Should Renewable Energy Include Nuclear?

By Lily Riahi and Lisa Desai The Christian Science Monitor from the June 29, 2009 edition

Berlin - A new global effort that aims to make renewable energy more accessible to every country in the world launched on July 1st.

Governments are lining up to join the first agency that will advise them on how to make a renewable energy transition. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has attracted 108 countries, including the United States and China, which are both expected to announce their membership this week, in a move that experts say could boost the agency's credibility, since both countries are leaders in renewable energy.

But supporters worry that IRENA could be undermined by countries that are trying to promote nuclear power as a solution to climate change and dwindling oil reserves. Today, members will meet in Sharm El Sheik, Egypt to vote on a director general for the group and decide which country will host the agency's headquarters.

Currently, a leading alliance between France and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is forming. French ministerial official Helene Pelosse is a nominee for IRENA'S director general and the UAE is lobbying to host its headquarters in Abu Dhabi. IRENA advocates say if the alliance succeeds, the agency would become "nuclear tainted."

France pushes nuclear as 'low-carbon technology'

France generates nearly 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. It's also one of the world's largest providers of nuclear technology and expertise. Since 2008, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has signed multibillion-dollar nuclear deals with the UAE, Qatar, Algeria, Libya, and Morocco.

At the same time, France is promoting nuclear as a form of renewable power because it emits low levels of carbon dioxide. When the European Union defined its long-term target for renewable energy production last year, it tried to include nuclear power in the definition of renewable energy, a move that was rejected by EU members.

France is also advocating to power the Mediterranean region using "low-carbon technology." IRENA supporters worry that under French leadership, the agency will support both renewables and nuclear options together.

Most discussions separate the two because renewable energy is defined as naturally replenishing resources, like solar or wind, which don't produce waste. Nuclear power is dependent on finite uranium resources, and produces radioactive waste that has to be isolated and stored for thousands of years.

"Advocates of nuclear try to avoid these essential differences by linking these two forms of energy under the umbrella term 'low-carbon technology,'" says Dr. Doerte Fouquet, Director of the European Renewable Energy Federation. "People forget that emitting zero CO2 is only one of the characteristics that defines a renewable source of energy."

Renewables tied to oil

The US, Japan, Britain, and France are actively signing nuclear power cooperation agreements with the UAE and they're expected to back Abu Dhabi's bid to headquarter the agency, analysts say.

"Their support for Abu Dhabi as IRENA's headquarters is linked to these agreements and a secure supply of oil," says IIda Tetsunari, advisor to Japan's Minister of Environment and executive director of the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies.

IRENA supporters say that would contradict its founding purpose to set the foundations for a renewable energy economy.

"Are the original goals of IRENA being co-opted so that renewables get pushed aside by a nuclear agenda - 'sprinkling some renewables on top of our nuclear power'?" asks Dr. Eric Martinot, an international expert on renewable energy markets and former World Bank energy officer.

The UAE has a 7 percent future target for renewable energy and is planning to build Masdar, a city powered only by renewable resources. The Emirates claim that their vast solar potential is not enough to power the rest of the UAE and are looking to nuclear power to fill the gap.

"Since the 1970s, scientists have shown that renewable energy can satisfy the energy needs of the entire world, but these studies get systematically ignored. IRENA will change this," says Hermann Scheer, a member of the German Parliament, and pioneer of the agency.

The case for Germany

Many supporters say the better picks to host and lead the agency are Bonn, Germany, where the concept of IRENA was born, says Hans Jurgen Koch, member of Denmark's climate and energy ministry.

In both countries building new nuclear plants is illegal. Instead, they've focused on introducing new policies to encourage renewable energy generation. Germans can access interest-free loans to buy solar panels and get paid to feed renewable energy to the grid. The country has 300,000 green jobs, and is hoping to double its share of renewable energy power to 30 percent by 2020, four times more the UAE's target.

Dr. Scheer, who has been fighting to establish the agency since the 1990s, says the founding of IRENA took off when the German government sought support of like-minded countries. "This was the only way to avoid the veto power of countries with strong nuclear or fossil interests, who have stopped IRENA in the past," he says. "IRENA could be designed as a lame duck or it could promote renewable energy acceleration everywhere. This is the case for decision."

Follow Lily Riahi on Twitter: www.twitter.com/lilyriahi

Comments

[Overtone]

Forget nuclear! Future cars can pay for themselves and can catalyze rapid change!

Breakthroughs include the MagGen. These magnetic generators will initially make it possible to cut the cord on a plug-in hybrid so it no longer needs to plug-in. Later, they can replace the batteries in an electric car. Then, the MagGen can run when the car is parked and sell power to the utility. Prototypes are under development.

Next is a Self Powered Internal Combustion Engine - SPICE, which can power a hybrid. It will need no fuel and is another path to ending the need to plug-in. The engine can run when parked.

Both systems can wirelessly transmit and sell power to the local utility.

The SPICE will be powered by hydrinos - which let a barrel of water equal hundreds of barrels of oil.

Scientists and engineers will doubt these technologies are possible until validation by Independent Laboratories, an important step on the agenda.

Until now, car ownership has been an expense. Payments to car owners driving a hybrid with a SPICE, or powered by MagGen, are likely to be substantial.

The cost of many vehicles might be paid for by utilities, as they purchase power. Parked cars each will become decentralized power plants - a rapid, cost-effective path to catalyze reduction of the need for fuel.

Consumers worldwide can generate substantial demand for such vehicles and accelerate any need to build new power plants..

[agnuxo]

Spanish company touts process to turn urban waste into biodiesel

A group of Spanish developers working under the company name Ecofasa, headed by chief executive officer and inventor Francisco Angulo, has developed a biochemical process to turn urban solid waste into a fatty acid biodiesel feedstock. “It took more than 10 years working on the idea of producing biodiesel from domestic waste using a biological method,” Angulo told Biodiesel Magazine. “My first patent dates back to 2005. It was first published in 2007 in Soto de la Vega, Spain, thanks to the council and its representative Antonio Nevado.”

[ponderman]

The light at the end of the tunnel will be powered by electricity generated by human physical energy.

[elmerfude]

There is too much ignorance and hysteria on anything nuclear including nuclear waste. Compared to blowing off the tops of mountains to get coal, nuclear waste is a miniscule problem and is safely managed.

[Decorina]

No. Not until the waste it generates can be disposed of completely without contaminating the planet for good and forever.

[GearRatio]

Fission power won't take us very far. The "once through" fuel cycle currently used by the world's civilian power reactors will burn up the world's reserves of fissionable U235 in about the same time it will take us to burn up the rest of the world's petroleum.

This time-line can be greatly expanded by going to a "breeder" fuel cycle, converting the much more plentiful isotope U238 to fissionable plutonium. But, a worldwide energy economy based on plutonium raises very worrisome issues of nuclear weapon proliferation. Plutonium can, in theory, be separated from reactor fuel rods by chemical means, and the plutonium then used to make bombs. The chemical processes involved are rather specialized and dangerous, (dissolving deadly radioactive substances in hydrofluoric acid is not something I would care to do!) but are, none the less, feasible....

[elmerfude]

Of course plutonium can be separated from fuel rods. This is how we created our nuclear stockpile. It is complex and expensive but was done safely in our case throughout the cold war and WWII.