Position Paper Nuclear Energy and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Avoidance in the EU The European Atomic Forum (FORATOM) is the Brussels-based trade association for the nuclear energy industry in Europe. The membership of FORATOM is made up of 16 national nuclear associations. Through these associations, FORATOM represents nearly 800 European companies working in the industry and supporting around 800,000 jobs. Introduction A major challenge facing the European Union (EU) and the international community is the threat of global climate change, a phenomenon of rising global temperatures due to society s of greenhouse gases (GHG) into the atmosphere. In the hope of reversing the trend, the Parties to the UNFCC committed themselves legally to reducing their GHG s through the signing of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 and are seeking a new global binding agreement in Paris in December 2015 to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. To begin tackling their s reduction targets and mitigate the harmful effects of climate change, the UN Member States have focused on the energy sector, which has historically been the largest emitter of GHG, and on electricity production in particular. Many traditional methods of electricity production using fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas release huge amounts of GHG. Moving forward, low carbon methods of energy production, such as nuclear and renewable energy, will be critical to Europe s environmental goals. The EU has committed to 80-95% decarbonisation of the whole economy by 2050, which effectively means complete decarbonisation of the power sector. Increasing the share of nuclear power in electricity production can make a major contribution to achieving this while at the same time ensuring a stable supply of electricity at a competitive price. Nuclear energy is currently the EU s largest source of low-carbon electricity.
Page 2 Life Cycle GHG Emissions Nuclear reactors release negligible GHG during operation. However some GHG s are produced during uranium mining, enrichment, fuel fabrication, plant construction, waste management and decommissioning as these activities are often fuelled by fossil fuels. [1] Similarly while some renewable energy sources do not actively emit GHG s during operation, they also give rise to s in the construction phase. In addition, they often necessitate the use of high- sources of energy as back-up during non-operational phases. [2] In 2011 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC ) synthesized evidence from a comprehensive review of published Life Cycle Assessments ( LCAs ) covering all regions of the world, to produce a comparison of carbon dioxide s from different electricity generation technologies. This showed that s from nuclear power stations (median figure of 16g /kwh) are comparable to those from renewable resources, and very significantly lower than those from electricity generated from fossil fuels. [3] Calculation of Annual Avoidance Europe s current nuclear stations are avoiding GHG s since they are replacing a power generation fleet which would otherwise be dominated by fossil fuels. A calculation has been carried out by FORATOM using studies done by the University of Adelaide and EUROSTAT s latest available figures [4, 5, and 6] Total GHG Emissions (teq /TWh) in 2013 from six electricity generation options [7] Coal Natural gas Nuclear Hydro Wind (onshore) Solar (PV) 1.001000 469.000 16.000 4.000 12.000 46.000 Table 1 We can assume two hypothetical situations for substitution: 1) Proportionally increase all other energy sources as if NPPs had not been commissioned 2) Increase only the share of coal, oil and gas in the energy mix
Page 3 The latest data (for the year 2012) present the total electricity generation in the EU 28 as 3295 TWh, where coal and nuclear have a share of 27%, renewables 24%, gas 19% and oil 2% (Appendix I). Figure 1 In the first hypothetical situation, the EU s 131 nuclear reactors are assumed to be replaced in the current (2012) energy mix and the individual contributions from all other sources are increased by the same factor (1.37) to reach a total generation figure of 3295 TWh. Knowing the total electricity generation and the percentage share of each of the power sources it is possible to calculate the absolute amount of TWh delivered by each source. Furthermore by multiplying these values by the coefficients we can calculate the amount of emitted per source and the total. With nuclear Without nuclear Change in CO 2 [t/gwh] [Mt] [%] [TWh] [Mt] [%] [TWh] [Mt] Nuclear 16 27 890 14,23 0 0 0,00-14,23 Gas 469 19 626 293,62 26 858 402,22 108,60 Oil 733 2 66 48,30 3 90 66,17 17,97 Coal 1001 27 890 890,54 37 1219 1219,92 329,38 Renewables* 26 24 791 20,56 33 1083 28,17 7,60 Wastes 1 1 33 0,03 1 45 0,05 0,01 Total 100 3295 1267,78 100 3295 1716,51 449,22 *Biomass, Hydro, Wind (onshore), Solar (PV) Table 2 FORATOM calculation The outcome is a rise in total eq s from 1267 million tonnes with nuclear to 1716 million tonnes without nuclear, a net difference of 449 million tonnes eq. GHG s from electricity generation would therefore rise by 35% if there was no nuclear contribution in the first hypothetical situation.
Page 4 2) The second situation assumes that the electricity generated by all the EU s nuclear reactors is generated instead by coal, oil and gas and that there is no increase in the share of renewables. The calculation below assumes the 27% of nuclear share in the European energy mix is replaced by 42% of coal, 3 % of oil and 30% of gas, with renewables remaining the same. In this situation total eq s would increase from 1267 million tonnes with nuclear to 1946 million tonnes without nuclear, the net difference being 679 million tonnes eq. GHG s from electricity generation would therefore rise in this scenario by 53% if there was no nuclear contribution. With nuclear Without nuclear Change in CO 2 [t/gwh] [Mt] [%] [TWh] [Mt] [%] [TWh] [Mt] Nuclear 16 27 890 14,23 0 0 0,00-14,23 Gas 469 19 626 293,62 30 978 458,78 165,16 Oil 733 2 66 48,30 3 103 75,48 27,17 Coal 1001 27 890 890,54 42 1390 1391,47 500,93 Renewables* 26 24 791 20,56 24 791 20,56 0,00 Wastes 1 1 33 0,03 1 33 0,03 0,00 Total 100 3295 1267,29 100 3295 1946,28 679,03 * Biomass, Hydro, Wind (onshore), Solar (PV) Table 3 FORATOM calculation Emissions in the EU and the Kyoto Protocol To put the figure from the second scenario into perspective, it should be noted that the annual amount of eq avoided by nuclear (679 million tonnes) is equivalent to almost 76% of the eq emitted in 2012 (Figure 2) from overall EU road transport (894 million tonnes) and equivalent to the same amount of eq emitted from road transport in the six most populated EU countries (Germany, Spain, France, Italy, UK and Poland). Million Tonnes eq 1000 800 600 400 200 Emissions saved by Nuclear Transport Emissions (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland and UK) Transport Emissions (EU total) 893,6 679 637 0 Figure 1
Page 5 The 449 million tonnes saved by nuclear power in the first situation described above should be seen against the EU s overall Kyoto reduction target of 446 million tonnes eq below the 1990 level by 2008-2012. Worldwide, based on IAEA data, if the 440 nuclear power plants did not exist and were replaced with a proportionate mix of fossil fuels and renewable sources, the result would be an increase of over 2100 million tonnes of eq per year. That is approximately four times the total amount avoided by the Kyoto Protocol, IAEA estimated. [8] Conclusion Nuclear energy makes a significant contribution to the lowering of carbon s from the energy sector in the EU and worldwide. The EU s current nuclear fleet avoids around 680 million tonnes of eq per year as compared to the s from a representative mix of fossil fuels generating the same amount of electricity. The amount of avoided by nuclear energy falls to around 450 million tonnes of eq per year as compared to the s that would be produced by generating the same amount of electricity using all the other sources in the current (2014) energy mix. The latter figure compares with the EU s GHG reduction target of 446 million tonnes of eq under Kyoto. Switching to less carbon intensive energy sources such as nuclear and renewables will play a major role in reducing s.
Page 6 Appendix I: Gross electricity generation by fuel, GWh, EU-28
Page 7 References [1] Resources and Statistics, Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), 2012. (http://www.nei.org/resourcesandstats/nuclear_statistics/environmentspreve nted/) [2] Life Cycle Assessment of Electricity Generation, Eurelectric_Report-LCA-RESAP- November 2011 [3] IPPC, Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation (SRREN), 2011, and IPCC 5th Assessment Report on Climate Change, WGIII, 2014 [4] The Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat) (2015); Total gross electricity generation (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&plugin=1&language=en&pcode =ten00087) [5] The Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat) 2014; GHG (http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=env_air_gge&lang=en) [6] The Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat) (2014); GHG by sector (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/refreshtableaction.do?tab=table&plugin=1&pcode= tsdcc210&language=en) [7] Key role for nuclear energy in global biodiversity conservation, Barry W. Brook and Corey J.A. Bradshaw, Australian University, March 2014 [8] Climate Change and Nuclear Power 2014, IAEA, Vienna 2014 ***