Whatever the future holds for nuclear power in light of last year’s Japanese earthquake, the stubborn problem of how to dispose of the industry’s waste is unresolved
Changing political fortunes and proposed energy policies – particularly around nuclear power – are having a big impact on how businesses will power their activities over the next ten to 30 years. It is therefore paramount for senior executives to take a close interest in political parties’ energy policies to prepare their businesses for the potential outcomes.
Nuclear energy accounts for close to 14% of the world’s electricity production. One in five homes in the US is powered by nuclear energy (according to the Nuclear Energy Institute). But what percentage of households and companies worldwide will rely on nuclear power in the next five to ten years?
The International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) projects that nuclear power will account for a 13.5% to 14.6% share in electricity production in 2020, and 12.6% to 15.9% in 2030.
This prediction comes with the caveat that following the Fukushima disaster in Japan, trends will be less easy to predict, especially as most countries have ambitious renewable energy targets to add to the national energy mix.
According to the World Nuclear Association (WNA), more than 60 reactors are under construction in 14 countries, notably in China, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Russia.
Achilles’ heel
Nuclear energy as it stands today arguably has a compelling story to tell: it produces vast amounts of low carbon energy, which is easily and reliably distributed to the grid, and and it offers comparatively low-cost electricity, even compared with other established energy sources, such as coal, oil and gas-fired plants.Plus, the golden political ticket: new plants are creating hundreds of construction jobs in the US and UK economies.
Not surprisingly then, energy-hungry markets, such as the UK, US and China are among the most proactive in getting new nuclear reactor construction projects approved.
“Nuclear power’s contribution is vital, currently saving the UK more than 30m tonnes of CO2 a year,” says EDF Energy. EDF is perhaps the most pro-nuclear of the UK’s so-called big six power supply companies.The company tells Ethical Corporation: “It is the most affordable way of generating low-carbon electricity on a large scale, offering predictable supply from secure sources at a competitive cost, while producing less carbon emissions than many large-scale renewable sources.”
Nuclear can supply stable, consistent “base load” power – the minimum amount of power required to meet grid demands based on reasonable expectations of customer use.
Nuclear, however, is not an “on-demand” power source that can be quickly brought on stream when customer demand peaks.
The Achilles’ heel is nuclear power’s radioactive waste. Despite the total fuel costs of a nuclear power plant in the OECD being typically about a third of those for a coal-fired plant and between a quarter and a fifth of those for a gas combined-cycle plant, according to the WNA, the organisation also stresses: “In the assessment of the economics of nuclear power, allowances must be made for the management of radioactive used fuel and the ultimate disposal of this used fuel or the wastes separated from it.”
That’s the sticking point – “ultimate disposal” – since deep underground safe geological sites to store spent nuclear fuel are still not available.
US consumers of nuclear energy must pay a per-kilowatt-hour fee to the Department of Energy for it to manage used nuclear fuel, which is stored on-site at nuclear power plant facilities.
The nation’s nuclear-power consumers have contributed about $31bn to the Nuclear Waste Fund since 1983 – about $770m a year.
Finland and Sweden are currently the only two countries in the world that have selected sites for nuclear waste, and are planning to build repositories in the communities that already host nuclear power plants.
Waste management
There are several common misconceptions about the waste created during the lifecycle of nuclear power.“The largest amounts of radioactive waste arise in the mining, milling and processing of uranium, as well as in its enrichment and fabrication into fresh nuclear fuel,” explains Pete Roche, editor of the No2 Nuclear Power website and a nuclear waste consultant.
“It is important to look at the carbon emissions from uranium mining and processing and these are likely to increase as we may need to start using poorer and poorer quality ores if the global nuclear programme grows,” says Roche, who has been monitoring the nuclear energy industry for more than 30 years.
Roche believes it is important – on equity and sustainability grounds – to assess the environmental, radiological and other health impacts of the source of this uranium. He notes, for example, that the UK has not examined fully within any major forum the issues arising from uranium mining.
Deborah Ward, a spokeswoman for the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), sheds light on how and what is being reduced, reused and recycled. She says: “The bulk of low level nuclear waste, which includes paper, clothing and rubble, is compacted and sent to the UK’s national Low Level Waste disposal facility near the village of Drigg, west Cumbria, where it is encapsulated in cement and placed in a shallow underground vault. This type of waste accounts for 90% of nuclear waste, but only 1% of radioactivity.”
The NDA is responsible for the safe clean-up and decommissioning of the UK’s earliest nuclear facilities, some of which date back to the 1950s.
Historically, the UK’s approach has been to transport spent nuclear fuel to the UK’s Sellafield reprocessing plant, which is home to more than 200 nuclear facilities and is Europe’s largest, most complex nuclear site. As a result of reprocessing, 97% of spent fuel can be recycled, avoiding large quantities of high level waste that would require storage in an underground geological repository.
Reprocessing also means uranium can be reclaimed and re-used to make new fuel, Ward says. “Although there is a larger quantity of lower level waste, many people are surprised to learn that all of the high level fuel waste from all of the UK’s reactors produced to date could fit into two semi-detached houses,” EDF Energy says.
Roche paints a different picture, saying the volume of the underground facilities that are needed to accommodate waste would fill between six and 11 Albert Halls with a total underground footprint of between six and 25 square kilometres. “This would require an engineering project the size of the Channel Tunnel, creating vast amounts of spoil to be accommodated at the surface,” he says.
He notes that local authorities in Cumbria, for example, in the closing stages of a consultation about whether or not to start looking for a site for a deep nuclear waste dump in that area. That would follow the lead of Sweden, where waste is stored close to communities already living with nuclear facilities.
Nuclear transition
“Whilst there are many opinions on how to secure a low-carbon future, there’s one thing most experts agree on – that there isn’t one ‘miracle solution’,” EDF Energy says.
EDF’s view is that the answer is an energy mix – encompassing renewables, nuclear power and perhaps even fossil fuel plants fitted with carbon capture and storage technology. Until the nuclear industry comes up with a solution to eliminate nuclear waste, rather than just containing it, environmentalists, such as Mike Childs, head of climate change at Friends of the Earth in the UK, will urge the industry to find new waste management solutions, such as thorium reactors.
Thorium is a radioactive metal that can naturally break down its own hazardous waste and can consume the plutonium left by uranium reactors. Also, thorium fuel cannot melt down and does not produce reliable materials for use bombs. “Friends of the Earth does support research into thorium reactors,” Childs says.
He argues that thorium-based reactors offer a safe alternative to current technology and could be the viable focus for the nuclear industry.