“Atomic Sun for everyone.” An atomic sun for everyone. It is one of the lyrics of the latest song by the legendary Irish group U2, which has just been released. In the 1990s, Bono, the band’s leader, supported by his musicians, participated in campaigns against the nuclear industry. Today, thirty years later, he has changed his mind. He welcomes the latest advances in this technology, considering them one of the ways for the energy transition.
The atom is back in fashion or no longer arouses the old misgivings. Some have called it the Oppenheimer effect, after Christopher Nolan’s film. According to a Project Europe survey, if in 2016 41% of those interviewed stated that it was appropriate to do without nuclear energy, this percentage has dropped to 15% in 2022.
With the climate crisis and the rising cost of fossil fuels, this veteran technology can make a compelling argument: it does not emit CO2 while it works. And what’s more, it is practically always in service. Whether it’s sunny or cloudy. Whether it’s windy or calm. Its main mineral resource, uranium, is in several countries and does not pose supply problems.
On paper, this industry, which contributes to 10% of global electricity generation, has everything (or almost) to be one of the energy solutions of this century. In fact, there are countries that have expressed renewed interest: Poland, India, Sweden and Holland. “We are witnessing a return of nuclear power in the world,” said Fatih Birol, director of the International Energy Agency, on September 18.
According to the International Nuclear Energy Agency, nuclear capacity in the world would have to triple between now and 2050 to meet carbon neutrality objectives. Nuclear aspires to be part of the solution.
The average age of the plants is close to 31 years. But many countries are extending the useful age to 60. At the end of 2022 there were 191 reactors in the world, which have been granted authorization to operate for more than 40 years. Of them, there are 85 in the United States alone. Thanks to a gradual updating of parts, today many power plants can extend their useful life without putting safety at risk, sources in the sector point out.
However, few technologies spark such intense debate between supporters and detractors. Even in Europe, where some countries (France is the country with the most reactors per inhabitant in the world) want to apply the green label to nuclear energy and others advocate ending an industry that they consider dangerous. The Chernobyl and Fukujima accidents still reverberate and the bombings surrounding the Zaporizhia power plant (Ukraine) cause concern. The management of radioactive waste generates controversy. The most polluting ones remain in the plants due to the reluctance to implement a centralized system, with underground galleries.
The reality is that fewer reactors operate today (412) than in 2005 (440). It is true that there are another 59 in charge, but the number of new reactors built each year (10) is much lower than the average of the seventies or eighties, when it exceeded 40.
Germany, Belgium and Switzerland have decided to close their plants. In the German country, they have once again opted for coal. In Spain, with only 6% of installed power, nuclear provides 21% of electrical energy (in Catalonia, more than half). For years, most of the electricity we consume comes from the atom. Despite this, the Government has adopted a phased closure plan between 2027 and 2035 of the seven plants present in the country. The sector says that some 30,000 jobs are at risk, most of them highly qualified. “When we do job interviews, we remind the candidate that we can only hire them for a limited time. They know it, but they still want to apply for employment,” they comment from the Catalan centers.
For this reason, the president of the Nuclear Industry Forum, Ignacio Araluce, who participated a few days ago in a training session in Barcelona with a group of journalists, pointed out that giving up the nuclear option is something “chimerical.” “A little like jumping out of a plane without a parachute. The closer we get to that date, the more voices there are warning: ‘Hey, can’t you think about it a little more?’ The Government’s response is that it prefers to bet on renewables. “Renewables are wonderful,” Araluce admits. But the difficulties in storing the energy produced so that it can be used when weather conditions are not favorable are, according to him, a weakness. “It’s like making a monthly purchase and having a small refrigerator. And we lack electrical connections with the rest of the countries. Unless we put in some ancestral mechanism to generate energy…” Not counting the physical space required by panels and mills, which is greater than that occupied by nuclear plants to generate the same amount of energy.
The ace up the sleeve in the industry is small modular reactors (SMR), which allow the generation of power that is one third of that of a conventional plant. “They are more competitive. Being more flexible, they can be useful in more remote locations. They are built in less time. They have a lower cost, they start generating energy sooner, although in the long term the benefits are not as great,” comments Alfonso Barbas, nuclear engineer at Enusa.
“It’s time to look to the future. It would be more appropriate to allocate money to renewable storage systems than to the maintenance or construction of other nuclear power plants,” says Francisco del Pozo Campos, coordinator of Greenpeace’s climate, energy and mobility campaign. This expert dismantles the arguments of the nuclear industry. “Although to a lesser extent, throughout its cycle, starting with its construction, the nuclear industry emits CO2. Its initial costs are very high, current projects already generate extra costs and will take time to become profitable. And as for the SMR modular reactors, we will see how many will come into operation, right now there are none.”
Del Pozo Campos recalls that renewables, in addition to creating thousands of green jobs, allow greater strategic autonomy, so as not to depend on minerals and technology from unstable countries (Russia and China), in addition to reducing the weight of energy oligopolies by promoting self-consumption.
A high voltage debate.
