Nuclear Monitor #928
Jan Haverkamp, senior expert nuclear energy and energy policy for WISE and Greenpeace Netherlands
Friday 13 June, the European Commission published the 8th version of the so-called PINC – the illustrative programme for the development of nuclear energy in the European Union. Such a report is made roughly every seven years on the basis of art. 40 of the Euratom Treaty. The last PINC came out in 2016, so EU policy was based on an already nine year old paper. In this new PINC, the European Commission announces again that it expects nuclear energy to grow in the EU. From the current roughly 90 GW installed capacity to around 109 GW in 2050. PINC assumes construction of around 60 GW new capacity in the form of large reactors within the next 25 years. It furthermore states that if it is possible to prolong the operational lifetime of existing reactors to 70 or even 80 years, the total capacity could grow up to 144 GW. Lifetime extension appears to be the most important motor behind nuclear developments, not new build. Above that, the Commission counts on an additional 17 to 53 GW of small modular reactors (SMRs).
This development would need around 205 Bln€ investments in new large nuclear power stations, and 36 Bln€ in lifetime extensions.
But that is only when construction times are not overdrawn. When, for example, new nuclear power stations will be five year past schedule, there will be 9 GW capacity less installed in 2050, against an extra cost of 45 Bln€. This leaves the total investment volume up to 2050 also in case of delays above the 200 Bln€.
The Commission thinks that the costs of more nuclear in the energy system will at least partially be compensated by lower investments in grid and storage, but does not give hard scenarios to back that up.
The information in PINC on SMRs is roughly that what has been brought forward already by the SMR Industrial Alliance, a coalition of the nuclear industry, SMR startups and nuclear lobby groups.
Concerning financing, the report delivers less news. The financing models that are currently tried out mainly in the UK and the Czech Republic are not fundamentally different than what was brought forward in the 2016 PINC: power purchase agreements (PPAs), regulated asset base (RAB), contracts for difference (CfD) and above all a very large lot of state participation. What is new is that the European Investment Banks (EIB) in Luxembourg is supposed to stimulate PPAs, contracts that before start of operation of a new power station fix the power sales price for large industrial consumers in order to ease financing.
Construction of 60 GW before 2050 would means, according to the European Commission’s DG ENER staff document accompanying the PINC paper, that on every moment around 15 new large nuclear power stations should be under construction. On this moment, that is only one: the relatively small 440 MW Mochovce 4 reactor in Slovakia. Because you cannot count on having these 15 from day one, according to DG ENER, it has to be counted with a much larger number in the 2030s and 2040s. The Commission recognises that this could be problematic for the supply chain, especially because the large forging capacity for reactor vessels and other large parts is globally lacking for that. The EU only has 1 or 2, South Korea and South Africa each one and Japan 2 forging installations that would be able to deliver those. But they have to cover the entire globe outside of China, Russia and India, which produce their own parts.
Lack of a skilled working force is only minimally addressed with remarks that suggest we should simply open a can of 180.000 to 250.000 newly educated and certified workers in the EU. A 1.5 Mln€ Euratom programme should enable that.
uring the public participation period for this PINC 2025, WISE and Greenpeace also asked attention for the need to assess safety risks as a result of acts of war and related needed upgrades, and the issue of liability.
There is a large and overdue need for stress-tests of all operational and planned nuclear reactors around the risks in time of war.
Also the issue of liability should be urgently revisited. Bulgaria currently has a liability cap of only 50 Mln€ in case of a severe nuclear accident, but also the minimal financial guarantees of 1,2 Bln€ in the Netherlands or 2,5 Bln€ in Germany are hopelessly inadequate in comparison with the around 80 Bln€ cash-flow that was need in the first year after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.
Yet, PINC does not address any of this. In spite of the fact that these are typically issues that the European Commission should take steps on.
Finally, PINC is ushering some phrases about the future of nuclear fusion, without coming with any concrete news, nor acknowledging the ongoing delays in the ITER programme.
Short: in spite of a wave of viewpoints sent to the Commission calling for writing this time a PINC that is based on reality, this version is no different than its predecessors in being over-optimistic, and hardly offers a basis for sensible energy policy, let alone nuclear energy policy. The Commission is gambling even heavier than in the past on lifetime extension of nuclear reactors, but given the fact that already four decades hardly any new reactors were build in Europe, this only offers a temporary reprieve. Also in case of extreme lifetime extension to 60, 70 or even 80 years of operation, total nuclear capacity will in the end decrease. The amount of down-hours due to technical problems, and the chances on a severe accident will only increase over that time.
The estimates of amounts of new reactors will rejoice the nuclear lobby, but the chances on them really being built, with increasing construction costs, only decreases by the day.
We have to conclude that the lobby push in the last decade by countries like France and the Czech Republic, now also supported by Poland, Sweden and the Netherlands and hailed by the (extreme) right all over the continent, getting even more impetus from the new lack of critical realism from the side of Germany, is impacting Brussels nuclear policy considerably. Resulting in a lot of pie-in-the-sky, and a stronger distraction from effective climate action than ever before.
Information:
PINC and staff documentation: https://energy.ec.europa.eu/publications/communication-nuclear-illustrative-programme-under-article-40-euratom-treaty_en
The Greenpeace / WISE viewpoint communicated in the public consultation running up to the PINC: [we need a link still at WISE, now can be obtained from the author]
Contact:
Jan Haverkamp jan.haverkamp@greenpeace.org, jan@wisenederland.nl
