Science & Tech., Ecology & Environment29 Mar 2024| A-AA+
In News
Brussels hosted a first-of-its-kind Nuclear Energy Summit that was billed as the most high-profile international meeting on nuclear energy ever.
Case of Nuclear energy
The case for nuclear energy as a possible substitute for fossil fuels, at least for electricity generation, is not without merits.
It is a clean source of energy with a minimal carbon footprint. There is negligible release of emissions during the electricity generation process.
Even when the entire life cycle is considered –accounting for activities like reactor construction, uranium mining and enrichment, waste disposal and storage, and other processes – greenhouse gas emissions are only in the range of 5 to 6 grams per kilowatt hour, according to IAEA.
This is more than 100 times lower than coal-fired electricity, and about half the average of solar and wind generation.
Nuclear power plants are known to have substantially lower carbon footprint than solar or wind projects over their entire life cycle.
The other great advantage of nuclear is its perennial availability, unlike wind or solar which are season or time-dependent.
It is thus suitable for baseload electricity generation that solar or wind projects are unable to do unless breakthroughs in battery storage technologies come along.
For these reasons, nuclear energy features prominently in most of the decarbonisation pathways suggested by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and others.
IAEA says nuclear energy is already contributing very significantly to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Nuclear power generation results in avoiding emissions of more than 1 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent every year, according to IAEA.
In the last five decades, this has resulted in a cumulative avoidance of about 70 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent.
Nuclear reactors around the World
Only 31 countries in the world use nuclear energy for generating electricity. And barely seven more are working towards joining this club.
The number of operational nuclear reactors has actually come down in the last 20 years, from 437 in 2003 to 411 now, IAEA data shows.
The average life of these reactors is more than 31 years, which highlights the fact that few new reactors have come onboard in the last decade.
The total installed electricity generation capacity has shown only a marginal increase during this period, from about 360 GW in 2003 to 371 GW now.
Nuclear energy accounts for less than 10 per cent of global commercial electricity generation, and its share has been declining for almost three decades now.
Safety concerns are not the only reason for the poor uptake of nuclear energy in recent years, though those would be some of the most important, particularly after the Fukushima accident.
Nuclear power also happens to be the costliest electricity right now.
Nuclear reactors require high investments and technology base, take years to build, and have to operate under a variety of regulations and constraints, making them unattractive for countries wanting to quickly ramp up their electricity generation in an affordable manner.
India's Position
India, which currently has 23 operational nuclear reactors, does acknowledge the role of nuclear energy in its decarbonisation plan and is planning for a rapid expansion in the coming years, even though the share of nuclear energy in electricity generation is likely to remain extremely modest in the foreseeable future.
The currently operational reactors have a combined installed electricity generating capacity of 7,480 MW (about 7.5 GW).
At least ten more reactors are under construction, and the capacity is supposed to triple to 22,480 MW by 2031-32.
The share of nuclear energy in total electricity generation capacity is just about 3.1 per cent, among the lowest in countries that do use nuclear energy.
Only Brazil and Iran have a lower share of nuclear energy in their electricity generation mix. Even after expansion, this share is not expected to go beyond 5 per cent.
