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The most important energy issues, the future role of oil and natural gas, the challenges of the energy transition, the expansion of renewable energies will also be discussed at our Energy Investment Forum 2020 conference, where speakers include Dr. Péter Kaderják, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Policy and László Varró, is also the Chief Economist of the International Energy Agency (IEA).
In 2019, six new nuclear reactors were put into production worldwide, seven weeks less than planned for the period, while five old units were shut down. The current global nuclear power plant capacity is 362 gigawatts, having decreased by 2.2 percent compared to 2019, according to the 360-page State of the World Nuclear Industry Report 2020 (WNISR2020), published in international cooperation. Total global nuclear power plant capacity was still able to grow minimally in 2019, by 2.4 gigawatts, but that figure is dwarfed by 184 gigawatts of newly installed renewable power generation capacity.
Despite the decline in the fleet, nuclear power plants were able to increase, albeit not significantly, by 3.7 percent the amount of electricity they produced (2,657 TWh) in 2019 (largely due to an increase in 19 percent in Chinese production). Thus, last year 10.35 percent of the electricity generated worldwide was generated by nuclear power plants, compared to 10.15 percent the previous year. The record is held in 1996, when the weight of nuclear energy in the world energy mix was 17.5 percent. (Among the sources of primary energy consumption, the share of nuclear energy has been stable at around 4.3 percent since 2014).
The easing of the reactor construction fever is implicitly leading to an increase in the average age of power plants: as a result of the trend since 1984, the average age of nuclear power plants is now about 31 years, but 20 % Are you over 40. For its weight in the global mix to remain at current levels in 2030, the rate of construction of new nuclear power plants should more than double compared to the previous decade (5.8 new reactors / year to 13.7 / year) .
At the end of June 2020, a total of 52 new reactors (53.5 GW) were being built globally (15 of which are linked to Roszatom), an increase of six units (8.9 gigawatts) year over year. after a five-year decline. However, of the new units under construction, there are at least 33 delays compared to the originally planned schedule. In the case of 12 of these constructions, the deadlines have already been exceeded several times, while last year it was reported for the first time that 4 units were delayed. In eight cases, construction takes more than ten years, but there are also ongoing projects where construction began 35 and 44 years ago, respectively. The average construction time for the new units was 7.3 years, compared to just 6.2 years in mid-2017.
It may be a warning to countries planning to build a nuclear power plant that a total of 93 projects were suspended or canceled between 1970 and 2020, with roughly one-eighth of the 773 constructions started during the period.
The prolonged investment can be attributed in part to the coronavirus epidemic, but not to all. The pandemic also had other negative effects on the sector. For example, in the United States, hundreds of workers and personnel involved in a nuclear power refueling plant became infected with coronavirus, but elsewhere many testing, maintenance and repair activities had to be suspended, retired, or performed properly. inadequate. Parallel to the resulting increase in operating costs, electricity demand and prices fell, which also affected nuclear power plant operators.
According to the report, global investment in new nuclear power plants totals only about a tenth of investment in wind and solar power, and the high capital cost for reactors requires power plants to produce almost continuously, thus reducing the cost of capital per kilowatt hour. But nuclear power plants were also invented to operate at high utilization, close to maximum power most of the time. While online nuclear reactors cannot be directly compared to climate-dependent renewables, it can be argued that the proliferation of the latter and the reduction in energy storage costs do not point in the direction of facilitating competition against power plants. nuclear.
The estimated total life cycle cost (LCOE) of nuclear power has increased by 26% over the last decade, while renewables are already the cheapest source of electricity generation (solar: -89%, wind: -70%), although with a much lower availability. . Therefore, nuclear power is now the most expensive form of electricity generation ($ 118-192 / MWh, according to international cost estimates, which is many times higher than that of new solar power plants), not counting the gas-fired peak power plants.
Drivers of the trend include the fact that some of the new projects in Western Europe and the United States, which are increasingly shutting down nuclear power plants, experience “catastrophic” cost overruns with visible delays from the planned schedule. However, the nuclear energy situation varies considerably from region to region. China has continued to expand its nuclear capacity, but at a slower rate than before, and the Russian government continues to finance exports from Roszatom’s “aggressive” nuclear power plant to countries that have so far not operated a nuclear power plant.
The report also talks about so-called small modular reactors (SMRs), which have received a lot of attention recently. Most SMR models only exist in theory and, according to the report, current trends make it unlikely that more than a few prototypes will be built from them. One, if not the greatest challenge for SMRs, is that their cost per unit of energy exceeds even large “normal” size nuclear power plants.
The strongest argument in favor of nuclear power plants is that they produce electricity with low carbon emissions. Today, about a third of the world’s “clean” electricity is generated in nuclear reactors. As the climate issue becomes more valuable, therefore, the extension of the operating time of the plants becomes increasingly important, as has been the case with the four former units of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant. The nuclear power sector continues to suffer, according to the report. One reason for this is the significant capital and operating costs of nuclear power plants, which is why subsidies justified by carbon-free production are not critical to running a single reactor in the United States.
At the same time, nuclear power plants are increasingly exposed to increasingly extreme weather events as climate change unfolds. The report cites the events that occurred in South Korea on September 3, 2020, when four reactors at the Kori nuclear power plant automatically shut down due to the effects of the typhoon on the electricity transmission grid. The reactors in question account for around 7 percent of the country’s electricity generation and, understandably, after the events, concerns about security of supply have intensified. Among other arguments against and the acceleration of the phase-out of nuclear energy, the report also mentions the possible use of nuclear energy for war purposes, as well as major nuclear accidents, which are undoubtedly rare but have more serious consequences.
However, recognizing the above concerns, as well as the problem of long-term disposal of nuclear waste, among others, the International Energy Agency (IEA) is urging an increase in the role of nuclear energy due to its nature. CO2 free.
According to the IEA, the declining weight of nuclear energy in the world’s energy supply threatens the achievement of humanity’s climate goals, but also the security of electricity supply. The IEA believes that the Paris Climate Agreement target can only be achieved if the share of nuclear power in global electricity generation again reaches 15 percent. Accordingly, since global electricity consumption could expand significantly in the coming decades, it would not be enough to extend the life of the reactors, but the construction of new units would also have to be accelerated.
The full State of the World Nuclear Industry Report 2020 in English can be downloaded for free here.
Cover Image: Boris Roessler / Picture Alliance via Getty Images
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