Researchers at the University of Sussex Business School, in Britain, and the ISM University of Management and Economics, in Lithuania, studied renewable energy projects and nuclear energy projects in one hundred and twenty countries in the last twenty five years and published their report Monday in the journal Nature Energy.
     The primary finding of the study was that countries with larger scale national nuclear installation do not tend to achieve significantly lower carbon emissions. In poorer countries, nuclear programs tend to be associated with relatively higher emissions. The report showed that nuclear and renewable energy programs do not tend to co-exist well together in national low-carbon energy systems. They crowd each other out and limit effectiveness.
     Benjamin K. Sovacool is the professor of Energy Policy in the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex Business School. He said, “The evidence clearly points to nuclear being the least effective of the two broad carbon emissions abatement strategies, and coupled with its tendency not to co-exist well with its renewable alternative, this raises serious doubts about the wisdom of prioritizing investment in nuclear over renewable energy. Countries planning large-scale investments in new nuclear power are risking suppression of greater climate benefits from alternative renewable energy investments.”
     The researchers used World Bank and International Energy Agency data for the period of 1990 to 2014. They discovered that nuclear and renewables tend to show lock-ins and path dependencies that crowd each out. They identified a variety of ways in which a combined nuclear and renewable energy mix is incompatible.
      One way they mutually interfere is that the configuration of electricity transmission and distribution systems where a grid structure is optimized for large scale centralized power production such as that found in conventional nuclear power systems will make it more difficult, time consuming and expensive to introduce small-scale distributed renewable energy sources.
     Another problem is that financial markets, regulatory institutions and employment practices that are developed around large-scale base-load, long-lead time construction projects dedicated to centralized thermal generating plants are not a very well designed to facility a multiplicity of much smaller shorter distributions initiatives.
      Andy Stirling is the Professor of Science and Technology Policy at the University of Sussex Business School. He said, “This paper exposes the irrationality of arguing for nuclear investment based on a ‘do everything’ argument. Our findings show not only that nuclear investments around the world tend on balance to be less effective than renewable investments at carbon emissions mitigation, but that tensions between these two strategies can further erode the effectiveness of averting climate disruption.”
     The Sussex study found that in countries which had a high GDP per capita, nuclear energy production is associated with a small drop in CO2 emissions. However, in comparative terms, this reduction is smaller than that which would be achieved with a move to renewable power. In countries with a low GDP per capita, nuclear electrical production is clearly associated with CO2 emissions being higher than those that result from the use of renewable energy sources.
     Patrick Schmid works at the ISM International School of Management München. He said, “While it is important to acknowledge the correlative nature of our data analysis, it is astonishing how clear and consistent the results are across different time frames and country sets. In certain large country samples the relationship between renewable electricity and CO2-emissions is up to seven times stronger than the corresponding relationship for nuclear.”