Nuclear is Risen!

ICYMI because of the launch of Biden's $2tr Infrastructure Plan, the other big news this week was the JRC report on nuclear power which gave it the green light under Do No Significant Harm, clearing it for inclusion in the EU Sustainable Finance Taxonomy.

It's not that nuclear power is a climate silver bullet, as silly ecomodernist bros endlessly and boringly claim. In fact, the current generation of nuclear plants has been tested pretty much to economic disruption, as I wrote in this piece in July 2019.

The point is that nuclear power is still the largest single producer of near zero-carbon electricity in the EU, responsible for over 25% of all power. At the very least, prolonging the life of existing, safe nuclear plants must be considered a sustainable activity.

However, the technical group behind the EU Sustainable Finance Taxonomy bottled it: the Germans, Austrians and Italians blocked nuclear from inclusion, the excuse being it would fail the Do No Significant Harm test. It was left to the Joint Research Centre to fill in the details.

A number of us put up a spirited defence of nuclear power's inclusion in the Taxonomy, led by Kirsty Gogan, Staffan Qvist, Eric Ingersoll, James Hansen, Brice Lalonde, Eric Meyer and countless others (put their names in the comments and I'll add them in an update) - see for instance this letter to the FT. ( Note: I don't normally put my name to lobbying, but the science is so clear on this one that it didn't breach my self-imposed rules).

So this week, the JRC unexpectedly ruled in favour of its inclusion - showing that persistence, allied with logic and data (and no doubt a lot of pressure from France, Poland and the other nuclear or would-be nuclear EU nations) pays off!

The JRC found as follows:

• "The analyses did not reveal any science-based evidence that nuclear energy does more harm to human health or to the environment than other electricity production technologies already included in the Taxonomy as activities supporting climate change mitigation."
• "Comparison of impacts of various electricity generation technologies on human health and the environment, based on recent Life Cycle Analyses, shows that impacts of nuclear energy are mostly comparable with hydropower and renewables, with regard to non-radiological effects."
• "With regard to potential radiological impacts on the environment and human health, analyses demonstrate that appropriate measures to prevent occurrence of potentially harmful impacts or mitigate their consequences can be implemented using existing technology at reasonable costs."
• "There is broad scientific and technical consensus that disposal of high-level, long-lived radioactive waste in deep geologic formations is, at the state of today’s knowledge, considered an appropriate and safe means of isolating it from the biosphere for very long time scales."
• "Provided that all industrial activities in the nuclear fuel cycle comply with regulatory frameworks and related Technical Screening Criteria, measures to control and prevent potentially harmful impacts on human health and the environment are in place to ensure very low impact."
• "Nuclear energy has very low NOx (nitrous oxides), SO2 (sulphur dioxide), PM (particulate matter) and NMVOC (non-methane volatile organic compounds) emissions. The values are comparable to or better than the corresponding emissions from the solar PV and wind energy chains."
• With regard to acidification, eutrophication, water eco-toxicity, ozone depletion and photochemical oxidants, JRC found nuclear energy comparable to or better than solar PV and wind. "Land occupation of nuclear energy generation is significantly smaller than wind or solar PV."
• Where the JRC urged caution was over the need to manage thermal pollution of freshwater bodies and water consumption: "very low for once-through cooling, using recirculation cooling, but evaporative cooling towers or pond cooling usually consume a significant amount of water."
• On ionising radiation: "The average annual exposure to a member of the public, due to effects attributable to nuclear energy based electricity production is about 0.2 mSv, ten thousand times less than the average annual dose due to natural background radiation."
• This is pretty clear: "According to Life Cycle Impact Analysis studies analysed, the total impact on human health of both the radiological and non-radiological emissions from the nuclear energy chain are comparable with the human health impact from offshore wind energy."
• On accident risk, current Western Gen II nuclear plants have a fatality rate much smaller than that of any form of fossil fuel-based electricity technology, "comparable with hydropower in OECD countries and wind power (only solar power has significantly lower fatality rate)."
• After Chernobyl, international and national efforts focused on plant designs that meet enhanced requirements for severe accident prevention and mitigation. "Fatality rates characterizing state-of-the art Gen III NPPs are the lowest of all electricity generation technologies."

Overall, the JRC report is a stunning rebuttal of the arguments brought by anti-nuclear headbangers for the past thirty years, especially sleazy ones like former Swiss MP and university lecturer Rudolph Rechsteiner, who use their position of influence to promote the lie that Chernobyl caused a million deaths in order to frighten kids.

So, what should happen next, following the JRC report? First of all, nuclear power must of course be included in the EU Sustainable Finance Taxonomy. In addition, however Belgium, Germany, Spain and Switzerland - which have legislated for early nuclear phase-outs - must put a moratorium on any pending early nuclear shut-downs, now that we can see that these are little short of climate crimes, which the JRC report shows have no basis in science.

Now, please note: NONE OF THIS is an argument that building new nuclear plants makes economic sense. That is up to investors and policy-makers to decide. If you don't like nuclear power, that's fine. You can try to outcompete it, you can campaign against it, whatever, What you can't do is pretend that nuclear power cannot safely produce large volumes of low-carbon power.

And finally, I really do suggest you read the JRC report. It is a historic document, released during a historic week in a historic year.

Happy Easter, Nuclear is Risen!