I first heard about Sweden changing tack on nuclear energy on Deutsche Welle (via Newsradio) in the context of the implications for Germany. I find what goes on in European politics a bit of a jungle, so I thought I’d try to clarify, with your help, what the situation really is.
The summary is that the Swedes have not yet made a formal decision on the matter, but are moving to re-instate nuclear as an essential part of their energy future. They see this as necessary towards their aim of reducing emissions to zero by 2050. But that may not stick, depending on who wins the next election.
The Germans aim to reduce emissions by 40% by 2020, and have just now come up with a surprising strategy on how to get there. It involves keeping their present policy of phasing out nukes, but does not leave them well placed to make to further cuts which will be necessary after 2020.
I found a couple of useful articles including this one in The Australian and this one in Der Spiegel.
Sweden is governed by the centre right coalition Alliance for Sweden comprising four parties, the Moderate Party, the Centre Party, the Liberal People’s Party and the Christian Democrats. They hold 178 seats as against the Red–green Bloc (Social Democrats, Left Party, Green Party) with 171 seats.
The Centre Party with 29 seats disagrees with the new policy but will fall in line in the interest of solidarity.
So formally they have the numbers, hence the current law to phase out nuclear power by 2010 will presumably be rescinded when put to the vote on 17 March. Presently they get about half their energy from nuclear. By retaining nuclear they now see themselves being able to reduce emissions by 40% relative to 1990 levels by 2020.
But whether the new policy will stick is another matter. Nukes will be an issue in the next election in September 2010 with the Red-Green Bloc opposing the retention of nuclear. What happens then may be influenced by an accident at a nuclear plant should there be one.
Nevertheless no new nukes are being actively planned and it is likely that none will be built before 2020.
The Germans came late to their nuclear phase-out policy instituting it in 2000 by the so-called red-green coalition. All nukes are to go by 2020, but fully 7 of the 17 are to be shut down by 2012. Where they are at with energy for electricity production can be readily seen in this graphic from Der Spiegel:
While renewable energy currently accounts for about 14% of electricity production, they are planning to phase out the 26% supplied by nukes and build almost an equivalent amount of new coal-fired capacity.
While there is no doubt that Germany has tried hard on renewables the most striking feature of this graphic is the reliance on coal, much of it brown, and the plan to build 26 more coal-fired power stations. Traditionally politicians of both sides have actively promoted coal. The Social Democrats are concerned about jobs for union members and CDU Chancellor Angela Merkel represents brown coal interests in the East.
Moreover there is no legal basis for preventing power utilities from building coal-fired power stations.
By German law, the authorities normally have no choice but to authorize the construction of any new power plant that meets the legally prescribed standards. It would only be possible to change this procedure quickly if the governing coalition were to change the law at the federal level.
This situation looks contradictory, to say the least, but late last week came news that they have cut the Gordian knot with a plan to go greener by 2020.
In short they are going to reduce demand by 11% through energy efficiency measures, coal will reduce from a 45% share to 40%, renewables will increase from 14% to 30% and gas will provide the rest, increasing from11.6% to 30%.
It is not clear how they are going to limit coal because, as indicated above, governments have no power to do so unless federal legislation changes.
Furthermore the increase in renewables is unlikely to reduce CO2 emissions by a single gram. It turns out that the European emissions trading system has the same paradoxical effect as ours. Renewables just make permits cheaper, which can then be taken up by other polluters, which in Germany’s case may be coal-fired power stations in eastern Europe.
Moreover, the strategy of increasing the reliance on gas can’t be wise. As can be clearly seen from this article in the NY Review of Books (highly recommended as a ‘must read’) ‘guided democracy’ is the go with the oligarchs fully in control and a new assertiveness in foreign policy. Russia is already the principal supplier of gas to Germany and Germans should expect that the Russians will charge whatever the market will bear.
Also if we want our grandchildren to live in a half decent world, I think we need to de-carbonise electricity grids by about 2030 and then go negative on emissions growth from 2030 to 2050, that is, reduce atmospheric CO2 from 450 ppm plus, or whatever it is then, and head for 280. I’m not sure that can be undertaken without nukes.
In Germany there is cross-party concern about coal and attitudes to nuclear, once solid across the board, seem to be changing. Support for the present anti-nuke policy reduced from 58% to 51% between December 2007 and July 2008.
Late last year Der Spiegel did an interesting article on Phasing out the Phase-out. It seems that Merkel agreed not to touch the phase-out policy in the current “Grand Coalition” with the Social Democrats. Yet attitudes within the Christian Democrats may be changing and there is the possibility of forming a coalition with the right-wing Free Democrats after the next elections.
The next elections are in September 2009. You can check out the state of the parties here.
The CDU/CSU plus the Free Democrats need only a further 21 seats to govern in a right of centre coalition. The SPD and the Greens need 35 on the left. From this distance it would not surprise if the untouchable Left Party (they are too far left for the centre-left Social Democrats to stomach in coalition) made further gains at the expense of the Greens and the SPD. So the likeliest result seems to be a CDU/CSU/Free Democrats coalition or a continuation of the current CDU/CSU/SPD grand coalition.
I fancy only a right of centre government would change the policy in favour of nukes, although a left of centre government may stretch as far as delaying the phase-out. I understand that no major party is likely to run hard on nukes as an election issue.
So Germany will no doubt muddle along, retaining coal but promoting renewables with doubtful benefit to the climate. In promoting gas they are ramping up an industry that is bound to bring them geopolitical grief. Also gas while cleaner than coal is unsustainable in the longer term.
Nuclear does seem to be experiencing a resurgence across the world. This graphic from Der Spiegel shows 117 nuclear power stations either being planned or being built in the world:
In the past two days I’ve heard or read about 43 times the news from Chris Field, Stanford scientist and lead IPCC author, that climate change is likely to be more devastating than experts predicted. It’s good to know that someone from the IPCC has finally put their head out the window. So what are they going to do now? Wait until 2013 and then do another report?
About two years ago, even as the 4th IPCC report was being issued, Cannadel and others from the Global Carbo Project (pdf – slide 6) gave us this graphic showing emissions running well above the IPCC’s worst scenarios:
Last year we were told that China’s emissions were growing by 10% each year and would treble by 2030.
Field said that from 2000 to 2007 emissions grew by 3.5% per annum. That would see emissions doubling in 20 years. I understand that 70% of the emissions growth is coming from developing countries, which will be unconstrained by the post-Kyoto deal in Copenhagen in December this year.
Fred Pearce points out that many developing countries have higher per capita emissions than developed countries. Malaysia vs Britain for example.
All countries need to be heading for zero emissions. If we need nuclear to get there, then so be it.
Meanwhile the Germans should get a grip. The situation is serious.
Brian – thanks for that – very interesting – a couple of important quibble though is your interpretation of the recent emissions data. The rapid growth in global emissions was due to the strength of the global business cycle – and particularly rapid growth in carbon intenstive economies like China – you can see the business cycle pretty clearly in that chart – the recent collapse in global industrial production will mean that emissions will almost certainly fall significantly in 2008, 2009 and 2010 – which is the key reason why EUA prices have fallen so much in recent months. The upshot of that is that the trajectory of global emissions will almost certainly be below the red line by 2010.
Also, I don’t know why you say that renewable policies have the paradoxical effect of depressing carbon prices in the ETS itself – that is pretty much what governments intend and is not surprising at all – the EU has set an overall emissions target (about half of which is covered by the ETS) – they have decided to set a 20% renewable target and a 20% energy saving target as well – but they aren’t additional – the EC sees them as complementary. The more interesting point is that the 20% renewable target will reduce the price of EUAs, but raise the overall cost of abatement in the short-term (to achieve the 20% energy target will probably require a 35% share of renewables in electricity generation).
“a 35% share of renewables in electricity generation” … that’s a awful lot of 1 kw suburban PV panels. Shame we don’t have any businesses making them here anymore.
No, as a significant generator of renewable energy, that program is only marginally part of the solution. But it pulls a $2+-for-$1 rebate. If I cough ~$3k, the gov’t ATM matches it with $~8k, say $10k total and the nation gets 1 kw production capacity on my suburban roof where quite often there are clouds and even sometimes rain.
If on the other hand I could deem my $3K to help finance a utility scale facility in a high insolation environment, where there’s 2000 hrs blazing sun/yr,…,
(like Ausra solar thermal ones which use non-rocket-science auto-assembly-industry type skills and technologiess, redeployed in a green collar industry/business)
… and it still attract a rebate, ( the point of which is to facilitate getting to that renew-energy mandate, non?), then we’d be have a way better renewable-to-grid bang for buck proposition? A 5 MW plant cost $15mill in california, so a 250MW plant (like the qld greens have as policy,) would be ~750 mill, and @ 44c/kwh feed in tariff (that both them and lnp propose) 2000 hrs of sun on a 250,000 kw plant produces ~$200 mill of green kwhs. IE after 5 years the facility’s in the black, or green, the sort of business proposition superannuation funds should be interested in, especially with the known quantity of the mandated renewable energy over forseeable future which needs to be provided by someone.
So how about we all be allowed to divert some super, it attract govt/employer contribution/rebate, and we use that sort of scheme to financially engineer that 35% renewable energy productive capacity, clearly a public good? Hell the future fund could kick in.
I’m missing something aren’t I? Can super funds already invest in greenpowergenerator companies, say windfarms? You know any fund names doing it?
Thanks for such a thoughtful and thoroughly referenced post.
Labor Outsider raises an interesting point regarding the business cycle. If one downloads the NOAA data from Mauna Loa the atmospheric Carbon Dioxide concentration from 1958 to today can be mined for evidence of this effect.
If it is there, I don’t see it. For example, from 1970 to 1980 (energy crisis) atmospheric concentrations climbed by 13 ppm. The ‘big 80s’ that followed saw an increase of 15 ppm – ditto for the 1990s. Since the year 2000, the concentration has already increased by 17 ppm. Considering the increase in the 1960s was only about 9 ppm – I’d say any link to the global business cycle is weak at best. Perhaps it accelerated the trend a bit, but based on the history, I don’t expect to see a significant dip over the coming months.
Even from a first principles perspective; as demand decreases in times of economic stress, wouldn’t a utility shut down plants operating on expensive fuels (gas) in lieu of a cheaper alternative (coal)?
danny, they are aiming at 30% renewables, not 35%. I understand that the bulk of this is and will be in wind farms rather than solar on your roof. Although they are certainly keen on that too.
LO on the paradoxical effects of their renewables, see this article. My two sentence summary may not have been the best.
On the emissions trend, I heard Field about 43 times say that we were in a different paradigm than envisaged by the IPCC. That having been said, you can’t keep doubling emissions every 20 years for a century, as it would for a consistent 3.5% pa. That would give you 32 times 2000 emissions by 2100. Just not going to happen. So some slowing of the trend is certain. In a recent talk Hansen assumed an average 1% pa increase over the next century, which he saw as a disaster.
My money is on the trend over the next 5 years staying above the red line, however.
On second thoughts, the red line at 2.4% over 50 years, as indicated on the graph, may not happen either. That would give a doubling every 30 years. But it would be an unmitigated disaster.
An ETS is designed specifically to create the effect the article complains about. It’s not an unwanted side effect, it’s the whole point of the ETS. Which is why some of us in Australia are so keen to be able to buy or create and exhaust certificates. If I buy a certificate but don’t use it, that’s a tonne of carbon that doesn’t get emitted. Unless, as threatened, the government adjusts the system to take account of actual emissions compared to ETS-expected emissions, in which case I’ve just had property confiscated by the govt without compensation (this is bad).
The problems around Australia refusing to consider solar power as a major source for the grid serious, but currently intractable. Rudd doesn’t have the backbone to stare down the unholy coalition behind coal power and shows little interest in even planning for alternatives. Now would be an excellent time, for instance, to start upgrading the grid to allow a different distribution of generation (and for changes in population distribution). Labour is cheaper than usual, materials are cheap (looked at the price of copper recently?)
One interesting plan would be to identify areas with good solar input that are close to major power users and buy land there, then build a grid link to it. While that is happening call for tenders to build one or more trial plants to generate 200-500MW with a guarantee that you’ll pay a certain amount for the power and land will be available for the full plant if the trial succeeds – and full scale here means more than 5GW. Especially funny would be if the site was in the WA coalfields because of the combination of huge power usage (aluminium smelters) and good insolation. But realistically, Broken Hill or somewhere makes more sense.
moz, I usually leave discussions of emissions trading schemes to others.
If you missed it, you may be interested in Worley Parsons’ plan to build 34 solar power plants by 2020 worth $34 billion.
The European’s policy will be interesting to watch over the next twelve months – as everywhere else going through the GFC, elections could produce some swings away from current ruling alliances.
Germany has always faced a difficult policy balance between its coal industry and its European trading partners (most of the 20th C), and the strong political success of Die Grune since the 1970s. Change in the external policy balance affects the internal policy balance and vice versa. On the whole, I would expect clearer direction on climate change from the Scandinavians as well as the Dutch and the Danes before we start getting it from Germany. How the EU can tie this together to get some kind of regional front or result from the Copenhagen negotiations is anybody’s guess.
Brian, I saw the articles and like so many here even have shares in some of the companies mentioned. I still would like government action, and explicitly so. Just so we can talk about who pays for which bits, and how that compares to the costs faced by other players in the market.
Ed and Brian – there is a clear upward trend in the data – I wasn’t disputing that – but if you look at the data since 1990 you can clearly see that the growth rate of emissions increases during the upswing in the buisiness cycle and slows during the downswing. Energy consumption is falling in a large number of countries right now – which makes sense because if production is falling, you reduce the use of all of your inputs, including energy. The growth rate of emissions will definitely slow over the next few year and emissions may fall temporarily. My main point was just to say that you have to be careful about getting too caught up in the rate of emissions growth between 1993 and 2008 – it was basically the strongest sustained period of global growth in history – and much of it was powered by growth in a set of countries that are highly carbon intensive. Projections of future emissions growth are always fraught because they are extraordinarily difficult to forecast – you have to factor in technological developments, population projections, economic growth projections, the distribution of that growth, etc. I think the key point is that under BAU, emissions will grow rapidly over the coming decades – which, from an environmental (and thus human) standpoint is likely to be disasterous.
Hey guys, reality check, as we speak our dirtiest of dirtiest uranium mine is expanding like Beverley, outside of any EIS.
This is the biggest uranium mine in the world, so lets get with the program and ask a simple question:
Why is the water man not questioning this? Nick Xenophon…the water in the leach heaps is confirmed as 2 million years old and is estimated at 1/4 of the recharge volume of the Great Artesian Basin.
Lets get local for a minute, it sure connects to the o/s issues:
http://news.rosettamoon.com/?p=228
Rosettamoon: how much uranium do you think water in the Great Artesian Basin passes through on its million-year journey from the Great Divide?
Not much, not my area of expertise…google..’Gavin Mudd’ he is the legendary hydrologist that has provide basic facts re the absurd risks of heap leaching (Roxby) and in-situ leaching (Beverley)…these deposits are where they are and should not be disturbed and this is recorded in aboriginal story and lore (beverley – Akurra) so despite the horrendous hardships indigenous Australians have faced for the last blimp in time of 2 centuries, we at least know some of the wisdom encoded in story via the last of the initiates – the last in the area of Beverley died in 2003 – these were remarkable medicine men that drew wisdom from ceremony and the environment and expressed it into story – much of it now crumbling on account of mining – ie the writing was on the wall.
The waters as filtered in this journey through the remnant low lands of previous epoch (in-land seas) is referred to as plutonic and it is ancient and filtered through the geology of the land – so perverse for it to pumped up to service such a dead end industry as the nuclear cycle – but such is the stupidity and corruption of successive Labor and Liberal governments and the ease by which they have been infilitrated by global interests, illustrative of the weakness of our democracy and the need for something a little stronger than our present constitution, which gives this part of Gaia a stomach ache, something perhaps which protects human rights is the same very thing which looks after traditional owners and the environment – a good reason for white lazy Australia to wake up to the plight of the NT communities under siege of Intervention and the Kokatha and Adnyamathana who fight strongly the denial of their story which fails to reach everyday Australians on account of the pre-invested media – but when the shit hits the fan..as it will…people will see our smiley faced Rudd as not that much different to despotic military day leaders who trumpled upon human rights behind such media and the ‘perfect’ unfavourable economic conditions which seem to accompany such bogus politicians trumpetting their theme.
robert,
uranium only becomes radioactive and hence posionous and dangerous when it is mined and processed. before that it is fine, as it exists as one element in a host of others and not a stand alone element.
the issue with beverly expansion is that it’s isl and that it entails pumping acid into the underground acquifer to encourage the uranium to rise to the surface so it can be mined easy. the eis has garrett passed it means that the water acquifer does not have to be rehabilitated back to what it was before the ISL took place. The sad and frustrating thing is that the American company, Heathgate, that runs Beverly wouldn’t be able to do this mining process in America because it does not mean their EIS standards. Here in Australia because it’s cheaper and therfore more appealing to companies the SA and Fed governments are willing to destroy these acquifers for few bucks.
s
Scott: That’s not quite right.
Uranium is naturally radioactive. Both naturally-present isotopes – U-235 and U-238, decay over geological time, through a “radioactive decay chain” and ultimately into lead. The u-238 and u-235 decay chain are here.
However, uranium is not very naturally radioactive, even as a pure metal. Its chemical toxicity is probably a bigger risk than its radioactivity (in the same way lead is poisonous, though it’s not at all radioactive).
As for the in-situ leaching, the question for me are:
a) how long will it take for the pH of the acquifer to return to its natural state,
b) where does that water go, and what animal and plant communities, or human usage are or will be affected?
scott or rosettamoon, it would be helpful if you could tell us where the Beverly uranium mine is. Olympic Dam appears to be on the extreme southern edge of the Great Artesian Basin, the opposite side to the collection zone. So pollution of the aquifers would be running against the flow, as it were.
You can see how this works on Figure 12 of this document.
I’d also be interested in whether the EIS for the Olympic Dam has hit the deck yet. I believe it was due last December.
Last year I started a post on BHP Billiton and the Olympic Dam expansion. I know nix about artesian hydrology and roughly the same about Aboriginal heritage issues. My post was to be about greenhouse issues, of which there are a few. It did strike me that the tailings dam was particularly ugly and would be umpteen times uglier with the expansion.
Anyway I might see whether I can finish it off and post it in the next few days.
“Beverly wouldn’t be able to do this mining process in America because it does not mean their EIS standards”. That’s good enough for me, they should be told to piss off, we’re gonna take the chance of erring on the side of caution.
But you know, South Australia, not a lot going for it, bills to pay, what can you do? The locals don’t give a toss about Adelaide eastern burbs types sinking bores en masse, they let them go open slather on the metropolitan aquifer water, just to keep their lawns green. Result: the metropolitan river is unable to replenish from groundwater like it used to, as we are seeing now they have completely f’d up and the big bathtub has been accidentally drained to expose a stinking toxic junk filled mudpit where there used to be paddle boats and monet scenes. There’s just no refilling happening from what used to be underground springs, they’re left to pray for rain.
If that mullarkey is allowed to go on in their civic pride backyard, what chance the state gov’t will give a rat’s about what goes on in the god-forsaken backblocks, while there might be a bit of a royalties quid and some seats on the board in it? And if the labor state gov’t don’t care, what chance Garrett will?
MUST READ THIS:
http://www.withouthotair.com/
It is a book by David MacKay, a professor of Natural Philosophy at Cambridge. It is a thrilling lucid (and very depressing) look at what it would take to achieve a zero-carbon emissions Britain. It can be downloaded free of charge.
He goes to some trouble to keep all calculations understandable and in a human frame of reference. Robert Merkel would love it. Speaking of which, he says readers in other parts of the world can use his back of the envelope numbers to do similar calculations for their countries. Robert, are you up for it?
GO AND DOWNLOAD THIS NOW. This is not spam. You won’t be able to put it down. Honest.
I’ve had a look at the synopsis, and it looks pretty good.
frog @ 8, Angela Merkel was president of the EU when they concluded their climate change goals, from memory early in 2007. At the time the Stern Review was influential, which is why their goals are a bit on the modest side. She was also chair of the G8 in the same year and was instrumental in stopping George Bush from wrecking the whole thing and at least keeping him at the table.
From memory the EU are aiming at a 20% reduction by 2020. Germany is adopting 40% in order to allow some of the lesser developed countries within the EU to actually increase their emissions.
They managed to hold the line recently when there was a move I think from Italy and Poland and possibly others to jettison the deal because of the economic troubles.
The point I would make is that what the Germans do is of great significance within Europe and of considerable significance in world terms.
Re: Without hot air
Not only very well argued and all that, but quite amusing too:
Basically he comes to the conclusion that Britain is too small and densely populated to generate enough renewable energy for itself. The situation for Australia is the reverse. We are enormous, sparsely populated and endowed with fantastic renewable resources (solar, geothermal, wind, wave) which would mostly be located in areas that are not currently heavily utilised.
Made me think that the DESRTEC mob (http://www.desertec-australia.org/) were on to something.
The other night Phillip Adams had a discussion with Christopher Field and Pep Canadell, Executive Director of the Global Carbon Project. These were the bits that I found interesting.
A new feature of emissions this century was an increase in the carbon intensity of the economy, a break from a consistent trend the other way. In other words, new power production capacity being installed is less efficient and dirtier than it had been. So an increase of 2.5% in world GDP produced a greater than 2.5% increase in emissions. 2009 GDP growth is projected as 0.5%, so if that’s what it turns out to be the increase will slow.
Methane from the tundras is a huge concern. It is calculated that the carbon therein is about three times the total amount put into the air since the beginning of industrialisation.
They talked about the problem of the conservatism of the IPCC. The next assessment report in not due until 2014. Apparently there are plans to produce yearly updates, if I heard right.