Running Out of Road in Belgium

Germany is a big country with a big problem when it  comes to closing its nuclear plants. Belgium is a smaller country with the same problem and somehow it’s still a pretty big one:

With just three years to go before Belgium is due to begin phasing out nuclear power, the country is still grappling with basic questions about its plans, including whether the 2015 deadline has to be adjusted to ensure electricity supplies remain reliable.

To be honest, if you want to close nuclear plants, you have to prepare for the loss of a lot of electricity and the very real possibility that the price to customers will go up, in some cases considerably. Belgium hasn’t prepared for any of this.

Melchior Wathelet, the country's new state secretary for energy, said in an interview that a study currently being prepared, for presentation by July, will assess whether there is "an alternative that would guarantee the security of supply at an acceptable price and respecting the environment."

If it were the U.S., one might poke up one’s hand and say, “Natural gas!” But that’s not a very good option for Belgium because it would likely get the gas from Russia – the whole reason, I’d guess, the phrase “security of supply” is in that statement.

Once you’ve eliminated natural gas, the answer to Mr. Wathelet’s conundrum is that Belgium will have to make an unattractive decision – accept higher electricity rates via imported sources – such as nuclear energy from France – or flip the switch on some of the shuttered coal plants.

But:

"I will say that I am getting out of [nuclear] only when I am sure I have an alternative ready," Mr. Wathelet said. Nuclear power accounts for roughly 55% of Belgium's electricity production.

Gulp! An alternative to 55 percent of your electricity production? And fast? Good luck, Mr. Wathelet.

We’ve said several times that nuclear energy is not a trap for the unwary – you don’t have to be wedded to it however much good it has done for your energy profile – but perhaps we should amend that. Nuclear energy is a trap for bad policy makers because the atom produces a lot of emission-free electricity for not very much money. (New facilities are relatively expensive to build but exceedingly inexpensive to run. As soon as you’ve paid off your fixed costs, gravy.) Countries reap the benefits with happier electricity customers – who are not paying as much as their non-nuclear neighbors and are doing their bit to combat climate change.

I genuinely don’t get why the Germans and Belgians would make  decisions that are likely to cause at least some social harm. I understand the German anxiety caused by Chernobyl colored its view of Fukushima, but I also know that that fear didn’t amount to anything. With Belgium, it was a bill blithely passed in 2003 to shut the plants after 40 years of operation – with the idea of what to replace them with kicked down the road like an old can.

Belgium is now out of road – and holding a can full of coal.

If the Germans and Belgians had behaved with any sense of responsibility, they might not have gotten into such an awful situation – and might still leave nuclear energy behind, though perhaps in a more orderly way and with further thought behind it.

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What a difference a little time and cooler heads can make:

After last year’s disaster at Fukushima, many forecast the death of the nuclear power industry as countries jumped out of this potent fuel for other alternatives. Some looked for fossil fuels to play a bigger role in electricity production, while others predicted greater dependence on clean tech products such as wind and solar instead. While both of these types have increased somewhat in importance, nuclear power doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon, at least in some markets.

From Christine Whitman and Patrick Moore:

The United States has taken an important step toward efficiently meeting the country's rising electricity demand by ensuring a greater supply of clean, safe nuclear power.

With plans in place in Georgia for the construction of the next generation of nuclear energy facilities, this industry expansion will promote economic prosperity and continued development of a sustainable clean energy source. We need a cost-efficient, low-carbon solution to the nation's increasing electricity demand- projected to rise 24 percent by 2035. Expanding nuclear energy as part of the mix of electricity generation options is necessary to meeting our nation's growing power needs cleanly and cost-effectively.

From The Trenton (N.J.) Times:

How can we best provide energy for New Jersey’s economic expansion? The answer is nuclear power — and building a new plant to capitalize on nuclear power’s economic and environmental benefits. Such a plant can supply large amounts of affordable power from a small amount of fuel all day, every day, without polluting the air or loading the atmosphere with greenhouse gases.

This one almost goes over the top – but in a good way.

A quick look at the mid-Atlantic region and around the country shows that the revival of nuclear power is picking up steam and public support.

Some of this is reaction to Southern Co. getting a license to build two new reactors at Plant Vogtle – but some of what I’ve seen has just seemed free-floating support for the atom. Appreciated.

The Tihange facility in Belgium.

Germany Nuclear Phase Out Same as Putting 4.4 Million Cars on the Road

We return, once more, to Germany where details are starting to emerge on the real costs of their nuclear phase out.

Let’s start with emissions. According to an estimate by Laszlo Varro, the head of the gas, coal, and power markets division at the International Energy Agency emissions will rise significantly.

Varro estimates that the nuclear phase out in Germany has caused a 25-million-ton annual increase in carbon dioxide emissions. The culprit, in large part, is the new coal power that has come online to meet the shortfall.

25 million tons is sort of abstract, but EPA has a pretty cool tool: the Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator. It finds more concrete alternatives to “tons of carbon dioxide” like “emissions from passenger vehicles.” Turns out 25 million tons of CO₂ emissions per year is equal to (pick your favorite one of the following):

• Annual greenhouse gas emissions from 4,446,984 passenger vehicles or
• CO₂ emissions from 52,743,297 barrels of oil.
• CO₂ emissions from the electricity use of 2,827,882 homes.
• CO₂ emissions from burning 123,494 railcars’ worth of coal.
• Annual CO₂ emissions of 5.4 coal-fired power plants.

Imagine adding emissions from 4.4 million cars in a country of 80 million. Or the emissions from almost 3 million homes. That’s essentially what Germany’s done with its phase out of nuclear power.

Don’t forget jobs. Obviously, the European economy isn’t doing too well. While Germany seems to be weathering the storm fairly well, losing 11,000 jobs can’t help.

E.ON, the world's largest utility by sales, joined peers in posting weak half-year results as Germany's decision to abandon nuclear power forced it to slash its profit outlook, its dividend and up to 11,000 jobs.

There are also concerns over the nuclear phase out’s long-term drag on Germany’s export-oriented economy. One estimate has energy bills up 20%.

Christian Schulz, senior European economist at Berenberg Bank, said estimates suggested the nuclear shutdown would increase Germany's energy bill by a fifth, which will hit the country especially hard since its economy relies heavily on its energy-intensive manufacturing industry to propel growth.

This sort of things makes you understand German manufacturers’ concerns about competitiveness. But the phase out isn’t sparing consumers either.

German households pay twice as much for power than in France, where 80% of energy is generated by nuclear plants. Klaus Abberger, senior economist at the Ifo institute for economic research at the University of Munich, said energy prices had already gone up since plans to end nuclear power generation and would stay at high for at least the next five years [emphasis added].

So much for “expensive nuclear power.” Perhaps this is behind Belgium’s qualified rethink on nuclear power.

The plan for a shutdown of the three oldest reactors by 2015 and a complete exit by 2025 is conditional on finding enough energy from alternative sources to prevent any shortages.

"If it turns out we won't face shortages and prices would not skyrocket, we intend to stick to the nuclear exit law of 2003," a spokeswoman for Belgium's energy and climate ministry said.

That’s a fair share of caveats. At least this gives  Belgium a face-saving out if they can’t find cost effective “alternative sources” scalable enough to prevent blackouts. Renewables and natural gas may just fit the bill. Or not. Renewables are hard to scale up. Natural gas prices are hard to predict. But Belgium, unlike Germany, at least has given itself time to consider the alternatives.