Today a major week-long international
conference, on Climate Change and the Role of
Nuclear Power, opened at the Vienna International Centre in Austria's capital city, headquarters of the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN agency that promotes nuclear energy. (“IAEA opens conference on nuclear
power's role in tackling climate change,” Xinhua, 7 October 2019; http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-10/07/c_138453771.htm)
IAEA press releases proudly
announced that some 550 participants representing 79 countries and 18
international organizations are taking part
"It is difficult to see how the
goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions can be achieved without a significant
increase in the use of nuclear power in the coming decades," said Cornel
Feruta, Acting Director General of the (IAEA) in his opening remarks (“Statement at the International Conference on Climate Change and the
Role of Nuclear Power, https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/statements/statement-at-the-international-conference-on-climate-change-and-the-role-of-nuclear-power)
Feruta continued, observing: “Like all technologies, nuclear power brings benefits and risks. Nuclear power has a good overall safety record However, nuclear power is not always judged purely on the basis of scientific facts.”
A recent and comprehensive Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) of greenhouse gas emissions from differing power generation technologies by Mark Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, California - and director of its Atmosphere/Energy Program - have indicated that nuclear CO2 emissions are between 10 to 18 times greater than those from renewables. He is very qualified for such analysis, being also Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy, and at the Woods Institute for the Environment, where he has developed computer models to study the effects of fossil fuel and biomass burning on air pollution, weather, and climate.
“At present, nuclear
power provides 10% of the world’s electricity. But it accounts for one-third of
all low-carbon electricity generated today. That fact deserves to be better
known.The world will need to harness all low-carbon sources of
energy in order to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting the rise in global
temperatures to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
He then went on to prove his own assertion on facts, by
presenting as fact some demonstrably inaccurate opinion, stating: Nuclear power
plants produce practically no greenhouse gas emissions or air pollutants during
their operation. Emissions over their entire life cycle are very low.”
So much for another Feruta assertion: “We help countries to
make informed decisions by providing solid scientific data and analysis.”A recent and comprehensive Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) of greenhouse gas emissions from differing power generation technologies by Mark Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, California - and director of its Atmosphere/Energy Program - have indicated that nuclear CO2 emissions are between 10 to 18 times greater than those from renewables. He is very qualified for such analysis, being also Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy, and at the Woods Institute for the Environment, where he has developed computer models to study the effects of fossil fuel and biomass burning on air pollution, weather, and climate.
Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy
security† Energy & Environmental Science, 1 December 2008;
In a newly completed chapter by Professor Jacobson in
a forthcoming energy book, Evaluation of Nuclear Power as a Proposed
Solution to Global Warming, Air Pollution, and Energy Security, in 100% Clean, Renewable Energy and Storage
for Everything [Textbook
in Preparation] https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/WWSBook/WWSBook.html) he argues
cogently:
“There is no such thing as a zero-
or close-to-zero emission nuclear power plant. Even existing plants emit due to
the continuous mining and refining of uranium needed for the plant. However,
all plants also emit 4.4 g-CO2e/kWh from the water vapor and heat they release.
This contrasts with solar panels and wind turbines, which reduce heat or water
vapor fluxes to the air by about 2.2 g-CO2e/kWh for a net difference from this
factor alone of 6.6 g-CO2e/kWh.
“Overall,” he concludes, “emissions from new nuclear are 78 to178
g-CO2/kWH, not close to 0”
[See also, a
meta-study by Dr Benjamin K Sovacool, Professor of Energy Policy at the Science
Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the School of Business, Management, and
Economics, part of the University of Sussex, who serves as Director of the
Sussex Energy Group and Director of the Center on Innovation and Energy Demand
[which involves the University of Oxford and University of Manchester] “Valuing the greenhouse gas emissions from
nuclear power: A critical survey, Energy Policy, 36, 2940-2953,
2008. https://www.nirs.org/wp-content/uploads/climate/background/sovacool_nuclear_ghg.pdf)
He concludes the following: “This article screens 103 lifecycle studies
of greenhouse gas-equivalent emissions for nuclear power plants to identify a
subset of the most current, original, and transparent studies.
It begins by briefly detailing the
separate components of the nuclear fuel cycle before explaining the methodology
of the survey and exploring the variance of lifecycle estimates. It calculates
that while the range of emissions for nuclear energy over the lifetime of a
plant, reported from qualified studies examined, is from 1.4 g of carbon
dioxide equivalent per kWh (g CO2e/kWh) to 288 g CO2e/kWh, the mean value is 66
g CO2e/kWh. The article then explains some of the factors responsible for the
disparity in lifecycle estimates, in particular identifying errors in both the
lowest estimates (not comprehensive) and the highest estimates (failure to
consider co-products). It should be noted that nuclear power is not directly
emitting greenhouse gas emissions, but rather that lifecycle emissions occur
through plant construction, operation, uranium mining and milling, and plant decommissioning.”]
As it happens, two weeks ago, this year’s 320-page
independent World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR2019; www.worldnuclearreport.org/IMG/pdf/wnisr2019-lr.pdf)
was published in Budapest.
WNISR2019 provides a new focus chapter on the
question: is nuclear useful to combat climate change?.
Diana Ürge-Vorsatz, Professor at the Central European University and
Vice-Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group III, notes in her foreword to WNISR2019
that several IPCC scenarios that reach the 1.5°C
temperature target rely heavily on nuclear power, and that “these scenarios
raise the question whether the nuclear industry will actually be able to
deliver the magnitude of new power that is required in these scenarios in a
cost-effective and timely manner.
The report records (with multiple primary references) that “Over the past
decade, ‘levelized’ cost estimates for utility-scale solar dropped by 88%, wind
by 69%, while nuclear increased by
23%.
It also demonstrates using up-to-date sources that “new solar plants can
compete with existing coal fired plants in India, wind turbines alone generate
more electricity than nuclear reactors in India and China. But new nuclear
plants are also much slower to build than all other options, e.g. the nine
reactors started up in 2018 took an average of 10.9 years to be completed. In
other words, nuclear power is an option that is more expensive and slower to
implement than alternatives and therefore is not effective in the effort to
battle the climate emergency, rather it is counterproductive, as the funds are
then not available for more effective options.”
The bottom line outcome of the analyses is that even the
extended operation of existing reactors is not climate effective as operating
costs exceed the costs of competing energy efficiency and new renewable energy
options and therefore durably block their implementation.
The main author of the report, Paris-based international
energy consultant, Mycle Schneider, concluded: “You can spend a dollar, a euro,
a pound or a ruble only once: the
climate emergency requires that investment decisions must favor the cheapest
and fastest response strategies. The nuclear power option has consistently
turned out the most expensive, and the slowest.”
On the afternoon of 7 October, Mycle Schneider presented
the key findings of the WNISR 2019 to a parallel conference on Climate Crisis - Why
nuclear is not helping (https://www.global2000.at/events/conference-climate-crisis)
held close to the IAEA conference in Vienna.
Schneider spoke along with and the author of the WNISR special chapter on
Nuclear Power and Climate Change, Amory Lovins, scientific director and founder of the Rocky
Mountian Institute (RMI), who spoke via a
video conference link.
Meanwhile ministers on the European Council in Brussels – a day after the
WNISR was launched - decided not to exclude nuclear
projects from a sustainable finance classification scheme, despite opposition
from Germany, Austria, Luxembourg and the European Parliament. (“Council maintains
nuclear as eligible for ‘green’ finance, EURACTIV.com, 25 September 2019; www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/council-maintains-nuclear-as-eligible-for-green-finance/)
This
decision came as the EU’s 28 member states adopted a joint position on the new
rules to clarify what represents sustainable finance.
In May last
year the Commission proposed setting up an EU classification system, or
taxonomy, that will help to identify what economic activities are considered as
environmentally sustainable.
EURACTIV reported that Germany, Luxembourg and Austria
were also in favour of adopting the taxonomy “as quickly as possible”. But they
wanted to exclude nuclear-related projects from the outset.
“We have
strong concerns that the proposed framework would leave the door open to
diverting financial resources away from environmentally sustainable activities
and into technologies that cannot be considered either safe or sustainable,”
the countries said in a joint statement.“ Nuclear energy is nor safe and
sustainable nor cost-effective,” said German State Secretary for Energy,
Andreas Feicht, during the Energy Council meeting “So we reject the idea of EU money to
extend the life of nuclear power stations”, he added.
Green MEP
Sven Giegold also told EURACTIV.com that the Council’s position is a
“disaster”. “It will create a mess and a lot of bad press in Germany. Nobody
will want to invest in green finance”, he said, referring to the inclusion of
nuclear energy.
In his view,
the Council position showed the poor state of the Franco-German relationship,
as both countries would have agreed on a common position in the past.
“It is the
result of the escalation of the conflict of past years”, he said.
A Commission
spokeswoman told EURACTIV that nuclear energy “should be evaluated on a
scientific basis. In this regard, the technical expert group on sustainable
finance recognised last June that
nuclear energy “makes a substantial contribution to mitigation objectives but
that more evidence and analysis were needed,” the spokeswoman added.
The
Council’s position also said that the taxonomy should be established by the end
of 2021, in order to be fully implemented by the end of 2022.
| The nuclear industry press reported developments with a positive spin. NucNet said: The European Council has decided to maintain the principle of technological neutrality in its proposal on the EU sustainable finance initiative, despite calls from Austria, Germany, Greece, and Luxembourg to explicitly exclude nuclear from the classification scheme for investment in sustainable energy projects across the bloc.” (https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-12360-2019-REV-2/en/pdf)
It added that the Brussels-based nuclear industry trade association Foratom had welcomed the Council’s decision to remain technology neutral in its approach to sustainable projects and said the initiative” should not aim to exclude a particular technology without providing a valid justification.”
Foratom said that in order to identify whether an energy source is sustainable or not, it is important to evaluate each source equally on the basis of objective criteria – including CO2 emissions, air pollution, raw material consumption and land use impacts – and using a whole life-cycle approach.
If Foratom really wants to use those criteria to make comparisons, nuclear will certainly fail against renewables.
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BACKSTORY
Final Report on Climate Benchmarks and
Benchmarks’ ESG Disclosures
OVERVIEW
1.
What is the task of the TEG?
On
25 February 2019, co-legislators agreed to amend Regulation (EU) 2016/1011,
introducing two types of climate benchmarks (‘EU Climate Transition’ and ‘EU Paris-aligned’
benchmarks), also requiring ESG disclosures for all benchmarks (excluding
interest rate and currency benchmarks). In that context, the TEG received a
mandate to suggest minimum technical requirements for the methodology of both
climate benchmarks and recommendations on ESG disclosures, including
associated disclosure templates.
2.
What are the TEG’s main recommendations/key conclusions?
Key
features of climate benchmarks.
Several
criteria have to be met to qualify as an EU Climate Transition Benchmark (EU
CTB) or an EU Paris-Aligned Benchmark (EU PAB):
Climate benchmarks must demonstrate a significant decrease in overall GHG
emissions intensity compared to their underlying investment universes or
parent indices. This assessment must gradually integrate Scope 3 emissions
during a four-year period for sectors where the impact on climate change is
significant but located outside of direct operational boundaries (such as Oil
& Gas and transport). This minimum relative decarbonization is set at 30%
for EU CTBs and 50% for EU PABs.
Climate benchmarks must be sufficiently exposed to sectors relevant to the
fight against climate change. In other words, decarbonization cannot happen
through a shift in the allocation from sectors with high potential impact on
climate change and its mitigation (e.g. energy, transport, manufacturing) to
sectors with inherently limited impact (e.g. health care, media). The
exposure to ‘high impact sectors’ must therefore be at least the exposure of
the underlying investable universe.
Climate benchmarks must demonstrate their ability to reduce their own GHG
emissions intensity on an annual basis. This minimum ‘self-decarbonization’
rate has been set in accordance with the global decarbonization trajectory
implied by IPCC’s most ambitious scenario - 1.5°C with no or limited
overshoot (see fig. 1) – to at least 7% GHG intensity reduction on average
per annum.
EU CTBs and EU PABs should exclude companies involved in controversial
weapons (selling, manufacturing, etc.), companies having been found in
violations of global norms (i.e. UN Global Compact principles, OECD
Guidelines) or in controversies arising from significant harm of at least one
of the 6 environmental objectives.
EU PABs shall further exclude companies that:
o
derive 1% or more of their revenues from coal exploration or processing
activities,
o derive 10% or more of their revenues from oil exploration
or processing activities,
o derive 50% or more of their revenues from natural gas
exploration or processing activities or
o
derive 50% or more of their revenues come from electricity generation with a
lifecycle GHG intensity higher than 100 gCO2e/kWh.
Finally, the TEG recommends the ‘green to brown share ratio’, where
calculated by benchmark administrators and on a voluntary basis, to be at
least equal for EU CTBs and multiplied by at least 4 for EU PABs.
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