The European Union’s acceptance of the forbidden word “nuclear” in trying to cut greenhouse gas emissions could spur countries to embrace atomic power, the head of the European Atomic Forum (Foratom) industry group said.
Foratom Director General Santiago San Antonio said Britain’s current debate about building nuclear plants could be a model for Europe as it decides how to combat climate change.
“In the resolution of the (European) Council last week, nuclear was mentioned for the first time in many years,” he said yesterday in a telephone interview from Brussels.
Before this resolution “mainly, they didn’t mention nuclear, a forbidden word, a non-existent word for politicians. But now, things have changed very much.”
San Antonio said the Council, which groups the EU’S 27 national leaders, had left a switch to nuclear power implicit in its ambitious package of targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.
“We hope that in the near future, let’s say in the next two to three years, many countries will take the decision in building up new nuclear power plants,” said San Antonio, whose Foratom groups 16 national nuclear associations.
EU leaders last week resolved to slash greenhouse gas emissions and switch to renewable fuels. The climate change plan includes a target of reducing EU greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020. Use of nuclear power will be left up to national governments.
Europe has about 160 nuclear plants, many of which are reaching the end of their expected lives and need to be replaced either with new reactors or some alternative.
Opponents argue that nuclear plants are unsafe and that the waste remains lethal for generations. Among EU countries, Italy has banned atomic plants, Spain has vowed to phase out nuclear power and Germany is committed to ending use of the plants.
San Antonio said the EU’s nuclear power output was about a third of EU production but this share was slipping as demand rose and aging sites were shut down with none to replace them. “We estimate that between now and the year 2020, 2030, we will need to have 30,000 megawatts of power. That is just to maintain the current level of generation,” he said.
Nuclear plants with a total capacity of about 4,000 megawatts are under construction in France, Finland and Romania. San Antonio had no estimate of how many reactors might be needed to help meet the EU’s climate change goals.
Besides resistance to building reactors, Europe is grappling with a lack of engineers and personnel to build and run plants as construction of new plants has dried up, San Antonio said. “We lost part of those capabilities as well as losing some of the manufacturing capabilities for heavy components, like reactor vessels,” he said.
(Reuters)