International Nuclear Cutoff

Germany’s Recent Nuclear Phase Out Plan to “Save” their Country

Background:

Anti-Nuclear sentiment has been growing in Germany since the 1970’s, when protesters disagreed with the very concept of nuclear power. These people were concerned and voiced their opinions with multiple human chain protests and other arguments going against the energy companies. Eventually in 1998, the Green Party won the election and declared that the life span of nuclear plants could not exceed 32 years. That would mean that by 2022, there would be no more nuclear energy. Then in 2002, there was an outright ban from developing any new nuclear power plants. By 2009 the newly elected CDU / CSU formed a coalition with the Free Democrats that would expand the the plants operational time by 8 years for 7 nuclear plants and 14 years for the remaining 10 plants. As seen in Figure 1, nuclear power generation dropped by 8 GW after the Fukushima incident. Germany wasn't the only country effected by this incident and that will be seen with France as well.

Germany until March 2011 obtained one-quarter of its electricity from nuclear energy, using 17 reactors. The figure is now about 12% from seven reactors, while 42% of electricity comes from coal, the majority of that from lignite.


Problem:

Germany had a big push to stop the expansion of nuclear power within the country since the 1970’s (Figure 2). The anti-nuclear coalition has been successful over the years to stop the development of any new plants and close old ones. This leads to a large problem. With the destruction of the nuclear plants, Germany's electricity requirements still needed to be met. Therefore, the use of the natural gas, coal, and oil power plants have been put back online to fill up the gaps in the energy supply. The nuclear reduction was a big push, but there was no feasible outline to supply the extra energy that was once generated by the nuclear power plants. Therefore, until other renewable energy sources are supplied, the country will have to use fossil fuels to produce the needed electrical supply.

Figure 1: Germany's Energy Generation Capacity for each Energy Source

source: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/images/factsheet/fig1-installed-net-power-generation-capacity-germany-2002-2017.png?itok=wr3A_TjU

“Nuclear Power No More”     

Figure 2: German Protest Fighting Against the Expansion of Nuclear Energy

source: http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/mk1rpFElrR0/Protests+Against+Germany+Nuclear+Power+Extension

France’s Nuclear Power Reduction

• French President Emmanuel Macron’s election campaign included a promise to cut nuclear power generation from 72% to 50% by 2025.
• European electricity prices are currently too low to cover the investments required to renovate EDF’s reactor fleet and build new facilities to replace the oldest plants.
• Under the “Volt” scenario, nuclear capacity would be cut to 55 GW by closing just nine of state-owned utility EDF’s 58 nuclear reactors and leaving the share of nuclear in power production at 56 percent. The “Ampere” scenario would close 16 reactors and leave the share of nuclear at 46 percent.
• This is the country with the highest amount of nuclear energy with 70% of its energy is created from nuclear power.
• “The problem with nuclear reactors is the risk of low-probability, high-impact accidents,” says Paul Dorfman, researcher at the Energy Institute of University College London. “After Fukushima, there has been an attempt to design away risk but this has led to over-engineering.”

Figure 3: France photo of the Cruas Nuclear Power Station located in Cruas and Meysse communes

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/BUSINESS/04/11/japan.fukushima.nuclear.industry/index.html

China: Nuclear Expansion

• High risk for failure in order to keep the new reactors safe. Just like the other countries,

China is also scared about Japan's nuclear meltdown and therefore they have to invest more

funding to make the reactors safer. 

• China is on course to lead the world in the deployment of nuclear power technology by 2030. 
• Some quasi-official projections, before Fukushima, said that China might have 400 or more nuclear power plants have been cut in half by 2050
• 19 new reactors are proposed to be built for China by the end of the year of 2020. 
• The proposed project is to be established on the South China Sea which makes it high risk for natural disasters such as tsunamis. 

References:

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/history-behind-germanys-nuclear-phase-out
https://www.dw.com/en/how-far-along-is-germanys-nuclear-phase-out/a-18547065
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-g-n/germany.aspx
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/images/factsheet/fig1-installed-net-power-generation-capacity-germany-2002-2017.png?itok=wr3A_TjU
https://www.ft.com/content/7c68a702-57cb-11e8-bdb7-f6677d2e1ce8
https://www.power-technology.com/features/featuremacrons-france-where-now-for-nuclear-power-5905019/
https://www.reuters.com/article/france-nuclearpower/nuclear-energy-to-remain-key-for-france-finance-minister-le-maire-idUSL8N1TS2OD
http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/mk1rpFElrR0/Protests+Against+Germany+Nuclear+Power+Extensionhttps://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-nuclearpower/france-crimps-debate-on-reducing-reliance-on-nuclear-activists-say-idUSKBN1FE2MU
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/outline-history-of-nuclear-energy.aspx