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The green choice?
Green groups have long opposed nuclear power, but its environmental benefits are causing some to re-examine their views.
On the occasion of a European Union meeting of environment ministers in Horsens, Denmark, environmental campaigners reacted furiously when some member states suggested that low-carbon electricity sources should be eligible for state subsidy.
This might seem an odd thing for environmental campaigners to get upset about. But the term ‘low-carbon’ technologies has become anathema for some campaigners, who denounce it as a way to grant nuclear energy support from funding programmes that are meant for renewable energy.
The Czech Republic, France, Poland and the UK want the EU’s 2020 renewable energy target to be changed to a “low-carbon electricity” target in 2030, and they wanted this wording to be used in the European Commission’s proposal for an energy roadmap to 2050 – charting a route towards much reduced carbon emissions. Member states could then use the 2030 target as a justification for state subsidy to nuclear, which would otherwise not be legal.
The move to change the wording was ultimately defeated, with the final text on the roadmap, signed by 26 countries last month, maintaining the phrase “renewable energy”. But formal conclusions could not be adopted because Poland wielded its veto, citing the refusal to change the wording as one of the reasons for its action.
Strategic plan
However, the phrase has made its way into the Commission’s strategic plans in other places. The proposed roadmap notes that nuclear energy makes “a significant contribution to the energy transformation process” and is “a key source of low-carbon electricity generation”.
The Commission’s Strategic Energy Technology Plan also defines nuclear as a low carbon technology. The next battle will be to include the phrase in guidance for environmental state aid, to be released by the Commission in the autumn.
The nuclear industry has drafted its own roadmap to a low-carbon future, called the European Sustainable Nuclear Energy Industry Initiative. Jean-Pol Poncelet, director-general of nuclear industry association Foratom, says that the best estimates for carbon emissions from electricity derived from nuclear energy are five or six grams per kilowatt hour. “The number one energy for low-carbon electricity production today is nuclear, everywhere in Europe. Nuclear energy is definitely part of the answer for a low-carbon future,” he says.
The green movement is divided about whether to maintain its traditionally anti-nuclear stance in the face of concerns over climate change. While some environmentalists believe nuclear should have a place in Europe’s energy mix, others believe that phasing out nuclear energy is essential for public safety. The green campaigners are at least in agreement that nuclear power should not be receiving state subsidies.
“Why should we subsidise a technology which has a huge [safety] risk?” asks Claude Turmes, a Green MEP from Luxembourg. “It would be a complete breach of the philosophy behind support schemes in the EU.” As a mature and profitable technology, nuclear does not need state aid to survive, unlike renewables.
The nuclear industry argues that, in seeking to be recognised as a ‘low-carbon’ source of energy, it is not asking for public subsidy, but is arguing for technology-neutral solutions to climate change.
“The nuclear industry is not calling for financial support, but all technologies should be considered on the same footing vis-à-vis carbon,” says Poncelet. “The system should not penalise those renewables that emit low carbon. Nor should it penalise nuclear.”