A leaked “strategy paper” in the German media has thrown up fresh questions over what Europe intends to spend its innovation budget on. In the paper the European Commission and member states set out broad goals for the nuclear industry, including developing small modular reactors. Nuclear opponents reacted furiously. In her new Brussels Insider column, for the Energy Post Weekly premium newsletter, Sonja van Renssen investigates the fight over nuclear research – and over energy R&D in general – going on in the corridors of Brussels.
On 17 May, the Spiegel Online, one of Germany’s main media outlets, published a scoop entitled “EU wants to massively strengthen nuclear”. The author reported that a new “strategy paper” reveals that the European Commission wants to drive the construction of new nuclear plants and even develop new “mini-reactors”.
This was a juicy story for Germans, where the last nuclear plant is due to be shut down in 2022. The story catapulted up to the national level, with German Energy Minister Sigmar Gabriel, denouncing it: “It is absurd even to consider that one of the oldest technologies we use for energy generation in Europe, should get subsidies again.”
But what was this infamous “strategy paper”? Where did it come from? And what kind of impact could it have? Energy Post decided to investigate.
Impressive ambition
It turns out that the strategy in question is a follow-up to the EU’s new Strategic Energy Technology (SET) Plan adopted in September 2015. This plan is supposed to be the innovation pillar of the Energy Union; just as the original SET Plan, conceived back in 2007, was supposed to be the technology pillar of the EU’s first climate and energy package.
From the start, its impressive ambition has been to align energy R&D efforts in Europe with the EU policy agenda. No easy task, as you can imagine: the European research effort is as fragmented as its energy market. Different member states have different priorities.
The new SET Plan consciously moves away from promoting research into individual energy technologies such as wind and solar, to champion an energy system approach to innovation. It breaks down six R&D priorities set out in the Energy Union (renewables, consumers, energy efficiency, transport, plus nuclear and carbon capture and storage for member states who are interested) into ten priority actions. The goal is “to accelerate the energy system transformation and create jobs and growth”.
One example of a priority action is “become competitive in the global battery sector to drive e-mobility forward”. Another is “maintaining a high level of safety of nuclear reactors and associated fuel cycles during operation and decommissioning, while improving their efficiency”.
Each of these ten actions is supposed to be fleshed out further with an agreement between the European Commission, member states and other stakeholders on strategic targets and an implementation plan to deliver them. What the Spiegel Online leaked was the draft agreement on strategic targets developed by the Commission, after consultation with member states and stakeholders, for nuclear safety research.
Anti-nuclear
So what’s the problem? The issue is that the document appears to interpret its safety mandate very generously. “It’s not just about safety,” says Bram Claeys from Greenpeace. “Its purpose is clearly to grow the share of nuclear energy and further subsidise nuclear energy.” He also points out that there is no environmental NGO working on nuclear safety on the list of stakeholders who were consulted for it.
Is this a fair assessment? Greenpeace is known to be anti-nuclear and the leaked paper has since been made public by the German Greens. Yet certainly there is text in there that seems to go beyond R&D on safety. For example, one of the “targets” in the paper is “a flexible electricity grid that allows the integration of large baseload suppliers”. Some experts predict an end to baseload altogether, as soon as by 2030 in Germany, as renewables take over the energy system. Whether or not you agree, power market design is not safety R&D.
Another target is “stable/predictable investment conditions, including availability of appropriate financing schemes, such as contracts for difference”. Again, what is the link to safety R&D? Finally, the paper also sets a specific goal to develop “advanced and innovative fission reactors”, by which it means small modular reactors (SMRs). “This is the first time SMRs are considered as a priority,” one EU source said.
Famous PINC
These targets go beyond nuclear safety, decommissioning and waste management. To some extent, they go beyond the Commission’s own paper on nuclear investments (the famous PINC) published just last month. In that, for example, it is much more ambivalent about SMRs – the nuclear industry has considered their deployment since the 1950s, it says.
No wonder hackles are up and no wonder the EU Commissioner for Research, Carlos Moedas, felt obliged to respond. “The future lies in renewables… not nuclear,” he insisted to German magazine Focus on Sunday 22 May. The Commission also felt that it was important enough to post an official reaction on its site, in which it “rejects allegations of push for nuclear energy”.
Through the Euratom Treaty, member states have given the Commission a mandate to put safety and waste management at the core of European nuclear research. The Commission says in its response that it will “stick to the mandate” and “nuclear fission research will focus solely on safety, waste management and radiation protection”. It does not refer to any of the specific language under fire in the draft paper.
Note that you can see the public document that the draft agreement is based on – and indeed similar documents for the other energy research priorities, including an already finalised agreement on strategic targets for photovoltaics research – here.
Attention and money
The EU’s ambitions on nuclear remain unclear at this point. The draft agreement has yet to be adopted and may in theory still be amended. Why does it matter at all? Because the SET Plan and its offshoots determine what projects ultimately get political attention and money. There are no funds directly attached to the SET Plan but it will guide the expenditure of EU R&D funds in the Horizon 2020, plus national and private funds.
A question that remains is why countries such as Germany did not speak out earlier when the Commission was consulting on its draft agreement. One EU source said that the consultation went to research, not energy departments, who did not flag it up to their colleagues.
What remains is that there are lots of competing priorities for innovation funds. Two new reports released in Brussels this week suggest that one, the EU could turn its historic climate leadership into a global competitive advantage for its industries and two it could deliver enormous carbon reductions through ICT. Nuclear energy, which traditionally made up 80% of government spending on energy R&D in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, does not emerge as a priority in these studies.
Editor’s Note
This article was first published under Sonja van Renssen’s Brussels Insider column, part of our new premium newsletter Energy Post Weekly, which will appear every Friday. Energy Post Weekly also offers a weekly Energy Watch by editor-in-chief Karel Beckman and Energy Post Express which provides a quick roundup of all articles published on our website. For a free preview, click here.
Mark Pawelek says
Joris van Dorp, MSc says
“It is absurd even to consider that one of the oldest technologies we use for energy generation in Europe, should get subsidies again.”
Huh? Nuclear power is the newest technology in Europe! Coal, oil, gas, biomass, wind and solar are all very old technologies. Solar and biomass is the oldest technology in history. Wind is thousands of years old. Coal 200 years. Oil and gas, 100 years. Nuclear power just over 50 years. Its is obviously the newest.
Besides, the IPCC states in AR5 that a quadrupling of nuclear power globally is consistent with any successful attempt to limit global warming to 2°C, so of course the EU has to do it’s fair share to make sure that nuclear power quadruples in a timely fashion. There is a lot of work to do, so lets get on with it already.
Let the Germans dig their own grave with their nonsense nuclear phaseout and return to fossil dependence, but let’s not have their populist craziness leaking out into broader Europe, for Pity’s sake!
Mike Parr says
Sizeable wind generators (1MW+) have been around for perhaps 24 years. Wind now, is roughly at the technological stage of development that 3 stage steam turbines were in 1916. Nuclear has been around somewhat longer than this (i.e calder Hall 1950s). There is an argument to be made for SMRs – but it would also be good to include “how to get rid of the waste” in that “argument”. With respect to Germany: 75% of the pop’ have been steadfastly against nuclear since the 1970s. Finally, action by the German political estabishment is reflecting the will of the populace. One can argue about the pace of german decarb’ but that is the trajectory – decarb – & thus to claim they will return to fossil dependence is plumb wrong and weakens your own arguments in favour of nuclear.
Joris van Dorp, MSc says
In Germany, and around the world, 100% of the people who have been misinformed about nuclear, are against nuclear. No surprise there. Conversely, 99% of technically knowledgeable people, and people who have had luxury to investigate nuclear on the basis of evidence and peer-reviewed literature as opposed to hearing about nuclear only from the insidious antinuclear movement, are supporters of nuclear power. These are the kind of statistics that matter.
Besides, as I have mentioned, the IPCC concludes that nuclear power should quadruple if we are to have a good chance of meeting the 2°C limit, so governments like Germany don’t have a leg to stand on. The only thing keeping their antinuke policy going is dumb momentum. Politicians hate admitting they’re wrong, especially ‘green’ politicians. But they will admit it, in the end, or more likely: they will be replaced by politicians who have promise rational policies instead of asinine populist ones. Sarkozy in France has already promised to eliminate the disastrous decision by Holland to phase down nuclear. Similarly, the next German government is likely to kill the failed ‘energiewende’. None of this should surprise anyone when it happens. In Denmark, it already has.
Concerning nuclear development, breeder reactors have only recently been commercialised (Russia) and the first prototype pre-commercial molten salt reactors are due to come online in the near term in China. Innovation in nuclear is slow due to the extreme regulatory cost of all things nuclear (1 billion dollars in fees just to get a design review and licence for a new power plant.) and due to organised antinuclear opposition which has long known that the best way to fight nuclear is to focus on increasing the cost of building and running them, through orchestrated delays and perpetual legal challenge.
To call nuclear ‘old technology’ by pointing at the first power plants built in the ’50’s is weak and misleading. In reality, nuclear power has been the only significant energy innovation since the steam engine. Wind and solar are old and still have the problems which made them obsolete: they are intermittent, diffuse, expensive, materials intensive, and obtrusive. Nuclear beat wind and solar on all points, which is why the IPCC includes nuclear as a significant element of climate protection. The days of antinuclearism in countries like Germany are numbered. Along with the whole antinuclear movement.
Csaba says
Nuclear is the heat source in a steam engine.
Ike Bottema says
Agreed. It’s only a matter of time before the bubble inevitably bursts in Germany. Their low EROI wind and solar power generation technologies cannot be sustained indefinitely.
Mike Parr says
Which bit of the fact ” the first nuclear power plants were built in the ’50’ is “weak & misleading”? I sense you are exaggerating again and thus weakening your case. “Wind and solar are old” PV has been around since the 1960s – if it is old, what does that make nuclear? Windmills have been around since the late middle ages – but we are not talking about windmills but rather wind turbines & multi-MW ones are less than 20-odd years old. What you & other very pro-commentators indulge in is wishful thinking: “oh the German pop’ will see sense” maybe they will, but you nicely avoid dealing with the fact of 45 – 50 years of popular and majority opposition to nuclear. Or this: “Nuclear beat wind and solar on all points” not on price chum – show me any nuclear plant that can deliver 5ecents/kWh – go on. I notice you & the other nuclear supporters never, ever deal with: where does the waste go? – point to one, functioning long term waste depository – globally – just one. I’m not anti-nuclear – but there needs to be an answer to the waste problem before building more.
Joris van Dorp, MSc says
Concerning the waste, the reason pronukes don’t bring it up much is because it is a non-issue.
1. What you call waste, is not waste. It’s used fuel, which can be reprocessed and used 100 times again. After complete(!) usage of the fuel, only fission products remain, which decay away within centuries.
2. The waste is tiny, which means its easy to store. The waste resulting from providing all the energy for a person living in the developed world for 100 years is about the size of a coke can. Storing that waste for a few centuries is a non-issue. Antinukes blow the problem way out of proportion, presumably because they don’t want to deal with the elephant in the room, which is fossil fuel waste. Fossil waste actually does kill people – millions annually. Fossil waste actually does harm the environment, potentially laying waste to much of the earth’s biosphere if their global warming impacts are not addressed. Fish in the sea contain so much mercury that pregnant women are restricted from eating that fish, since it would harm their unborn children! But what to the antinukers do? They want everybody to focus on nuclear waste, which hasn’t killed anyone, is cheap to store (<0.5 ct/kWh) and poses no threat to the environment. With the antinukes as friends, the environment doesn't need enemies.
Besides, we can store nuclear waste above ground for as long as we want. It won't cost much. And arguably we *should* store it where we can reach it, because it contains both usable fuel and valuable rare elements, useful for industry and medicine. Instead of asking the question: "Why is there no final nuclear waste disposal site operational yet", we should ask the question: "Why do we even want to dispose of the fuel in the first place? Why not burn it for energy?
Nuclear waste is valuable. The most energetic waste decays quickly, over time. Fossil fuel waste does not decay. It's an actual, very serious problem for humanity and the environment. Nuclear waste is not a problem and never will be.
Joris van Dorp, MSc says
I did not raise the issue of how old a technology is. It is of course totally irrelevant! We are not selecting technologies because they are new or old. We are selecting technologies because they get the job of saving the human race done! (are we not?) For that matter, if solar or wind could get the job done, I would be for them. But they cannot.
On opposition to nuclear power: I’ve spent the last 15 years participating in debate about energy and our common future, and I have talked to hundreds of antinukes. I have yet to hear one (1) good argument from an antinuke. They don’t have any. Every antinuke argument is a misunderstanding at best.
On the price of nuclear. French nuclear is about 5 ct/kWh. New nuclear is at most 10 ct/kWh, and in South Korea and China, the price is < 5 ct/kWh. Clearly, nuclear is cheap and competitive with coal. That obviously makes it a solution to the coal problem. The world is building thousands of coal plants at this moment. It could be building thousands of nuclear plants for the same money! That would save our climate!
And what about solar and wind? Well, what is the price of solar power at night or on a cloudy day? What is the price of wind power when the wind dies down? The price of wind and solar when they are not available (which is the case on a daily basis) is the same as the price of fossil fuel power plants. If that isn't a good enough hint, here's another way to put it: Solar and wind cannot replace fossil fuels, so they cannot save the climate or solve the energy problem. That makes them totally useless to the task of saving humanity! Or to quote the late Sir David MacKay in his final interview before his death: "The optimal amount of solar and wind [on the UK grid] is zero!