In a notable pivot at the COP28 climate talks in Dubai, over 20 nations, led by the United States, have advocated for a substantial increase in nuclear energy. This call to triple nuclear power capacity by 2050 marks a significant shift in the global energy discourse. This shift recognizes nuclear power’s potential for stable and abundant energy production, contrary to the alarmist rhetoric often dominating these discussions.
The endorsement of nuclear power by countries such as the U.S., Japan, and several European nations, as part of their energy strategy, is a refreshing acknowledgment of nuclear energy’s efficiency and reliability. This contrasts sharply with the often impractical and economically burdensome renewable energy alternatives. Of course the call to triple capacity by 2050 is grossly inadequate, but the admission that nuclear is a necessary component of any energy mix is still welcome.
Groups like 350.org, fixated on the risks of nuclear energy, clearly overlook its benefits. Their opposition, rooted in incidents like Fukushima, fails to recognize the advancements in nuclear safety and technology. Their stance seems more a distraction from viable energy solutions than a constructive contribution. Jeff Ordower from 350.org points out,
“we don’t have time to waste on dangerous distractions like nuclear energy.”
https://phys.org/news/2023-12-triple-nuclear-power-cop28.html
Yawn.
The conference’s emphasis on achieving carbon neutrality often is of course more like a doctrinal narrative than a practical goal. The insistence on moving away from fossil fuels disregards their critical role in current global energy stability and economic prosperity.
The growing acceptance of nuclear energy at COP28 is a positive development, offering a more balanced and realistic approach to global energy needs. This move, however, should not be overshadowed by unsubstantiated fears or the pursuit of unfeasible goals like complete carbon neutrality.
Here is the press release from Energy.gov
At COP28, Countries Launch Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy Capacity by 2050, Recognizing the Key Role of Nuclear Energy in Reaching Net Zero
DECEMBER 1, 2023
At COP28, Countries Launch Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy Capacity by 2050, Recognizing the Key Role of Nuclear Energy in Reaching Net Zero
Declaration Recognizes the Key Role of Nuclear Energy in Keeping Within Reach the Goal of Limiting Temperature Rise to 1.5 Degrees Celsius
DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES — During the World Climate Action Summit of the 28th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change today, more than 20 countries from four continents launched the Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy. The Declaration recognizes the key role of nuclear energy in achieving global net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and keeping the 1.5-degree goal within reach. Core elements of the declaration include working together to advance a goal of tripling nuclear energy capacity globally by 2050 and inviting shareholders of international financial institutions to encourage the inclusion of nuclear energy in energy lending policies. Endorsing countries include the United States, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Ghana, Hungary, Japan, Republic of Korea, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. The full text of the Declaration is below.
Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy
02 December 2023
Recognizing the key role of nuclear energy in achieving global net-zero greenhouse gas emissions / carbon neutrality by or around mid-century and in keeping a 1.5°C limit on temperature rise within reach and achieving Sustainable Development Goal 7;
Recognizing the importance of the applications of nuclear science and technology that contribute to monitoring climate change and tackling its impacts, and emphasizing the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in this regard;
Recognizing that nuclear energy is already the second-largest source of clean dispatchable baseload power, with benefits for energy security;
Recognizing that analyses from the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency and World Nuclear Association show that global installed nuclear energy capacity must triple by 2050 in order to reach global net-zero emissions by the same year;
Recognizing that analysis from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows nuclear energy approximately tripling its global installed electrical capacity from 2020 to 2050 in the average 1.5°C scenario;
Recognizing that analysis from the International Energy Agency shows nuclear power more than doubling from 2020 to 2050 in global net-zero emissions by 2050 scenarios and shows that decreasing nuclear power would make reaching net zero more difficult and costly;
Recognizing that new nuclear technologies could occupy a small land footprint and can be sited where needed, partner well with renewable energy sources, and have additional flexibilities that support decarbonization beyond the power sector, including hard-to-abate industrial sectors;
Recognizing the IAEA’s activities in supporting its Member States, upon request, to include nuclear power in their national energy planning in a sustainable way that adheres to the highest standards of safety, security, and safeguards and its “Atoms4NetZero” initiative as an opportunity for stakeholders to exchange expertise;
Recognizing the importance of financing for the additional nuclear power capacity needed to keep a 1.5°C limit on temperature rise within reach;
Recognizing the need for high-level political engagement to spur further action on nuclear power;
The Participants in this pledge:
Commit to work together to advance a global aspirational goal of tripling nuclear energy capacity from 2020 by 2050, recognizing the different domestic circumstances of each Participant;
Commit to take domestic actions to ensure nuclear power plants are operated responsibly and in line with the highest standards of safety, sustainability, security, and non-proliferation, and that fuel waste is responsibly managed for the long term;
Commit to mobilize investments in nuclear power, including through innovative financing mechanisms;
Invite shareholders of the World Bank, international financial institutions, and regional development banks to encourage the inclusion of nuclear energy in their organizations’ energy lending policies as needed, and to actively support nuclear power when they have such a mandate, and encourage regional bodies that have the mandate to do so to consider providing financial support to nuclear energy;
Commit to supporting the development and construction of nuclear reactors, such as small modular and other advanced reactors for power generation as well as wider industrial applications for decarbonization, such as for hydrogen or synthetic fuels production;
Recognize the importance of promoting resilient supply chains, including of fuel, for safe and secure technologies used by nuclear power plants over their full life cycles;
Recognize the importance, where technically feasible and economically efficient, of extending the lifetimes of nuclear power plants that operate in line with the highest standards of safety, sustainability, security, and non-proliferation, as appropriate;
Commit to supporting responsible nations looking to explore new civil nuclear deployment under the highest standards of safety, sustainability, security, and non-proliferation;
Welcome and encourage complementary commitments from the private sector, non-governmental organizations, development banks, and financial institutions;
Resolve to review progress towards these commitments on an annual basis on the margins of the COP;
Call on other countries to join this declaration.
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Hmmmm . . . a noticeable increase in savage, world-wide terrorism + a world-wide increase in the number of nuclear power plants . . . what could possible go wrong with this mix?
What is your proposed solution? Wind+Solar obviously are not going to work. You don’t want nuclear, gas or coal.
What do you want to do? Take a particular country. The UK is a good one because there is so much data instantly available. How are you going to deliver the 30-45GW the country is using now? Or, if you are going to reduce that, how low are you going to take it, and how? And what generating mix will you end up with?
Get serious, make a sensible contribution, stop just throwing off odd snide remarks all the time.
Hah! You should first ask yourself: “What is the postulated problem?”
Fossil fuels have been amply demonstrated to have met mankind’s needs for plentiful, reliable and generally safe energy since before the beginning of the Industrial Age. Claims that fossil fuel-generated CO2 emissions are harmful to Earth’s climate are specious at best . . . there is nowhere near a “preponderance of scientific evidence” to support such alarmism.
Even the postulation that global temperatures are driven to increase by increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration is easily falsified by paleoclimatology evidence and, more recently, these intervals:
— a 1880-1913 global cooling (a 33-year interval),
— a 1946-1976 global cooling (a 30 year interval),
— a 2004-2023 global warming “pause” (an 8+year interval),
all occurring while atmospheric CO2 continued unabated on its exponentially rising trend since the beginning of the Holocene.
Then too: (a) both NASA and NOAA acknowledge increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations have been the direct cause of Earth “greening” by some 10-20% over the last 20 or so years, thereby directly increasing the food supply for humans just when it is most needed, and (b) overall global warming is net beneficial to mankind as world-wide excess deaths due to cold are about a factor of 10 higher than are excess deaths due to heat.
With the current use rate and known reserves, the world is estimated to have:
— about 47 years of oil remaining, before it has to begin tapering off use,
— about 51 years of natural gas remaining, before it has to begin tapering off use,
— about 133 years of coal remaining, before it has to begin tapering off use.
— thousands of years of hydropower remaining
With continuing improvements in energy use efficiency, and impossible-to-estimate discoveries of new reserves of the above-mentioned categories of fossil fuels, there will likely be sufficient fossil fuels to meet the world’s current—and even realistic projections of future increasing—energy needs for at least the next 200 or so years.
One currently untapped-but-exploitable fossil fuel source is methane hydrates/clathrates in certain areas of ocean floors:
“There are now thought to be 1,500 to 15,000 billion tons of carbon locked up in hydrates around the world — comparable to the 5,000 billion tons of carbon in all the planet’s oil, gas, and coal. Even though only a fraction of this is mineable, in the United States it has been estimated that exploiting hydrates could bump up that country’s natural gas deposits seven-fold.”
— https://e360.yale.edu/features/the-world-eyes-yet-another-unconventional-source-of-fossil-fuels-methane-hydrates
Given the exponential rate of increase of technology innovation and development seen over just the last 100 years, I have no doubt humanity will be able to smoothly and “cleanly” transitions off fossil fuels as the main source of its energy needs without a panic now to build and untold number nuclear power plants.
It is the height of hubris exhibited by our current generation of “leaders” to claim that continuing use of fossil fuels is an existential threat and/or current catastrophe for mankind . . . that we must drop use of fossil fuels now to “protect” future generations . . . without even being able guess the capabilities of those future generations!
OK, you would carry on using coal and gas and look at hydrates as either a supplement or alternative, in preference to nuclear.
There are arguments on both sides, but its a reasonable position. One understands why people are uneasy about fission as a generation technology.
Have a look at this, one of many, attacks on an electric facility:
Moore County power: Investigators are zeroing in on 2 possible motives centered around extremist behavior in NC power stations attacks, sources say | CNN
A dozen such facilities such as this could be taken off-line in a day by a single individual. A coordinated attack by a terrorist cell could cripple a regional grid in 8 hours of work. Nuclear facilities are extremely difficult to damage.
Except as shown by the Three Mile Island accident, the UK Windscale reactor fire, and the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear power plant disasters, albeit none of these being the result of terrorist attacks.
In whatever world you inhabit, there have never been accidents at non-nuclear powered plants?
As far as Fukushima goes, if your terrorists are capable of causing earthquakes and tsunamis, then whatever happens at nuclear power plants are the least of our worries.
That comment can be taken to be either the logical fallacy of the strawman argument, or as just pure deflection. You can decide which.
All of those attacks are on the plants connection to the grid. Connections that all power plants share.
Anything can be destroyed by terrorists. Nuclear power plants are extremely tough, much tougher than many of the things terrorists are already targeting.
Thank you. I rest my case.
The point is that there are many, many targets that are a lot softer than nuclear power plants.
Resting your case when you are so far behind is your best strategy.
Terrorism is, of course, purely a function of government. This is why Russia has now installed anti-aircraft guns and air defence missiles on the roofs of their nuclear power stations. Luckily, so far, the American missiles have failed to penetrate…
I have been to a nuclear power station, my friend, you and your whole crew ain’t not gettin’ near no nuffin’, without a formal invite and you move every step accompanied by a humourless escort. It would take a government’s usAID to afford the needed long-range weaponry.
“It would take a government’s usAID to afford the needed long-range weaponry.”
Or perhaps just a cruise missile donated by, oh, Russia, China, North Korea, or Iran and smuggled into the US via clandestine power boat, some 54,000 miles of shoreline being available for such along the west coast of the lower 48 states plus that from Texas, around Florida, and up to Maine.
You may have heard of how difficult cruise missiles are to track, let alone shoot down.
And I need not respond to your simplistic statement that “Terrorism is, of course, purely a function of government” since news from around the world clearly falsifies that.
Ok I’ve heard enough. Nurse! He’s not taking his meds again, Nurse.
There have been Nuclear Power Stations in France and Germany during some intense terrorist activities, none were ever targeted. There were Nuclear Power Stations in Russia during the intense Chechen terrorist activities, none were ever targeted. There were Nuclear Power Stations in the UK during the intense IRA terrorist bombing campaigns, none were ever targeted. So why the hell do you suddenly think that if you build some in America, every terrorist from New York to San Francisco and all other place are going to want to attack it? 9/11 certainly never involved attacking Nuclear Power Stations so where did you get this idea from?
“In the early hours of 4 March 2022 the Zaporizhzhia plant in southeastern Ukraine became the first operating civil nuclear power plant to come under armed attack.”
— https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-t-z/ukraine-russia-war-and-nuclear-energy.aspx
There’s nothing like meds to restore one’s sense of reality . . . you should try it sometime. 😳
Also . . . ever heard of the phrase: “That was then, this in now.”
Ooops, typo: “That was then, this is now.”
That phrase is usually accompanied with some evidence to demonstrate that now is different from then.
On the other hand, most people with an IQ above room temperature don’t need a demonstration to know how much global terrorism and regional conflicts have changed for the worse over more than two decades since September 11, 2001.
You are so intent on promoting your own nightmare, you don’t even realise how you contradict yourself. You try insult me, then post a link proving the only nuclear power station ever to be attacked, was by Yankee proxies using Yankee weaponry; just like my comment tried to explain to you.
Grow up, stop believing the pictures on your screen, and remember: Don’t believe mutually contradictory things, it will drive you insane. Look at the guys on CNN…
And please stop your hateful stirring against anyone that disagrees with you (we’ve just shown that it includes yourself).
cilo, please provide any facts—even examples—to go with that statement. Particularly the “hateful stirring” part.
IOW, your remote armchair psychoanalysis is worth exactly what I paid to get it.
Russia is a US proxy and is using US weapons?
That was an act of war, committed by the armed forces of Russia, and even they had trouble knocking the plant offline.
The same level of effort would have been enough to knock several fossil fuel plants offline.
Read, and learn, boyo!
https://greenpets.co.za/index.php/en/paranoid-goy/214-bomb-times
cilo,
Nice try, but there’s no way on God’s green earth that I’m going to click on a URL having a domain name of “greenpets.co.za”.
I think you have mistaken me for being a fool.
Even if it is a real site, there’s no way that a site named greenpets is going to have any data worth knowing regarding anything.
I have not heard that cruise missiles are hard to shoot down. Out here in the real world, lots of countries have had a lot of success in shooting them down.
If I had a cruise missile under my control, attacking a nuclear power plant is one of the last places I would attack. A few hundred pounds of high explosives would only knock a small divot out of the containment vessel.
Opinions on the subject, especially from those out in the real world with relevant experience, differ:
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-hard-to-shoot-down-a-cruise-missile
You obviously don’t understand the capability of today’s cruise missiles.
The US Tomahawk cruise missile (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahawk_(missile) ) has a “conventional” warhead of 1,000 pounds (450 kg) high explosive or submunition dispenser with BLU-97/B Combined Effects Bomb or PBXN. It is also capable of carrying a W80 tactical nuclear warhead, with yield of 5 to 150 kilotonnes of TNT, but that warhead has been “retired” from use on this cruise missile.
The Russian Kh-101/-102 cruise missile (https://missilethreat.csis.org/missile/kh-101-kh-102/ )
“. . . was developed as a long-range, standoff cruise missile to replace the aging Kh-55 and Kh-555 ALCMs. It travels on a low altitude flight path beneath infrared and radar systems, and its use of radar absorbing composite material makes the missile challenging to detect . . . The Kh-101 carries a conventional 450 kg warhead, and can be equipped with high explosive, penetrating, or cluster/submunition warheads. The Kh-102 reportedly carries a 250 kt nuclear warhead, but some report the warhead could be larger, up to 450 kt.”
A small divot, eh?
Russia is putting anti-aircraft guns on it’s nuclear power plants to protect against American missiles. Really.
Tell me, are there any neurons inside your skull that survived childhood?
Beware of doing something for the wrong reasons, because you might just wind up with a wrong result.
Nice to read,
Recognizing the importance of financing for the additional nuclear power capacity needed to keep a 1.5°C limit on temperature rise within reach;
Recognizing the need for high-level political engagement to spur further action on nuclear power;
Meanwhile, NuScale (NY stock exchange SMR) the only hope for the US to get in on the nuclear renaissance that small modular reactors will bring has lost their only potential customer, Idaho Power, because of cost escalation.
The $200 million of financial support from the Biden Administration was welcome, but even $2 billion may not be enough to save NuScale and their regulatory approved design.
The cost advantage of factory assembled, cookie cutter identical, semi-trailer delivered small scale modulars (77MW) is not captured until the factory is up and running. Getting there will require a serious government infusion of capital together with the same mandates and subsidies that have been showered on wind and solar for decades. Don’t doubt it.
Time for a reality check:
Also according this 2021 WUWT article by Willis Eschenbach,
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/04/21/the-latest-co2-fantasy/ ,
considering the goal of reducing CO2 emissions of just the United States by 2030 to half of what they were in 2005 via increased use of nuclear power plants only:
“. . . means we need to find sites, do the feasibility studies, get the licenses and the permits, excavate, manufacture, install, test, and commission two 2.25 gigawatt nuclear power plants EVERY WEEK UNTIL 2030, STARTING THIS WEEK.”
Now, let’s scale that up to whole world’s needs for energy up to year 2050.
Hey, any of you COP28 talking heads paying attention???
A bad place to build a nuke plant is close to a 200 year coal reserve.
Large commercial LWR are doing fine. The biggest detergent to new nuke plants is cheap coal and gas when transportation costs are considered.
There are other good reasons to build nuke plants but one is not CO2.
How’s this for an idea on how the US can go nuclear: create a nuclear development agency modeled after the old TVA? Make all nuclear plants under government ownership and site them on military bases to provide power to the base and design in enough surplus capacity to sell to the grid. If it’s under government/military control it can escape much of the onerous regulatory environment and get on line a whole lot faster. AND, we have a 60+ year experience base in operating military reactors.
And the increase in the military budget to do such would be how many extra $trillions?
And you think such spending will get through the totally dysfunctional US Congress?
The lights are slowly coming on in some of the dimmest minds on Earth (i.e. a majority of Western political leaders and bureaucrats). Realizing that nuclear energy is one of the safest, most reliable and enduring sources of electrical energy to power society is a great step forward if only a few decades late coming.
Now if they could catch up on some of their facts everything would be rosy. Facts such as:
The basic problem that you overlooked is that nuclear energy today is the most expensive means of producing electrical power at commercial scale. A recent comprehensive study of the relative costs of electricity per MWh, using the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) accounting approach, by the financial advisory firm Lazard is available for free download at https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/2023-levelized-cost-of-energyplus/ .
I have attached a key summary graph from that study, and it shows that for 2023, a MWh of electricity from a nuclear power plant was about 1.5 times as expensive than one from a coal-fired power plant and about 2.6 times as expensive as one from a natural-gas fired power plant.
Of course, such financial considerations are not issues for bureaucrats and politicians and others that believe money grows on trees or just spills out of printing presses.
The only reason why nuclear power is so expensive is because of the excessive regulations imposed by those who either have an irrational fear of anything nuclear, or who have other agendas.