Climate targets can be met without nuclear energy
© plainpicture / André Bitter
A new analysis of global climate scenarios shows that nuclear energy is not needed to achieve climate targets under the Paris Agreement. Instead, the rapid and targeted expansion of renewable energies will be the crucial and primary driver of climate change mitigation and the energy transition. Nuclear energy plays a minor role in all scenarios compared to power generation from renewable sources such as wind, hydro and solar. The study was conducted by the Oeko-Institut on behalf of the German Environment Agency (UBA).
The researchers assessed 10 global climate scenarios that achieve the climate targets set in the Paris Agreement with or without nuclear energy, as well as a further scenario based on current government policies in various countries around the world. In this latter scenario, the Paris climate targets are not met, despite plans to expand nuclear energy.
Expansion targets for nuclear power are unrealistic
The brief study also shows that a tripling of today’s nuclear power plant capacity is unrealistic. At the overall historical maximum of nuclear energy expansion, which occurred in 1984/1985, approximately 30 GW net electrical capacity was newly connected to the grid.
“To meet the tripling target, more new capacity would have to be added every year on average over the next 25 years than was achieved in 1985 – the record year for nuclear power,” says Charlotte Loreck, Senior Researcher in the Oeko-Institut’s Energy and Climate Division and joint project leader. “Yet we can see that this substantial increase in nuclear power plant capacity was never achieved again in the intervening decades. For the past 10 years, between 3.4 and 10.3 GW net electrical capacity came online each year, that’s all.” Assuming a linear increase in the annual installation rate from this low level, new nuclear power plants with a capacity of more than 60 GW would need to be connected to the grid to meet the tripling nuclear target in 2050 – double the 1985 figure.
Renewables well ahead of nuclear
In stark contrast, the rate of renewable energy expansion has increased markedly and the climate scenarios analysed in the study impressively attest to its potential for the future energy supply. Even in scenarios which place more emphasis on the potential of nuclear power in the energy mix, this latter technology still plays a minor role overall.
For example, in MESSAGEix-Globiom modelling by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna, nuclear power generation increases substantially but still represents only 9% of the primary energy supply in 2050 and 16% of the world’s total electricity generation, while renewable energies account for around 81% of electricity generation in the same model.
The factsheet on the role of nuclear energy in achieving climate targets was produced as part of the research project Klimawirkung von Atomkraft auf Basis einer (empirischen) Analyse der THG-Emissionen entlang der gesamten Wertschöpfungskette [Climate impact of nuclear power based on an (empirical) analysis of GHG emissions along the entire value chain]. The final results of the research project will be available in September 2024.
