01
Spent Fuel
1.7
33 million
42
8,150
*Low level waste that cannot be disposed of in the LLWR near Drigg
Nuclear Waste II
• The IAEA did not hold its first meeting on
decommissioning and permanent waste storage
until 1973 – 20 years after the first reactor was
built.
• Waste slowly emerged as nuclear power’s
‘‘Achilles’ Heel’’.
• Across a number of countries the failed attempt
to find a site for the geological storage of nuclear
waste initiated a period of reflection on the part
of the nuclear industry from latefr 1980’s on
UK Case Study. Explosion of Public
& Stakeholder Engagement
Initiatives
• Failure of top down technocratic model led
to many new initiatives
• The BNFL National Stakeholder Dialogue
in 1997 was seen as a model for how to
change relationships among stakeholders
for the better.
• Government created a new advisory
committee, CoRWM, in 2003.
CoRWM Recommendations
• Importance of CoRWM recommendations as an
integrated package, with three cornerstones:
–Geological disposal as end state for all major waste
streams
–Robust interim storage needed for 100 years or more
–Implementation to be based on community willingness
to participate, a partnership approach and improved
community well being
In addition, vital need for a continuing open and
transparent process
–
6. Proliferation
Nuclear Proliferation
• The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
(NPT) came into effect in 1968. It stated that those states
that already possessed nuclear weapons should not
transfer atomic weapons to ‘‘non nuclear weapons
states’’.
• The NPT is seen to have three pillars: (1) non
proliferation, (2) disarmament, and (3) the right to
peaceful nuclear technology.
• Mohamed El Baradei, Director General of the IAEA,
labels the enrichment and reprocessing capabilities of
countries the ‘‘Achilles’ heel’’ of the non-proliferation
regime, given that countries which possess such
technologies have a virtual weapons programme.
• This has led some to question the wisdom of a
worldwide nuclear renaissance !
Nuclear Proliferation II
• Countries which adopt the PUREX/MOX may neither
have the infrastructure or funds to control its spread.
• That said, there are real, though not insurmountable
challenges for ‘‘rogue states’’ once they have acquired
weapons grade material to actually develop nuclear
weapons
• One solution is for the USA and other nuclear supplier
group countries to lease fuel to countries with small
nuclear programmes.
• ‘‘The somewhat frayed non-proliferation regime will
require serious reexamination and strengthening to face
the challenge of the global growth scenario, recognizing
that fuel cycle associated proliferation would greatly
reduce the attraction of expanded nuclear power as an
option for addressing global energy and environmental
challenges’’. (MIT 2003)
Concluding Comments
Concluding Comments
• Nuclear power can be an important part of a green
energy mix for industrialised countries moving forward
• However, we have identified a range of economic,
technical and political challenges that limit the speed and
depth of any nuclear renaissance
• The speed and scale at which the ‘‘nuclear renaissance’’
will occur depends on whether new reactors can
demonstrate:
•
‘‘better economics, improved safety, successful
waste management, and low proliferation risk, and if
public policies place a significant value on electricity
production that does not produce CO2’’.
• Walls, J (2011) ‘Nuclear Power Generation
– Past, Present and Future’ in Hester, RE
and Harrison, R (eds) Nuclear Power and
the Environment. London: Royal Society of
Chemistry