CCRES Expert: Nuclear energy 'does not reduce the price of electricity'

CCRES Expert: Nuclear energy 'does not reduce the price of electricity'

Nuclear power plants are attractive for their owners but not necessarily for the consumer, says Alois Tost, independent expert consultant on energy issues.

Alois Tost is an Independent consultant on nuclear energy and renewable energy sources in Europe.

Germany had already started to consider a nuclear phase-out several years ago but things have moved very quickly on the issue since the Fukushima accident. What happened in the political discussion on the nuclear power in Germany during the last years and months?

The nuclear phase-out started to be a serious topic in Germany in the year 2000 at the time of the government of the Social Democratic Party and the Greens. They negotiated with the energy business to agree on the 32 years limit for nuclear power plants' lifetime. The law came into power in 2002.

But during the discussion the other parties in the parliament, especially the Christian Democrats and the Free Democratic Party were giving signals that if they became part of a ruling coalition in the future they would cancel this law. That actually happened after they have been elected in 2009. Even against a strong resistance among the population they agreed to extend the lifetime from the previously agreed dates – it was extended by 14 years for the new power plants and by 8 years for the old ones.

But the reason that launched the whole discussion in Europe was of course the Fukushima accident in March 2011. The whole of Europe not only started to discuss nuclear power but also saw how Germany reacted by switching off eight power plants immediately.

Later on, the German government returned to the original law and has formulated an even more clearly defined schedule for the phase-out. This restored law was not only approved by the ruling parties but naturally by the Social Democrats and the Greens as well.

It even became a subject to criticism as some say that when you have a law backed by such a strong majority you should insert it into the constitution. Because then you will never find a majority which would be able to cancel it in the foreseeable future.

The reaction of German industry to the governments' decision was, not surprisingly, negative. How does the industry deal with the shift away from the nuclear power? Will the phase-out affect the prices of energy and what will be the impact on the competitiveness of the German industry?

Before the government's decision, during the discussion whether to expand the lifetime of the nuclear power plants or not, the industry started several campaigns and lobbying in favour of the expansion of the nuclear plants' lifetime. But as soon as this decision was reneged, industry started to support the expansion of coal power plants. Probably because nowadays we have no party in the parliament that is pro-nuclear power anymore.

Anyway there is still a certain level of criticism towards the nuclear phase-out because many companies think that the change was taken too quickly. They are afraid of blackouts which might appear especially in winter when the demand for energy is higher and renewable sources provide less electricity than in the summer. It has to be taken into consideration that this explanation might mainly aim to support their wish for lower electricity prices.

Of course the companies state that the phase-out will lower the competitiveness. But we have to consider that there is only a very small part of the German industry really dependent on electricity prices, for example the production of aluminium or steel.

But even the steel industry, which is considered to be a big consumer of electricity, is not so dependent on electricity prices. If the electricity cost rises by 20%, the production cost in the steel industry will rise by only by 1.5%. Such change in prices can easily happen also with the costs of raw materials or coal which are also very important in the steel industry.

After a nuclear phase-out, there are several energy sources which can fill the gap. One of them is coal. Will the phase-out bring the expansion of coal thus decelerating the pace of achieving the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020?

No. We have to consider the emissions trading system. There is a defined cap for the emissions in the EU by 2020. And the production of electricity is part of the emission trading system. There is a certain amount of emission certificates which is allocated to the power plants. If a utility company decides to invest into a coal power plant, of course they have to buy the emissions certificates for the power plant as well. Nobody really knows how the price of the certificates will develop.

Nowadays the prices of the certificates are very low and it seems to be profitable to invest into a coal power plant. There are also many gas power plants that have been built or are under construction in Germany.

This is maybe because the companies await the rise in the prices of the emission certificates when less and less of them will be allocated. So if somebody says that a new coal power plant will cause a rise in CO2 emission, it is not true because the amount is defined and no more emission certificates will be allocated just because a new power plant is being built.

A nuclear power plant does not reduce the carbon dioxide emissions either. Nuclear plants simply do not buy any carbon dioxide certificates and in fact the use of the nuclear power lowers the price of the certificates. I have never heard about this aspect in the Czech public discussion.

In Germany this aspect was publicly discussed already before Fukushima when the government supported the expansion of the nuclear power plants lifetime and was explaining that it will decrease the carbon dioxide emission – but this was not true. The carbon dioxide certificates get cheaper with expanding the use of the nuclear power. You could see it after Fukushima when the certificates immediately became more expensive by nearly 2 euros per tonne.

Another way to fill the gap is renewable energy. To which extent is Germany fulfilling the 2020 target for renewables?

Germany has nearly 20 % of renewable energy in the electricity production; it was 17 % by the end of 2010. However, the 20-20-20 bill does not only consider electricity production but the share of the renewable energy in the final electricity consumption which means electricity, heat and mobility. And in this respect, Germany is far away from having reached the 20 % – at the moment the country is at 11 %. But Germany does not have to reach 20 % as each country has its individual goals. It is 18 % for Germany which has to be reached in 2020 in comparison to 1990.

What is the role of the solar energy in German renewables? Similar to the Czech Republic, in Germany there has also been a boom of the photovoltaics. Is it profitable to support solar energy even though the geographical conditions are not ideal for that in Germany?

Photovoltaics are for sure not the most efficient way to produce renewable energy in Germany because considering that they contribute only 14.2 % to the overall renewable electricity production, their share in subsidies for renewables is 38.6 %. If we consider the current situation it is not so easy for Germany to install solar panels for example in Spain or North Africa because nowadays we do not have sufficient transmission capacities to bring the electricity to Germany. But it is one of the concepts for the future how to realise the idea to produce the renewable energy where it is the most efficient and to transmit it to other regions.

Is it possible to realise similar project as for example the Desertec concept focusing on North-South interconnection and the collective use of solar energy from North Africa and wind energy from North-West Europe?

Yes, it is technically possible already today. However if you see the map, you see that some of the countries supposed to take part have a problem with political instability. So we are rather facing political issues than the technical ones in this question.

The Fraunhofer-Institute for Wind Energy and Energy System Technology institute in Germany has calculated that using renewable technologies available today and a super grid in Europe and North Africa, the price of one MWh fed into the German grid is around 50€. That's very close to today's electricity price at the energy exchange.

But there are also other problems because we would need to strengthen the transmission grid. In Germany this would face a strong opposition of the population of course because usually people want to have clean energy but nobody wants to have wind mills or transmission lines in his garden.

You mentioned before that despite the usual notions, nuclear power does not push down the electricity price in favour of the customer. What is the reason for that?

The price of electricity is formed at the energy exchange and it is always determined by the most expensive power plant which is necessary to meet demand. So we start with those power plants having the lowest marginal variable generation costs and those are usually the nuclear power plants. Then we take the next more expensive power plants which are for example the lignite power plants. And usually it is the gas power plant which is the most expensive and determines the price of electricity. Nuclear power plants are hardly ever the ones deciding the price.

Every power plant gets paid the price which is necessary to pay the most expensive power plant, the so-called marginal power plant. Therefore operating a nuclear power plant is highly attractive for its owner.

If you replace the capacity of a nuclear power plant for example by the capacity of a coal power plant, the price will not change because it is still the natural gas power plant being the most expensive one and deciding about the price. It is a question of capacity. You need sufficient generation capacity in order to keep the prices low.

But if you provide this capacity by nuclear power plants, coal power plants or any other power plant with low variable cost, it will not have an impact on the price. Now somebody can say that when the German power plants were switched off after Fukushima, the prices went up, but this was because the capacity was not replaced by cheap power plants as for example coal but from the power plants which were not in operation before, being outside the marginal price, for example gas power plants.

This is a question of who gains and who pays. When somebody says that the nuclear power plant is cheap, it is for the owner but not necessarily for the consumer.More info at solarserdar@gmail.com

Croatian Center of Renewable Energy Sources (CCRES)

How Does Nuclear Radiation Harm CCRES

CROATIAN CENTER of RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES



How Does Nuclear Radiation Harm the Body?

The amount of radioactive material being released from the damaged nuclear reactors in Japan, and the eventual impact it will have on human health, are still being determined.

How does nuclear radiation harm the body, and what are the risks from long-term exposure to low levels after an accident? MyHealthNewsDaily spoke with experts about these questions.

How does radiation harm the body?




About 150 people living or working around Japan's damaged nuclear facilities have been monitored for potential radiation exposure, and 23 have been found to be in need of treatment. How is the extent of their exposure measured?

According to the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), "exposure" refers to the amount of radiation, such as X-rays, gamma rays, neutrons, alpha and beta particles, present in the air. Exposure, usually expressed in units of roentgens, is measured by Geiger counters and similar devices. A Geiger counter registers how much the gas it contains gets ionized by incoming particles of radiation, and converts that information into an electronic signal.

People don't absorb all the radiation they're exposed to, however; most of it passes straight through their bodies. A small amount of the energy carried by radiation gets absorbed by bodily tissues, and that absorbed amount is measured in units of "radiation absorbed dose" (rad). Radiation affects different people in different ways, but a rule of thumb used by safety crews is that a single roentgen of gamma- or x-ray exposure typically produces an absorbed dose of approximately 1 rad. By measuring the radiation level around a person's body using a Geiger counter, a safety officer can approximate that person's absorbed dose.

There's been some reported evidence that radioactive iodine and cesium are being released into the environment from the malfunctioning nuclear reactors in Japan, said Kathryn Higley, director of the Oregon State University department of nuclear engineering and radiation health physics.

As radioactive material decays, or breaks down, the energy released into the environment has two ways of harming a body that is exposed to it, Higley said. It can directly kill cells, or it can cause mutations to DNA. If those mutations are not repaired, the cell may turn cancerous.

Radioactive iodine tends to be absorbed by the thyroid gland and can cause thyroid cancer, said Dr. Lydia Zablotska, an assistant professor in the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco.

But radioactive iodine is short-lived and will be around for only about two months after an accident, said Andre Bouville of the National Cancer Institute, who has studied radiation doses from the fallout of the 1986 Chernobyl explosion in Ukraine. So, if the exposure to the air comes after that time, radioactive iodine does not pose a health risk, Bouville said.

Children are most at risk for thyroid cancer, since their thyroid glands are 10 times smaller than those of adults, he said. The radioactive iodine would be more concentrated in them.

Radioactive cesium, on the other hand, can stay in the environment for more than a century. But it does not concentrate in one part of the body the way radioactive iodine does.

The Chernobyl accident released a plume of radioactive materials into the atmosphere in a fraction of a second. In the following years, the incidence of thyroid cancer among those exposed as children increased in Ukraine and nearby countries, Zablotska said. The cancer showed up between four and 10 years after the accident, Bouville said.

Children were exposed to radioactive material mainly from eating contaminated leafy vegetables and dairy. There have been no detectable health effects from exposure to radioactive cesium after the accident.

In general, it takes a pretty high dose of radiation to increase cancer risk, Higley said. For instance, there were reports that one Japanese worker was exposed to 10 rem (100 millisievert, mSV), a measurement of radiation dose. From that exposure, his lifetime cancer risk would go up about half a percent, Higley said. According to Higley, the dose is the equivalent of about five CT scans. Americans are exposed to about 0.3 rem (3 mSv) each year from natural sources, such as the sun.

Potentially, exposure to any type of radiation can increase cancer risk, with higher exposure increasing the risk, Bouville said.

No increases in cancer rates were observed after the release of radioactive from a power plant on Three Mile Island, Pa., in 1979, Zablotska said.

Radiation sickness

A person's risk of getting sick depends on how much radiation the body absorbs. Those exposed to high levels of radiation, about 200 rem, (2000 millisievert ) could develop radiation sickness, Bouville said. A chest X-ray is about 0.02 rem, (0.2 millisieverts mSv), according to the Interational Atomic Energy Agency.

People are exposed to about 0.24 rem (2.4 mSv) per year from natural background radiation in the environment, the IAEA says.

Radiation sickness is often fatal and can produce such symptoms as bleeding and shedding of the lining on the gastrointestinal tract, Zablotska said. About 140 people suffered from it as a result of the Chernobyl accident, Zablotska said.

A radiation dose of 40 rem, (400 mSv) per hour was reported at one of the Japanese power plants at one point following the March 11 earthquakes and tsunami that damaged their cooling systems, according to the IAEA. This is a high dose but was isolated to a single location, the IAEA says.

"That is definitely an area where you do not want to stay for prolonged period," Higley said. She notes that a total dose of 400 to 600 rem can be lethal. But the radiation levels have been decreasing after the observed spike, she said. She speculates the spike may have been due to the release of a puff of radioactive material when pressure dropped at the facility.

Follow MyHealthNewsDaily staff writer Rachael Rettner on Twitter @RachaelRettner.

This story was provided by MyHealthNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience.

How Is Radiation Exposure Measured?

A more sophisticated measure of radiation exposure, called the effective dose, accounts for the harmfulness of the specific type of radiation present. While the effective and absorbed doses are the same for beta and gamma radiation, for alpha and neutron radiation – types that are especially dangerous for the human body – the effective dose has a larger value than the absorbed dose. A measure of the effective dose therefore gives a concrete scale for determining how dangerous an incident of exposure actually is. Units of effective dose are the "roentgen equivalent man" (rem) and the sievert (Sv), where one Sv equals 100 rem.

An average person receives an effective dose of 0.36 rem every year, 80 percent of which comes from natural sources of radiation, such as radioactive materials in the Earth's crust and mantle and sources in outer space. The remaining 20 percent of an average person's effective dose results from exposure to artificial radiation sources, such as X-ray machines, industrial smoke detectors, and continuing fallout from nuclear weapons tests.

In the United States, the NRC limits occupational radiation exposure to adults working with radioactive material to 5 rem per year. The limit can be raised to 25 rem when there's an emergency; that level is still not considered dangerous.

Radiation levels at Fukushima shot up to 0.8 rem per hour after an explosion at one of the nuclear reactors earlier today (March 15). If emergency workers had not been evacuated shortly afterward, they would have gotten their yearly occupational dosage in just over 6 hours.

Though potentially dangerous, that amount still would not have been lethal. According to the NRC, "[It] is generally believed that humans exposed to about 500 rem of radiation all at once will likely die without medical treatment. Similarly, a single dose of 100 rem may cause a person to experience nausea or skin reddening (although recovery is likely), and about 25 rem can cause temporary sterility in men. However, if these doses are spread out over time, instead of being delivered all at once, their effects tend to be less severe."


CROATIAN CENTER of RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES ( CCRES )