Industrial Nations To Phase Out Nuclear Power
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The nuclear power plant at Fukushima, Japan begins to melt down following a 9.0-magnitude earthquake on March 11. Via Creative Commons.
Three months ago a tsunami caused crisis at a nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan. This week, Italy became the fourth country since that disaster to limit, sideline or begin to phase out nuclear power altogether. The Italian referendum followed decisions in Germany, Switzerland and China.
Germany will be nuclear-free in 2022, but the government plans to simultaneously reach renewable energy targets. Such aggressive policies (which other industrial nations have already imitated) received popular acclaim. But while Germany’s new targets manifest post-Fukushima fears, they risk sacrificing the sustainability goals.
China started the latest energy saga by stalling its plans to build 28 new reactors before 2020. But as the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gasses, China relies on nuclear power to reach its sustainability goals and promised only a temporary halt to review safety standards. Switzerland was less flexible and cancelled its plan to replace five of its oldest nuclear plants. Instead, the lower house of Swiss parliament approved a proposal to shut down all five reactors by 2034.
Then, Germany became the first major industrial nation to commit to the total elimination of nuclear power on June 6. After China and Switzerland’s drastic decisions, Chancellor Angela Merkel ordered a review of all German nuclear facilities. In May, Merkel announced plans to keep eight of the country’s plants shut down with six more to follow by 2021. And, last week, the German government formally approved plans to decomission three of its most modern plants by 2022.
"It's definite. The latest end for the last three nuclear power plants is 2022. There will be no clause for revision,” Environment Minister Norbert Rottgen told the BBC.
Merkel already adjusted the country’s nuclear energy plan once, extending the life of Germany’s plants to 2033. Though that decision was unpopular, ministers said nuclear power was a necessary “bridge” (BBC) between fossil fuels and renewable energy. Merkel’s previously stated call for 80 percent of energy from renewable sources by 2050 remains despite her revised nuclear policy.
Although the Fukushima meltdown threatens decades of quarantine and several dozen deaths, according to the Daily Mail, nuclear energy is deeply engrained in Germany’s green-energy goals. While presenting her case to Parliament, Merkel admitted that the country would need to double its fossil fuel output during the next 20 years to compensate for lost power generation.
The final decision, Italy’s, started with a referendum on June 13, said the Christian Science Monitor. Only a week after the International Energy Agency reported that 2010 carbon emissions represented the highest levels ever, the Italian people voted against the advice of Silvio Berlusconi’s government for an indefinite moratorium on nuclear construction.
“Carbon emissions cannot do anything other than rise as a result of phasing out the continent's largest source of zero-carbon power,” warned Guardian columnist Mark Lynas. “If [environmentalists] really took climate change seriously, they would instead be pushing for a phase-out of coal – which generates by far the largest proportion of the country's power and consequent carbon emissions.”
Because Fukushima reminded governments of nuclear power’s potential dangers, the IEA estimates a significant decrease in nuclear power in this year’s World Energy Outlook. Such a shift implies more grid room for renewable energy as well as for coal and natural gas.
"It will cost much more, be less sustainable and there will be less security,” Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the IEA, stated at a World of Energy ceremony.
China, India and Russia all made statements expressing their determination to pursue new atomic power projects, despite China’s pause for reevaluation. Several Chinese wind power companies have proposed successful stock market flotations. Investors may be playing on Bejing’s post-Fukushima doubt in their coal- and nuclear-dependent system, reported The Guardian on June 16.
Nuclear energy will continue to expand, the IEA anticipates, after Japan’s crisis fades from view. Though closing atomic plants suggests safer policy, it could significantly hinder greener goals – which, as environmental analysts like Lynas argue, may prove to be just as dangerous.
