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Will the introduction of renewable

energy in Europe lead to CO2
reduction without nuclear energy?
ARTICLE APRIL 2013
DOI: 10.1016/j.envdev.2013.02.004

1 AUTHOR:
Jon Samseth
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Environmental Development 6 (2013) 130132

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Commentary

Will the introduction of renewable energy in

Europe lead to CO2 reduction without nuclear
energy?
Jon Samseth a,b,n
a
b

Department of Product Design, Akershus Oslo and University College (HIOA), OSIO, Norway
Department of Chemical Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway

Climate change has been a driver for many European governments and the European Union to
move away from fossil fuels towards renewable energies. Replacing fossil fuel with nuclear energy
should also reduce the CO2 emissions. However, many governments and environmental organizations do not consider nuclear energy as an option, citing risks of accidents and nuclear waste.
In order then to adhere to the Kyoto protocol, renewable energy has been to a large degree been
subsidized and essentially no new nuclear capacity has come on line during the last decade in Europe
and North America. Will a sustained and subsidized effort on renewable energies without any
nuclear power generation lead to the desired goal of reducing CO2 emissions?
Some European countries like Austria, Denmark, Italy, Ireland and Spain may not meet their CO2
emission targets according to the Kyoto protocol (see table below), while others like Sweden, France,
United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, Finland seem to fulll their commitments.
A common factor, for the group of nations that may not reach their targets, is that they are
actively promoting renewable energy and have no or very few nuclear power stations. Denmark has
promoted wind energy for several decades and has become one of the global technology leaders in
wind turbines. Some 18% of the electricity generated in Denmark in 2009 was from wind, the
remainder was mainly from fossil fuel, mainly coal and gas. Italy is the only country that has
abandoned nuclear energy, replacing it with fossil fuel, very much of it natural gas from North Africa.
In the group that will fulll their targets, we nd countries that have a large nuclear capacity.
Sweden and France have the highest share with some 40% and 75% respectively. Both these countries
will most likely reach their Kyoto target with a wide margin. Belgium, Germany and Finland have
less nuclear generating capacity. Following the Fukushima accident in 2011, Germany has shut down
almost half of their reactors, reducing the nuclear share in the electricity generation from 28,3% in
2008 to 17,8% in 2011. [Ref. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/nshare.html] Belgium also is at
present time determined to phase out nuclear energy, whereas both United Kingdom and Finland
will substantially increase the nuclear share in their energy mix in the coming decade.

n
Correspondence to: Department of Product Design, Akershus Oslo and University College (HIOA), PO Box 4 St. Olavs plass,
N-0130 OSLO, Norway
E-mail address: jon.samseth@sintef.no

2211-4645/$ - see front matter & 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envdev.2013.02.004

J. Samseth / Environmental Development 6 (2013) 130132

131

Why is it that those countries that do not have a signicant share nuclear energy, may not reach
their Kyoto targets even with a sustained and long term promotion of renewable energy? In most
locations, modern renewable energy is used to generate electricity. In addition, comes the
introduction of biofuels. However, given the ethical questions connected to the current biofuels,
their impact is not going to increase much above the current minor portion of the transportation
market. So essentially, the future contribution of renewables is essentially linked to the electricity
generation market. This market is characterized by a varying demand throughout the day and year.
Typically, the consumption of electricity is the lowest during the night. This minimum demand is called
baseload and it will also vary throughout the year depending on the season and climate. To cover this
minimum demand throughout a day, usually coal, gas and nuclear have been used, although a limited
number of countries have enough hydro electric production to cover the base load as well.
Since most of the renewables are intermittent, they cannot be used as baseload and can thus, not
replace the fossil fuels and nuclear in this segment of the energy market. Some argue that given this
intermittent nature of renewable energy, there must be a similar capacity of either coal or gas red power
plants to cover the periods when the electricity generation from renewables is low. [http://www.
anthropower.com/intermittent-wind-cannot-replace-baseload-power] Others argue that connecting grids
or energy farms in different geographical areas will to some degree even out the intermittency of the
renewables [http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/winds/aj07_jamc.pdf].
High investment costs and the way a nuclear plant is operated makes new nuclear capacity no
option as a backup for renewables in a power generation system even for large geographical areas.
A utility that has nuclear capacity installed will try to run it as much as possible to recover its initial
investment costs. The backup options for renewables are thus power plants running on coal or
Table 1
CO2 emissions in Megaton (Mt CO2-eq) for some EU countries. Countries in the green emit less than their 2012 target. The
countries in the red emit more than their Kyoto target.
Source: http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/ghg-trends-and-projections-2012.
EU member state

2008-2010 Average

Kyoto target 2012

Sweden

63.2

75.0

United Kingdom

596.2

679.3

France

524.8

563.9

Germany

941.4

973.6

Portugal

74.3

76.4

Belgium

131.5

134.8

Finland

70.3

71.0

% Above Kyoto target

Ireland

63.5

62.8

Netherlands

204.5

200.3

Italy

511.5

483.3

Denmark
Spain

61.8
375.3

55.8
333.2

Austria

83.8

68.8

Luxembourg

11.9

9.5

% Under Kyoto target

15.8
12.2
6.9
3.3
2.8
2.5
1.0

1.2
2.1
5.8
10.8
12.6
21.8
24.9

132

J. Samseth / Environmental Development 6 (2013) 130132

natural gas. In principle, hydro power could also be used, but given the limited undeveloped
potential compared to the demand, it is not an option in most countries.
Can this be the explanation why countries which only opt for renewable energies are not able to
reduce their dependence on fossils, while nations that have a high share of nuclear have been able to
optimize their electricity production such that they can keep the Kyoto targets? Is it then reasonable
to think that in order to reduce the CO2 emissions, it is not possible without a signicant
contribution from nuclear energy?
Even with the best intensions and substantial promotion to develop an energy system based on
renewable energies, the actual numbers (Table 1) show that this is very difcult without a signicant
proportion of nuclear energy. In theory, electricity generated by combusting biofuels and biomass
could replace fossil baseload. Given the ethical questions and their limited availability compared to
the needs of a modern society, they do not represent a sustainable option. Given the experience over
the last decade, the EU 2020 targets can only be realized by including nuclear energy as an
acceptable CO2-free option. Keeping in mind the economic problems in many European countries,
future CO2 reductions can thus only be realized if nuclear energy is a signicant part of the
energy mix.