In a race against time to stem global warming, emissions-free nuclear reactors are too slow and too costly to build, and the world would be better off investing in cheaper, faster-to-build renewables instead, asserted the World Nuclear Industry Status Report for 2019.
This year's report, or WNISR, found that, as of July 1, the number of operating reactors in the world has increased since its last edition by four to 417. From the start of 2018 through mid-2019, 12 new reactors came online, but five reactors, including Entergy Corp.'s Pilgrim plant in Massachusetts, retired. Since then, an additional two reactors have ceased operations: Exelon Corp.'s Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and Taiwan Power Co.'s Chin Shan-2 in Taiwan.

As the average age of reactors around the world exceeds 30 years for the first time, the report said nuclear construction has been shrinking for the last five years, with 46 reactors under construction as of July 1 with a combined capacity of 44.6 GW, compared to 68 units in 2013 and 234 in 1979. The number of construction starts each year has also fallen from 15 in 2010, the year prior to the Fukushima meltdown in Japan, to five in 2018 and, so far, just one in 2019. The historic peak was in 1976 with 44 construction starts.
"There can be no doubt: the renewal rate of nuclear power plants is too slow to guarantee the survival of the technology," the report's leading author, nuclear consultant Mycle Schneider said in a press release. "The world is experiencing an undeclared 'organic' nuclear phaseout."
Overall, the world's nuclear operating capacity increased by 9 GW the past year to reach its new historic high of 370 GW, excluding 25 GW in long-term outages, while nuclear generation increased by 2.4% to supply 2,563 TWh of electricity in 2018. However, nuclear energy's share of the world's gross power generation continued its decline from its historic peak of 17.46% in 1996 to 10.15% in 2018.
In contrast, the growth of renewables continues to outpace nuclear power in "virtually all categories," with a record 165 GW of renewables coming online in 2018, the report said. Renewables are also getting cheaper with the levelized cost estimates for utility-scale solar and wind dropping 88% and 69%, respectively, over the past decade to levels below the cost of coal and natural gas. Meanwhile, nuclear energy's levelized cost estimates increased by 23% over the same period, the report said.
"To protect the climate, we must abate the most carbon at the least cost and in the least time, so we must pay attention to carbon, cost, and time, not to carbon alone," the report said. Expounding upon this, the report asserted that the closure of uneconomic reactors "can indirectly" cut more carbon dioxide emissions than closing a coal-fired plant as long as the nuclear plant's "larger saved operating costs are reinvested in efficiency or cheap modern renewables that in turn displace more fossil-fueled generation."

Further, the report said construction of new reactors takes five to 17 years longer to build than utility-scale solar or onshore wind power. According to the report, the nine reactors that started up in 2018 took an average of 10.9 years to build. "In other words, nuclear power is an option that is more expensive and slower to implement than alternatives and therefore is not effective in the effort to battle the climate emergency, rather it is counterproductive, as the funds are then not available for more effective options," the report concluded.
The report's message was not lost on Diana Ürge-Vorsatz, professor of environmental science at the Central European University and vice-chair of a working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
As several Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenarios rely heavily on nuclear power to limit global warming to a 1.5 degrees C temperature rise by 2050, Ürge-Vorsatz wrote in the report's forward that "these scenarios raise the question whether the nuclear industry will actually be able to deliver the magnitude of new power that is required in these scenarios in a cost-effective and timely manner."
Nuclear reactions, alternatives
In an email, Joshua Goldstein, a professor of international relations at American University, contested the report's assertions, pointing to France's experience of decarbonizing its power grid after the "oil shock" of 1973 when it rapidly built more than 55 reactors with the same reactor design. "France took fossils off the grid in just 15 years, which no other low-carbon fuel has ever done," Goldstein said.
Goldstein said nuclear power construction costs should not be based on the "ridiculously expensive attempts" in the U.S. and Europe to build reactors "after three decades of non-experience, using new designs that were then changed after construction had started."
"If we were to build out nuclear rapidly to address climate change, then we would be building thousands of reactors to standardized designs, in shipyards or factories rather than each on a unique construction site," continued Goldstein. "Costs would come down greatly."
In contrast, Goldstein said Germany's massive renewable build-out, while phasing out nuclear, has not reduced carbon emissions and Germany's grid continues to rely on fossil fuels for most of its electricity. "It shows what can be done when an advanced, technologically capable society with political unity and lots of money goes all in for renewables," Goldstein said.
Further, Goldstein warned, the inherent intermittency of solar and wind generation would require "extremely high system costs" to be incurred if a renewable build-out was pursued as a climate solution, including at least a week's worth of battery storage for any high-renewable grid.
A 2018 study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology also came to different conclusions and said a nuclear energy revival is required to stop global warming at the lowest cost possible. However, the world's future might be in jeopardy if nuclear technologies fail to cut costs and receive government support, the MIT study said. A May study from the International Energy Association warned that the world faces billions of tonnes in additional carbon emissions with expected closures of existing nuclear power plants unless governments step in to extend their operations and spur new nuclear projects.
"Carbon-free nuclear energy, like renewables, has flourished when government energy policies create commercial opportunities," said John Kotek, vice president of policy and public affairs of the Nuclear Energy Institute in a statement.
Kotek said policymakers in the U.S. are already taking action to keep existing reactors online and by crafting policies "that will lead to a next-generation of nuclear energy systems." Those policies include state nuclear subsidies, carbon pricing efforts and changes in how the federal government reviews advanced reactor designs.
