The moral case for nuclear power – an article by George Monbiot
George Monbiot and Jonathon Porritt have been engaged in a debate about the merits, or otherwise, of nuclear power. I did some of the research for George’s article on the Guardian website today (August 8th 2011). Like George, I have reluctantly come to believe that the world needs nuclear – and lots of it – if it is produce the energy it needs without carbon emissions. Energy efficiency is important and the development of renewables should continue with enthusiasm and financial commitment. But the task of getting to 100% replacement of fossil fuels is so enormous, so intimidating and so expensive that I think countries need to encourage nuclear power as well as renewables. One calculation I made George didn’t have the space to use so I have written about it here.
Jonathon Porritt praised the German decision to phase out nuclear rapidly and increased emphasis on solar PV. Porritt gave the impression that PV in Germany costs about the same price as conventional electricity. The reality is very different. As in the UK, the subsidy to renewables is spread across the all electricity users and the solar feed in tariffs in Germany are adding rapidly to the costs faced by power users, rich and poor.
The 2011 levy on German customers’ bills to meet the subsidies to renewable energy is about 3.5 cents a kilowatt hour. The figure increased by almost 1.5 cents a kilowatt hour over 2010 and most of this increase was due to what one source describes as the ‘skyrocketing’ costs of PV subsidies. (1) The net effect on typical German household bills of all the subsidies of renewable energy sources is now about £150 a year, of which about half is the payment for solar energy. Translated to the UK, the German renewables subsidy would be adding about 25% to customers’ bills, pushing millions more into fuel poverty.
All low carbon sources are going to be more expensive than fossil fuel and we shouldn’t even pretend otherwise. But he problem with solar is that in cloudy countries like the UK and Germany it requires a huge amount of capital and produces small amounts of electricity. Per unit of electricity generated, PV requires about five times more subsidy than wind.
The German PV subsidy will cost about €8bn this year, payable by all electricity users. And this will continue each year for decades, increasing with every new installation of PV panels. Current PV installations only produce about 2% of the country’s electricity, about the same as would be produced by one new nuclear power station. Just one year’s PV subsidy would pay for the construction costs and the lifetime operating expenses of a nuclear power station. There would be no further cost to consumers. But the same amount of PV generating capacity needs €8bn a year into the indefinite future Do German consumers realise PV electricity is costing them literally an order of magnitude more than nuclear energy?