by Mary Douglas
Reprinted from AREVA Energy Business, Issue 8

Climate change is a reality and some of its impacts may already be irreversible. The Catlin Arctic Survey team has found out that most of the ice in the region is first-year ice that will melt next summer. Within a decade, the North Pole will turn into an open sea every summer. Kashmir University’s geology and geophysics department says Indian Kashmir’s glaciers are melting fast because of rising temperatures, threatening the water supply of millions.

AREVA is aware of these challenges and leading the field in offering solutions for CO2-free power generation as delegates from 200 countries prepare to meet in Copenhagen in December, to hammer out a new climate agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol whose first phase ends in 2012.

With world electricity demand expected to double by 2030, alternatives to fossil fuels must be applied whenever possible to ensure a balanced and reliable energy mix. AREVA is helping to achieve these goals by offering customers a wide-ranging portfolio of both nuclear and “renewable energy” solutions.

International concern

Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change says he will be happy if the UN climate conference in Copenhagen (COP15) can deliver on “four essentials”:

• How much industrialized countrieswill reduce emissions,
• How much major developing countries will limit the growth of their emissions,
• How the help needed by developing countries to reduce emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change will be financed, and
• How that money will be managed.

Danish Minister for Climate and Energy Connie Hedegaard, incoming COP15 president, says Copenhagen is a “window of opportunity” which should not be missed. She is optimistic that after months of political stalemate key countries are now coming forward with new targets. “In that sense,” she says, “Copenhagen has already delivered results.”

Connie Hedegaard, Danish Minister for Climate and Energy

To achieve stabilisation of CO2 emissions by 2030, The International Energy Agency’s annual World Energy Outlook for 2009 divides the world into several sectors and considers policy options for each. It looks at what the power sector could achieve under “a plausible set of commitments and policies which could emerge.” The IEA suggests “much faster roll-out of renewables and nuclear including urgent investment in carbon capture and storage,” while the richest countries should “facilitate the transfer of low-carbon technologies – through international sector agreements and the purchase of carbon credits and other measures.”

This would need some $12 trillion beyond the ’business as usual’ scenario, mostly for investment in energy efficiency, modernization of transport and construction of low-carbon power generation. The cost would be offset by savings in pollution control amounting to $100 billion a year. Investment in nuclear power could be boosted by $125 billion in 2010-2020, increasing to $491 billion in the decade to 2030, says the IEA. This would be in addition to growth already planned for nuclear power and would save an extra 1.87 billion tons in emissions a year.

AREVA’s Nuclear Asset

Nuclear isn’t the only solution for clean energy generation, but there is no solution without nuclear. As world leader in nuclear power and the only company to cover all industrial activities in this field, AREVA offers solutions throughout the nuclear fuel cycle. With more than forty years’ experience, its integrated business model in nuclear power is a major asset.

AREVA’s activities encompass everything from uranium exploration, mining and processing, reactor design, construction and maintenance, expended fuel and waste management. With this unique organization the group is able to meet the needs of utilities for CO2-free power generation.

Representing about 15% of the global electricity mix, nuclear power reduces the world’s emissions by almost 10% each year, avoiding the release of some 2.1 billion tons of CO2. Installed nuclear generating capacity will double by 2030, and AREVA is working to offer reactors suited to the requirements of each country.

AREVA is also developing next-generation fuel assemblies for light water reactors and, as part of an international research program, is working on Generation IV nuclear reactors, which are expected to increase power plant yields considerably.

Look for Part II tomorrow!

• Find the article on page 22 of AREVA Energy Business Magazine

Dan Yurman at Idaho Samizdat asks some good questions about Copenhagen, climate change issues, and nuclear power:

If you want to pursue a strategy of decarbonization, and you don’t want to sacrifice economic development goals, then the nations of the world have only one form of electricity generation for base load demand to use to make that switch in one generation. Nuclear energy is the answer. Need evidence? Take a look at what India and China are doing.
Climate change is a challenge to the survival of the human species. We created this mess and, if we don’t want to turn into crispy critters on the only planet we have, then we have also have to fix it. To use an analogy from the military, you don’t fight a war with the weapons you wish you had, you fight it with the ones you’ve got.

Al Gore can preach all he wants about renewables, but battery storage technologies to support solar and wind aren’t likely to change in the next decade or so. In short, his plan, however popular with the press and green groups, is a sure fire path to reducing economic growth if relied on as a sole strategy to achieve significant change from fossil fuels.

The nuclear energy industry has some serious challenges ahead to explain itself in these terms. On the other hand, the big U.S. utilities are realists who see uprates to nuclear reactors as being competitive responses to combined cycle natural gas plants. None of the nuclear utilities are going to commit to building a new nuclear reactor until the government stops its denial that it has an obligation to leverage the future of the industry with loan guarantees.

It will be interesting to hear what the U.S. delegation says this coming week about nuclear energy. We’re either going to get more political fig leafs or maybe some real straight talk about what it will take to reduce the growth of greenhouse gases. I’ll be listening. I hope you will too.

Germany’s Der Spiegel has a chart on their website that we think best illustrates the key role nuclear energy has to play in any climate change plan. Not only is nuclear energy baseload and reliable, but it’s also much, much less expensive:

Using AREVA’s own EPR as a baseline for the cost of nuclear energy, it’s quite clear: If we want to reduce carbon emissions responsibly, nuclear energy has to be part of the solution.

(Hat tip to Charles Barton at Nuclear Green for the link!)

A fascinating argument from Richard Lester on what it would take to meet our Copenhagen goals for the US, and in the process dramatically almost eliminate US dependence on foreign power… notably, it would include multiplying the US nuclear power infrastructure “five-fold.” Here are snippets:

When President Obama goes to the Copenhagen climate change summit next week, he is expected to once again declare that the U.S. will reduce its carbon emissions 83% by 2050….

Most anthropogenic CO2 emissions come from fossil fuels, so there are two main routes to achieving the president’s goal. First, the U.S. must reduce the share of fossil fuels—currently 85%—in the energy supply system, which includes everything from electricity generation and transportation to industrial uses. And second, Americans must use energy more efficiently…

Here is a recipe that would work: Add 30,000 megawatts of new wind turbines every year between now and 2050 (this is nearly four times what was added in 2008, a record year). Add another 35,000 megawatts of solar photovoltaic capacity annually (more than 100 times what was added last year—a record year for solar, too).

That’s just the beginning. Now multiply the nuclear reactor fleet fivefold by midcentury. Retrofit all existing coal-fired power plants with carbon capture and storage technology. And build twice as many new plants, also with carbon capture. Natural gas could substitute for coal, but only with carbon capture too. By 2050, the electric power system would be four times bigger than today. Two-thirds of the car and truck fleet would be powered by electricity, and the rest would run on advanced biofuels…

All of this would indeed reduce carbon emissions by 83%. It would also practically eliminate America’s dependence on oil imports. But could it be done?

Perhaps, though not without enormous effort. Operating a power grid reliably and economically with intermittent solar and wind resources generating 40% of the electricity cannot be done today. Carbon capture and storage has yet to be demonstrated on a large scale. Meanwhile, a still vocal group of environmentalists remains adamantly opposed to nuclear energy—even though it is the only low-carbon energy source that is both scaleable and already generating large amounts of electricity…. Yet falling short on any of these decarbonization measures would require even more of the others, or even greater energy efficiency gains…

This is a matter of arithmetic; it cannot be wished away.

As the important climate change dialogue continues in Copenhagen and throughout the world, the Washington Post has launched Post Carbon, a blog providing up-to-the-minute information about the climate change crisis and what we’re doing to combat it. This week, unsurprisingly, they’re in Copenhagen providing live updates as the climate change conference goes on.

We’re glad to see that more and more newspapers – like the Post, the Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times – are paying attention to environmental issues, climate change, and the role nuclear energy will need to play in our CO2-free energy future. We’re confident that the more dialogue, discussion, and education we have about these issues, the clearer it’ll be that nuclear power has to be part of our energy discussion as we face down the global threat that is climate change.

A number of voices online have been watching the Copenhagen conference and are bringing up the role of nuclear. We’ve rounded up a few to highlight, let us know as you see more by adding comments here, and we’ll highlight those as well.

• Michael Avari looks at the Copenhagen convention and sees a direct connection to nuclear power in a post to his blog yesterday:

  …The solution is simple and within our reach, but evidently beyond the vision of governments.  In his testimony, Cristy further stated, “And, if the Congress deems it necessary to reduce CO2 emissions, the single most effective way to do so by a small, but at least detectable, amount is through the massive implementation of a nuclear power program.  Other currently available alternatives simply cannot produce enough energy to be significantly noticed at a price and geographic scale that is affordable.”

  Nuclear power produces no CO2.  Yet, the United States produces only 19% of its power from nuclear energy as compared to France producing 86%.5  By contrast, the U.S. generates 49% of its electricity from coal—the worst offender of GHG, whereas France only 4.1%.  What did the French do right?  Steve Kidd, Director of Strategy & Research at the World Nuclear Association, answers that question succinctly with two things lacking in the U.S.: a unified national energy policy and a standard power plant design that increases safety while cutting costs….

  Reaching the same percentage of electricity production as France would cut 2.4 billion tons of CO2 from our emissions, 129% of entire amount emitted by all of transportation.  It would reduce total CO2 emissions by nearly 40%, without burdening our economy with new costs and regulations.

• Dan Yurman notes the connection between India’s commitments on climate change and their nuclear power polcies over at his blog.
• In a press release timed to draw attention to just such a connection, Constellation Energy says “Nuclear is key to Carbon Reduction.”
  

  Constellation Energy says nuclear energy plays an indispensable role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions….

  The Baltimore-based energy producer and marketer made the comments in a statement issued Monday on the climate change conference in Copenhagen.

  Constellation says nuclear energy provides about 14 percent of the world’s commercial electricity, a number that needs to increase substantially if long-term emmission reduction goals are to be met. The company also says cap-and-trade legislation and incentives can ensure a cost-effective transition to cleaner energy if done right.

• Paul Genoa, NEI’s Policy Director, blogging from Copenhagen over at the NationJournal Blog:
  

  In policies coming out of Copenhagen and subsequent international climate meetings that will shape the trajectory of clean energy job growth in the United States. By nature, clean energy technology like nuclear energy produces high quality jobs. However, absent clear, consistent and enduring clean energy support at the international and domestic level, the clean energy economy and the jobs required to sustain it will not be achieved. If we collectively meet this challenge, our children and grandchildren will inherit a cleaner world full of promise —largely due to the economic growth driven by infrastructure development.

• Finally, Charles Barton over at Nuclear Green has an excellent post about Alan Weinberg, who prophetically wrote in the 1970s about the danger posed by the CO2 emissions from building more coal-fired power plants instead of nuclear power plants:
  

  Today Weinberg’s views on CO2 and global warming seem prophetic. In a 1976 paper “Economic Implications of A US Nuclear Moratorium. 1985 to 2010,” which Weinberg co-authored with Charles E. Whittle, Alan D. Poole, Edward L. Allen, William G. Pollard, Herbert G. MacPherson, Ned L. Treat, and Doan L. Phung, reveal to us exactly how accurate Weinberg’s vision into the future was. In the paper Weinberg and his associates assessed the the economic and environmental consequences of moratorium on nuclear construction in the United States. He assumed that no new reactors would be ordered after 1980, but that reactor construction would continue till about 1985. He then looked at the consequences to allow continued operation of reactors on line by 1985. Weinberg tried to think out the implications of the cessation of new reactor construction.

  Weinberg and his associates understood that if reactor construction ceased, power companies would construct more coal fired power plants to meet consumer demand for electricity. Weinberg assumed that consumer demand would be driven by two factors population growth, and economic growth. He also assumed that technological changes would increase the efficiency of electrical use, but that these efficiencies would not offset the increase in demand.

Let us know if you find other blog posts about the importance of nuclear power as we continue the discussion at Copenhagen…

Here’s a online form to send your greetings to the Copenhagen-15 Climate Change event. Messages sent through here will be projected onto the walls of the conference.

We encourage our friends in the nuclear blogger community to send good wishes to those participating at Copenhagen and perhaps include your hopes that nuclear power could provide a vital role in member states’ goals for carbon reduction.

Starting today (Dec. 7-18), senior representatives from over 192 nations, thousands of NGO’s, hundreds of scientists, and thousands of activists are gathering for the historic 15th annual Conference of the Parties for its Framework Convention on Climate Change, or as it’s known in short, as the “Copenhagen 15 Conference.” (Or, even shorter: “COP-15″.)

The entire event is expected to bring over 34,000 individuals — including representatives from AREVA — to Copenhagen this week to engage on climate change. The goal of the event is to collectively assess progress and issues in coping with global climate change, and to work towards a new agreement that would follow the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in three years.

Most observers suggest that the practical goal of this event is to bring a “politically binding” deal across all member nations on targets for reducing their carbon output over the next several decades. This political deal would later become an official legal deal across member companies after the event.

India, China, the EU and Japan have already described their targets. For the U.S., President Obama has announced he would attend the Conference and likely bring a U.S. commitment to reduce carbon output in stages, beginning with a 17% cut by 2020.

Many feel the Copenhagen 15 event will be a pivotal point defining IF or HOW the world would take action over the next half century combating climate change.

AREVA has long been a corporate voice championing large-scale global transitions to CO2-free clean energy, and that the planet needs to ween itself off of older dirtier fuels of our past. We hope to be a vital presence at the event. And will post our thoughts and progress here.

You can follow Copenhagen tweets on Twitter under the hashtag #COP15.

We encourage our friends in the nuclear blogger community to join the many environmental bloggers following the event, blogging about it, and making their voices heard.

Some useful links:

• COP 15 general website
• US Dept. Of State Website for the event

by Jarret Adams

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland speaks at AREVA's Ohio Supplier Day

AREVA’s second U.S. Supplier Day in Columbus, Ohio, saw another capacity turnout with representatives from more than 100 companies from the state and region. AREVA held the event to find new partner companies to help supply and build U.S. EPR™ nuclear plants in the United States, including possibly one in southern Ohio, and other export opportunities around the world.

Several leading energy companies, including AREVA, formed an alliance in June to develop America’s first clean energy park project at a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) site in Piketon, Ohio. The Southern Ohio Clean Energy Park Alliance will evaluate the DOE Portsmouth site as a potential location for a new nuclear power plant. The initial focus of the project is on AREVA’s U.S. EPR™ technology.

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland kicked off the event last night with a strong endorsement of nuclear energy: “I have been pro-nuclear since before it was cool.” He added, “Frankly, if climate change is our next big challenge—and I believe it is—it is irresponsible to ignore the only source of baseload electricity that produces no carbon emissions.”

A new U.S. EPR™ project would create thousands of jobs and spur significant local investment, but such a project also would require hundreds of qualified suppliers and subcontractors. That’s the reason AREVA is holding its Supplier Days now.

“AREVA came to Ohio to look for partners to manufacture and supply the thousands of components and to build U.S. EPR™ nuclear plants that are truly ‘Made in America,’ and further realize our vision of revitalizing America’s energy infrastructure,” said Mike Rencheck, President and CEO of AREVA NP Inc. “We have been overwhelmed by the strong response to our call for partners.”

The Ohio Supplier Day is the second of our planned events; the first was held in Baltimore in November.

In an excellent editorial in The Australian, Barry Brook and Martin Nicholson, climate change scientists, make the case for nuclear power as an essential component of any climate change plan. To those who think high-profile incidents that took place twenty years ago or more make nuclear power unsafe, they talk about new safety technologies and note:

Comparing the flawed Chernobyl design to today’s reactors is like saying modern aviation is too dangerous because the Hindenburg airship exploded in 1937.

The entire editorial is really worth a read.