Global energy choices and the nuclear power option

1. Global energy choices and the nuclear power option April 28th. 2011

2. Surging world energy demand – largely supplied by fossil fuels

3. Surging world energy demand –in numbers

4. Use of cheap (but dirty) coal is expected to grow particularly quickly

5. Energy’s environmental impacts major contributor to global death

6. Is Fukushima anotherChernobyl? • The earthquake on 11 March 2011 has endangered four out of six reactors at Fukushima, and damaged electrical power generators that led to a failure of the cooling systems. • Notwithstanding this damage and the fact that nuclear reactions have stopped at Fukushima, it is unlikely that an explosion at the core of one of the reactors would lead to a massive release of radioactivity into the air. • The failure of the cooling system led to high temperatures and a buildup of steam and hydrogen gas outside of the protective pressure vessels. The explosions seen in Fukushima were caused when engineers vented this steam and hydrogen gas. The core of each reactor is still protected by pressure vessels and reactor vessels. • The main issue is the Radioactive contaminated water that was found in the turbine buildings at reactors 1, 2 and 3. The radiation is mostly concentrated in reactor 2. It has not yet been identified where the contaminated water leaked from. • The worst case scenario is that the leak is coming from the reactor vessel itself, rather than from water pipes. If this is the case, it would prolong the process of shutting down the damaged reactors. Furthermore, the radioactive leak might percolate into the groundwater and into the sea. • The expected economic damage would entail a necessary amount of compensation to the tune of $10-50bn to permanently evacuate residents living within a 20km or 30km radius of the power plant and compensate farmers and fishermen for damages caused by radioactive contamination.

7. Without change, future gets much worse: SO2

8. Without change, future gets much worse: acid rain

9. Without change, future gets much worse: temperature

10. A dramatic transformation in world energy supply is needed • To avoid devastating environmental harm: • Must reduce carbon emissions dramatically • Must reduce particulate, acid, chemical emissions and damages from obtaining fuels and disposing of wastes • All while meeting surging demand • Oil production will not keep rising enough to meet demand indefinitely – “peak oil” is coming • Likely long-term price increases, unpredictable price spikes • Increasing proportion of remaining reserves in Middle East – political volatility, massive transfers of wealth • Energy supplies are desperately needed in many areas that don’t have them, to bring > 1 billion people out of desperate poverty The energy-economy-environment link is central to sustainable human well-being – and poses immense challenges

11. Some facts that frame the problem • The global energy system is huge • Global GDP (2005): $59 trillion (PPP) • Replacement cost of energy system: $12 trillion • Lifetimes of power plants ~50-60 years • Reliable, low-cost energy supplies are essential to all modern economies • So far, fossil fuels are typically cheaper than other alternatives (when externalities are not included) • Energy causes most environmental problems worldwide • At global scale (climate change) • At regional scale (e.g., acid rain, mercury contamination) • At local scales (e.g., fine particulates, destruction from coal mines…) • Efficiency has immense potential but can’t solve the problem itself – more supplies will surely be needed

12. The energy-climate context • Science suggests a rapid (and growing) shift away from “business as usual” is required to avoid climate catastrophe • Seven “wedges” each displacing 1 billion tons CO2 by 2050 needed to stabilize at ~ 500 ppm • Latest science suggests 10-15 “wedges” may be needed to avoid dramatic climate damages – because stabilization target may need to be lower, efficiency of sinks declining Source: Pacala+Socolow, “Stabilization Wedges,” Science 305 968-972 (2004)

13. To make an important difference requires huge scale • Stabilizing at 500 ppmv CO2-e means global CO2 emissions must be ~7 GtC/yr below BAU in 2050. • Avoiding 1 GtC/yr requires… - energy use in buildings cut 20-25% below BAU in 2050, or - fuel economy of 2 billion cars ~60 mpg instead of 30, or - carbon capture & storage for 800 1-GWe coal-burning power plants, or - 700 1-GWe nuclear plants replacing coal plants (to 3x current), or - 1 million 2-MWe(peak) wind turbines replacing coal power plants or - 2,000 1-GWe(peak) photovoltaic power plants replacing coal power plants • Similar scale requirements to make a major difference in the other energy impacts and challenges Source: Pacala+Socolow, “Stabilization Wedges,” Science 305 968-972 (2004)

14. No silver bullet –every option has its problems • Oil and gas: • Coal, tar sands, oil shale: • Biomass: • Wind & Hydro: • Photovoltaics: • Nuclear fission: • Nuclear fusion: • Hydrogen: • End-use efficiency: Not enough resources? Not enough atmosphere? Not enough land? Not enough good sites? Too expensive and intermittent? Too unforgiving? Too difficult? Energy to make it? Means to store it? Not enough informed, motivated end-users?

15. Coal: the issues • Coal is cheap and abundant • Total world energy use: ~15 TWy/year • Coal resources: ~5,000 Twy • Widely distributed worldwide • China and India in particular have huge coal reserves • Coal burning releases: • More CO2/joule than any other energy source • Most SOx and NOx (key components of acid rain) • Large fraction of fine particulates (large cause of death) • Coal mining destroys huge areas of land • Large coal plant requires 80-car coal train every day • Coal use growing rapidly • China adds ~ 1-2 coal plants every week

16. Coal: some options • Scrubbers can remove • most SOx and NOx • most particulates • Advanced coal-burning technologies are even cleaner – but more expensive • IGCC not economically competitive with traditional coal technologies • Most carbon can be captured and sequestered with existing technology • Substantial added costs – private sector won’t go that way without a highprice on carbon emissions • Integrated technology demonstrations still needed • Required scale of CO2 pipelines, wells, is huge – comparable to replicating oil and gas industry • Retrofitting existing plants thought to be more difficult, costly

17. Oil: a crucial but limited resource • Current consumption is huge and growing • 81 million barrels/day (50 imported) • 34% of total primary energy demand (more even than coal) • Nearly all transportation fuel worldwide (cars, trucks, planes…) • Serious environmental impacts • CO2 emissions • Key contributor to urban smog • Oil spills • Serious security and “energy security” impacts • Many countries deeply vulnerable to supply disruptions • Concentrated in world’s most volatile regions – possible conflicts • Serious economic impacts, supply concerns • Huge transfers of wealth to producers • Economies vulnerable to price spikes, crashes • Supply increases not expected to keep up with demand growth

18. Gas: key issues • Current consumption is huge and growing • 21% total primary energy demand (almost as much as coal) • Electricity, buildings, industry • Delivered by pipelines (mostly) and LNG ships (small but growing) • Substantially cleaner than coal and oil • Lower CO2 emissions, minor particulates, SOx, NOx • Economies vulnerable to major price spikes, crashes – some countries almost wholly dependent on one supplier • Not clear how widespread, abundant • May be enough to fuel rising consumption for decades • May be present in more countries than currently recognized • Many countries currently have to rely on higher-cost LNG imports • Many countries deeply vulnerable to supply disruptions • If some way can be found to recover the gas in methane hydrates, gigantic potential resource (more than all oil and coal combined)

19. Renewables: large potential,yet to be realized • Solar: • Huge potential energy flow • Currently not cost-competitive for most grid-connected applications • Intermittent – substantial reliance requires backup power or storage • Costs continuing to decline – but how low will they go? • Can rely on widely distributed, rather than central-station power – cost, security advantages • Wind: • Fastest-growing renewable power source • Cost-competitive at best sites, not elsewhere • Siting controversies limiting pace of growth • Also intermittent • Hydro • Also major environmental impacts • Limited potential for large-scale growth (2% world primary energy)

20. Renewables: large potential,yet to be realized (II) • Biomass: • Much less efficient at converting sunlight to power than solar – but not intermittent, can be made into liquid fuels as well • In some versions, competes with food production • Need efficient, reasonable-cost use of cellulosic material (wood, crop waste, etc.) for major biomass contribution • Geothermal • Limited sites for traditional approaches • Dry hot-rock geothermal may be promising if cost reduced • Fusion • Potentially promising, but fiendishly difficult, likely costly, commercial plants likely ~50 years off • Tidal, wave, other… • Many options, none that combine being cost-effective and ready for large-scale deployment

21. Nuclear fission: an important but unforgiving energy source • Modest current deployment, slow growth: • 439 plants worldwide, 369 GWe, 16% world electricity, 6% energy • ~ 4 reactors/yr connected to grid in last decade (0 in 2008) • Robust nuclear revival would require: • Reduced cost • No major accidents • No major nuclear terrorist attacks • No cascade of nuclear weapons proliferation • Effective management of nuclear waste • Increased public support and confidence • Resolution of industry supply-chain bottlenecks (steel forgings, trained personnel…) • For even one “wedge” from nuclear, need to shift to ~25 reactors/yr – nuclear must become much more attractive to governments, utilities, publics

22. Compared to what?Every option poses costs and risks • Efficiency: • Essential, often lowest-cost, but can’t do whole job – global demand will increase • Coal: • 10s of thousands of people die every year from air pollution; worst carbon emissions; huge mining impacts • Oil and gas: • Immense energy security risks; carbon emissions; oil spills… • Renewables • Clearly valuable, but currently too costly and intermittent for dominant contribution • Nuclear • Accidents, terrorism, proliferation, radioactive waste

23. Why care about nuclear? • Nuclear offers: • Only already available, readily expandable option for low-carbon baseload electricity • No emissions of particulates, acids, mercury… • Modest mining impacts • Less dependence on imports, volatile fuel prices • At the cost of: • High costs • Accident risks • Terrorism risks • Proliferation risks • Nuclear waste

24. Nuclear reactors – a complicated way to boil water Source: www.nuclearpower.co.nz

25. Nuclear: 4 key reactor vendors will be selling regardless… • Rosatom (Russia): • Reactors under construction in Russia, China, India, Iran… • Areva (France) • Reactors under construction in Finland and France, more planned in China, India, United States… • GE-Hitachi • Reactors built in Japan, possible sales in U.S., elsewhere • Westinghouse-Toshiba • Basis for ~1/2 world reactors All of these actively marketing reactors around the world – export-promotion banks offering low-cost financing, governments offering nuclear cooperation to cement political relationships

26. Large-scale nuclear growth implies nuclear spread – the picture so far Source: Sharon Squassoni, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

27. Everyone is signing agreements throughout the Middle East Source: Pierre Goldschmidt, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2008

28. Nuclear power economics Source: MIT, Future of Nuclear Power, 2003

29. Risks of nuclear accidents • Nuclear power today substantially safer than in the days of TMI, Chernobyl • Demonstrated by wide range of numerical indicators • NRC requires no more than 1/100,000 risk of major release per reactor-year – new reactor designs safer still • But, continuing issues – Davis Besse provides compelling example • Accident risks estimated using “probabilistic risk assessment” • Extremely useful tool for identifying biggest contributors to risk • But extremely difficult to model complex system-level human-machine interactions • TMI, Chernobyl, Davis-Besse all scenarios never envisioned in such analyses • “Safety culture” a major issue – and difficult to model

30. Chernobyl – an epic disaster Cs-137 contamination after Chernobyl. Source: UNSCEAR, 2000

31. How might nuclear growth and spread affect accident risks? • More reactors means more risk – unless per-reactor risks are reduced in parallel with nuclear growth • If 1/100,000/reactor-yr, 40-year probability of major accident = 16% for 439 plants, 35% for 1100 plants • But if additional plants 1/106/reactor-yr, probability declines as reactors added, old reactors phase out • Even small numbers of high-risk reactors can dominate risk • 40-year risk from 20 1/1000/reactor-yr plants is 55% • Likely highest current and future risks to be addressed: • Old-design plants without modern safety features (esp. Soviet-designed) • Plants with poor operator safety culture • Plants in “newcomer” states – no experience yet in ensuring safe operations, regulations – so spread important • Plants in extremely rapid growth states – safe construction, operation, regulation may not be able to keep up

32. Preventing nuclear accidents • New steps to reduce per-reactor risk can avoid increasing overall risk as reactors grow and spread. • To accomplish that objective requires: • New institutional approaches to find and fix the least safe reactors worldwide (small # of high-risk plants can dominate total risk) • Effective global safety standards, mandatory safety reviews • Currently safety standards are set on national basis • International standards, reviews, purely voluntary • Intensive work with “newcomer” states to build up infrastructure of regulations, trained people, safety culture before reactors start • Design new reactors to even higher safety standards – “passive” safety to the extent practicable • Efforts to strengthen safety culture worldwide

33. Safety culture matters:Davis-Besse vessel head hole Source: FirstEnergy

34. New, “passively safe” designs • Concept: design reactors with safety systems that provide “passive” or “inherent” safety, so that pumps don’t need to work, people don’t need to do their jobs properly, but reactor remains safe • Example: Pool of cooling water above reactor that will flow down by itself if certain thresholds are crossed • Another example: high-temperature gas reactors – may be able to survive loss of ALL coolant for hours without release • But, there are always issues – mechanisms for “passive” emergency cooling can be blocked, graphite can burn • Nevertheless, there are clearly opportunities to design far safer systems • The reactors currently on offer are modest evolutions from previous reactors – for decades, the dominant reactors will be (a) the existing ones, and (b) the ones currently for sale.

35. Preventing nuclear terrorism • Three potential types of terrorist nuclear attack • Actual nuclear bomb • Sabotage of major nuclear facility • Radiological “dirty bomb” • Also hoaxes, threats, blackmail… • al Qaeda has: • Tried to get stolen nuclear materials, expertise to make a bomb • Considered sabotage of nuclear reactors • Chance of major release caused by malevolent action may well be higher than chance from pure accident • Yet industry focus overwhelmingly more on safety than security • Dramatic change in industry culture needed

36. Preventing nuclear terrorism (II) • Preventing terrorist nuclear bombs: • Fast-paced global campaign to ensure every nuclear weapon, every stash of plutonium and HEU worldwide is secure and accounted for • Enhanced police, intelligence cooperation, tough penalties, to detect and deter nuclear smuggling • Preventing nuclear sabotage: • Fast-paced global campaign to ensure every high-consequence nuclear facility is secure • More nuclear power in more places increases the chance of mistakes, of terrorists finding a weakness • Coping with radiological “dirty bombs”: • Improve security for most dangerous radiological sources • Strengthen anti-smuggling measures, domestic preparedness • Risk largely unrelated to growth of nuclear power

37. Expanding nuclear energy need not increase terrorist nuclear bomb risks • Could have global nuclear energy growth with no use of directly weapons-usable nuclear material in the fuel cycle • Low-enriched uranium (LEU) fresh fuel cannot be made into a bomb without technologically demanding enrichment • Plutonium in massive, intensely radioactive spent fuel beyond plausible terrorist capacity to steal and process • If scale of reprocessing, transport, and use of plutonium from spent fuel expands, nuclear energy contribution to nuclear terrorist risks would increase • Reprocessing converts plutonium into portable, not very radioactive, readily weapons-usable forms • With major exception of Rokkasho, current trend seems to be away from reprocessing (despite GNEP) – reduced operations at La Hague and Mayak, phase-out at Sellafield

38. Preventing nuclear proliferation • Global nuclear nonproliferation regime is under severe stress – Iran, North Korea, the A.Q. Khan network, the global spread of technology, potential growth and spread of nuclear energy, disputes over disarmament, India deal… • But, the regime has been both successful + resilient • 9 states with nuclear weapons today – 9 states 20 years ago • More states that started nuclear weapons programs and verifiably gave them up than states with nuclear weapons – nonproliferation succeeds more often than it fails • Every past shock has led to parties introducing new measures to strengthen the system • All but 4 states are parties to the NPT, and believe it serves their interests • Most nuclear weapons program have relied on dedicated military facilities – but civil sector has repeatedly been source for technology, expertise, cover stories…

39. The scale of the control problem… • Making roughly 15 kilograms of highly enriched uranium (HEU) for one bomb requires ~ 3500 units of enrichment work • Current global civilian enrichment capacity enough to produce material for >13,000 weapons/yr – would have to triple for stabilization wedge on once-through fuel cycle • Making one bomb from plutonium requires ~ 4-8 kilograms of plutonium • Current global civilian plutonium separation ~ 20 t/yr, enough for > 3,000 weapons/yr (capacity is larger, but underutilized) • Nuclear stabilization wedge with plutonium fuel cycle (mix of fast reactors and thermal reactors) would require reprocessing ~835 tonnes of plutonium and minor actinides/yr – amount needed to produce ~140,000 bombs • Controls must prevent diversion of 1 part in 10-100,000, and limit the spread of the technology – daunting challenge

40. Reducing proliferation risks – lessons of proliferation crises • Engage the hard cases • Beef up nuclear security • Strengthen nuclear safeguards • Take new steps to stop black-market networks • Stem the spread of enrichment and reprocessing • Toughen enforcement • Reduce demand • Keep our end of the bargain With the right policies, can hope that 20 years from now there will still be only 9 nuclear weapon states – or fewer. That should be the goal. Undue fatalism will lead us to fail to take the needed actions

41. Managing nuclear waste • Nuclear reactors generate intensely radioactive spent fuel • Stored initially in pools – once cooled, can be stored safely for decades in concrete and steel dry casks • Two choices (with many variants) for final disposition: • Direct disposal – bury fuel in deep geologic repository • Reprocessing – chemically process to recover plutonium, uranium, for reuse, dispose of fission products in deep geologic repository • Reprocessing is currently more costly, poses greater proliferation risk (from large-scale processing and use of weapons-usable separated plutonium) • Dry casks make it possible to postpone decision, let technology, economics, politics evolve • Nuclear waste carries enormous political controversies, but modest risks to human well-being

42. Nuclear waste disposal Source: Nature, 4-20-06

43. In short… • Large-scale growth and spread of nuclear power need not lead to large increases in risks of accident or terrorism, or nuclear proliferation • But avoiding such large increases will require major policy actions and institutional innovations not yet in place • Taking these steps is likely to be crucial to nuclear energy gaining the acceptance needed to provide a significant portion of the low-carbon energy needed in the 21st century • Hence, the “3 S’s” – safety, security, safeguards (or more broadly nonproliferation) – are key enablers for large-scale nuclear energy growth