BERLIN (Dow Jones) — According to a study by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), new nuclear power projects would be technically risky and unprofitable. This was not changed by allegedly innovative reactor concepts, which in reality have their origins in the early days of atomic energy in the 1950s and 1960s, according to the conclusion of the DIW study. Renewable energies, on the other hand, are many times cheaper than nuclear energy.
“Technically, no significant breakthroughs are foreseeable in nuclear energy,” said Claudia Kemfert, head of the Energy, Transport, and Environment department at DIW Berlin. “Nuclear power is also by far the most expensive form of energy – and far more expensive than renewables.”
Nuclear power cannot make a cost-effective and timely contribution to climate protection or secure the power supply. Because in addition to climate neutrality, plutonium neutrality is also needed. “It’s not just about reducing CO2, but also the dangerous, long-lived plutonium in the radioactive waste,” according to the DIW.
None of the three reactor concepts attractive
For their study, the institute’s experts examined three reactor concepts that are currently dominating the international nuclear debate: light water reactors, SMRs, also known as small modular reactors, and fast breeder reactors.
The light water reactors, also known as third generation nuclear power plants, with an electrical output of 600 to 1600 megawatts are based on technology from the 1980s and are still being built today. According to the DIW, however, the excessive costs and construction delays, which have been observed particularly blatantly in the USA and Europe since their development, are problematic.
The technology of the SMR reactors, such as those developed by the Microsoft founder Bill Gates are required, could not have prevailed over more powerful reactors in the past decades due to cost disadvantages. Today there are some pilot projects, for example in the USA, Canada and Great Britain, which, however, according to model calculations, are likely to be significantly more expensive than conventional reactors, according to the DIW report. In addition, the market demand is low. Despite decades of research, hardly any nuclear power plant of the SMR type could have started commercial power operation. In particular, however, there is no prospect of making up for the considerable disadvantages of size through mass production.
“From an optimistic point of view, this would require the construction of several thousand identical nuclear power plants,” says the report.
Fast breeder reactors and other reactors that are not cooled with light water will also not be competitive in the foreseeable future, as the DIW researchers showed in their study.
“The technology also comes from the last century, most of the projects that were started were stopped because of safety-related deficiencies and a lack of economic prospects,” says the report. Since fast breeders produce a lot of fissile material, there is also a risk that the material could be passed on and used for nuclear weapons purposes.
Subsidies should go to renewable energies
The DIW recommends that the federal government concentrate state-funded research in future on those areas from which substantial contributions to the energy transition can be expected. “These are renewable energies or storage options and other flexibility options, nuclear power is definitely not one of them,” emphasized Kempfert.
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 07, 2023 08:45 ET (13:45 GMT)