Nuclear power is not the answer

Some so-called environmentalists are perceiving nuclear power as one of the solutions to providing energy that is climate-friendly. It is even grouped together with renewable sources of energy as a viable option, and recently there was a huge debate in the EU about whether nuclear power and natural gas should be considered climate-friendly. In the end, the pro-nuclear countries – notably France – won out (much to the disappointment of various environmental NGOs and countries such as Austria and Luxembourg) and both forms of energy came under the EU Taxonomy legislation, allowing investors to label and market investments in both types of energy as “green”.

In the EU Taxonomy legislation, various provisos have been set for considering nuclear power as suitable for “green investments”:

• The member state in which the project is located must have operational final disposal facilities for very low, low, and intermediate radioactive waste;
• The member state must have plans in place for an operational disposal facility for high-level radioactive waste;
• As of 2025, existing and new build projects must use accident-tolerant fuel, which has been certified and approved by the national regulator.

Ahem!

Nuclear reactors globally are suffering problems or building delays – which is laughable when some countries, such as Sweden, envisage the building of nuclear reactors as a way to solve the energy crisis. Sweden had originally decided to decommission all its reactors by 2010, but that changed in the 1990s and new reactors were allowed to be built but only at preexisting nuclear sites. That also changed when the current right-wing government took power in 2022, Prime Minister Ulf Kristensson presented the new government policy in the Swedish parliament, saying: “… the Government will propose credit guarantees for new construction of Swedish nuclear power plants, alongside legislative amendments to enable new nuclear power production via shorter permit processes and administrative fast tracks, for example. The prohibition of new reactors in new locations and of more than ten simultaneously active reactors will be removed from the Swedish Environmental Code.”

But nuclear power is not a viable option, either in terms of safety, military interventions, waste disposal, or the time taken to build nuclear reactors. Neither is it carbon neutral when uranium mining, fuel enrichment and the like are taken into account. The plants also require constant cooling, which requires electricity.

“Truth has rarely been a friend to nuclear power and for that reason it hasn’t always been easy
to find accurate information about the industry’s vital signs”, says Stephanie Cooke in the foreword to the most recent World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR), which was published in December.

Nevertheless, the WNISR is a wealth of information. In the UK alone, it says, 21 units are closed and awaiting decommissioning while only 9 units are operating. Meanwhile, construction costs for the two new reactors at Hinkley Point have escalated dramatically and the first reactor is not expected to come on line until 2027 at the earliest. Decommissioning nuclear reactors takes an average of 21 years, according to the report.

Small modular reactors, generally known as SMRs, are creating hope and optimism amongst nuclear power advocates. But, as the report points out, “… [I]n the western world, no unit is under construction, and no design has been fully certified for construction. The most advanced project, involving
NuScale in the United States, was terminated in November 2023 following a 75 percent increase of the cost estimate.”

Finland is a classic example of how building nuclear reactors is by no means straightforward. The report notes that the third unit at Olkiluoto was started in August 2005 and was supposed to become operational in 2009. However, it was not until March 2022 that it became connected to the grid. And that was not all. The unit “… continued to be hampered by ‘unexpected’ events like the untimely triggering of the boron pumps in April 2022″ and “foreign material issues observed in the turbine’s steam reheater” in May 2022”.

Olkiluoto reactor site. Credit: Wikipedia

Other issues hampered the plant’s operation, such as measurement errors in the voltage regulators, cracks in all the feedwater pumps and further delays, so it was not until April 16 2023 that the unit started producing power at full capacity.

Another reactor was supposed to be built with Russian technology in Finland, at Hanhikivi in northern Sweden, but – not surprisingly – this was cancelled in May 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine.

By 2035, Finland plans to have decarbonized its energy system, with greatly increased usage of wind and solar – from 12.41 TWh to 30 TWh for wind and 0.3 TWh to 3.4 TWh for solar.

I suspect they will be less problematic and quicker to build than unit 3 at Olkiluoto!

Note that much of the above has been set out in a position paper by CAN Europe.

Update, March 1: According to a new report (in Spanish) by the Spanish anti-nuclear umbrella organization Movimento Ibérico Antinuclear, there has been an average of one incident every 11 days between 2019 and 2023 concerning malfunctions or maintenance errors in Spanish nuclear power plants – 164 in total – primarily in the Ascó reactors in Catalonia.

Update, March 21: At a meeting of the IAEA, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, declared that nuclear power will become the “backbone of EU power production” by 2050. Oh dear! Luckily, not everyone agrees with her.

Th fate of Tetra-Pak drink cartons and other rubbish

A long time ago, I knew that Tetra-Pak drink cartons were difficult to recycle but I presumed the technology had changed because drink cartons are listed as one of the items to be put in paper recycling containers in Iceland. I suspect the situation is the same globally.

But in turns out that the public in Iceland are being duped.

An Icelandic journalist specializing in waste issues, Bjartmar Oddur Theyr Alexandersson, has revealed that milk and juice cartons actually end up in an incinerator at a cement factory in mainland Europe as besides being very expensive, the technology to separate the various components of drink cartons – paper and plastic in milk and paper, plastic and aluminium in fruit juice – is only available at a handful of companies globally, and not the one that Icelandic cartons go to.

Again, this is likely to be the case globally.

But drink cartons are not the only form of packaging made up of composite materials.

Take coffee packets, for example. Some eco-conscious companies have packaging that looks like a mixture of paper and plastic but they say it is recyclable and should be sorted with “organic material” . Personally, I never know how to recycle it.

At the Sorpa recycling centres in the Greater Reykjavik Area, there are now four different containers for plastic: one for plastic film (mostly from industry); styrofoam packaging that is used to package electrical equipment and the like; hard plastic, such as buckets; and plastic packaging around food, cleaning products and the like. Presumably they will all be recycled separately, but when I went there last time with my bag of mixed plastic waste, I baulked and went to the neighbourhood recycling spot instead where there is just one container for plastic. A new system is currently being implemented whereby each home/apartment block will have bins for paper, plastic, organic waste and general waste, but again the plastic is all lumped together.

There are many other problems too with Icelandic recycling, when for instance compost derived from waste treatment processes was found to be contaminated – more than once. Alexandersson also discovered that a lot of Icelandic plastic waste had been sitting in a warehouse for some years in Sweden, and glass that was supposed to be recycled was crushed and went to a site outside of Reykjavik instead of being recycled.

I am concerned that people will be reluctant to recycle, saying “What’s the point”?

Electricity sources and electric vehicles

A meta-analysis was recently published in the journal Sustainability on the emissions involved in producing battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and the number of kilometres it takes for a BEV to break even with fossil-fuel vehicles (diesel and petrol) in different European countries. Existing studies were reviewed in order to perform the analysis.

The difference is astounding. The key is the source(s) of electricity used in each country for making the batteries.

Although BEVs are simpler in structure and require less maintenance than fossil-fuel vehicles, they have slightly higher emissions than petrol and diesel vehicles in the manufacturing process. The scientists in this study performed life-cycle assessments of the production cycle and estimated the distances of intersection points (DIPs, measured in thousands of km) before a BEV breaks even with fossil fuel cars.

They discovered that BEVs had to be driven for 34,000 km in Iceland before they became more carbon-friendly than diesel cars, but in the UK they had to be driven for 244,000 km before they break even with diesel cars in terms of emissions. Together with Cyprus and Greece (309,000 and 312,700 km respectively), the cars would probably have reached the end of their lifetime before the break-even point is reached. It is assumed that a car’s lifetime is around 183,894 km, as in all the studies they reviewed this was the average distance driven over a vehicle’s physical lifetime.

In some countries (Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Malta) the situation is so bad that “BEVs would never intersect with the compared diesel vehicle at the current electric grid emission intensity due to the use-phase emissions of the BEV being higher than those of the diesel vehicle”. The authors attribute this to the energy mix in the country concerned: for instance, in Poland 80% of the electricity comes from coal. Besides Iceland, the other countries which come well out in this analysis are Norway, France and Sweden.

For petrol cars, the DIP is lower. Iceland still comes best out, with a DIP of 18.9. The figures are lower for all countries, with the same countries coming worst out.

For those who can read Icelandic, Fréttablaðið also reported on this, but to a lesser degree.

It would be interesting to see the same analysis done for hydrogen-fuelled cars and vehicles using methane as fuel. But especially in regard to hydrogen.

Electric cars on the rise in the Nordics

I went to the annual meeting of Orkustofnun, the Icelandic National Energy Authority, last week. Interesting. Two of the talks focused on electric vehicles (EVs) in the Nordic countries. A comprehensive report on EVs in the Nordic countries can be downloaded here.

Sweden and Iceland have both seen great growth in electric cars, but Norway is still the leader. However, publicly available chargers have not increased in line with the sale of electric vehicles. Though the majority of electric vehicle owners charge up their cars at home – 75% in Norway and 85% in Iceland – publicly available chargers are vital for those who travel long-distance and for holiday-makers who hire cars. The EU aims for one charger for every 10 EVs by 2020, and 4 million EVs on the road by 2030 which could save 8 megatonnes of CO2 equivalents. Denmark and Finland have already reached this target and Sweden is not far behind. Norway and Iceland, however, still have some way to go.

Exemptions on registration taxes are common in the Nordic countries. This helps to make them more attractive to consumers. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are preferred in Sweden, Iceland and Finland whereas battery electric vehicles are most popular in Denmark and Norway.

A recent survey showed that 43% of Icelanders would consider buying an EV in the future. Iceland is now installing more charging points, so it is now possible to drive around the island in an electric car without worrying about running out of battery. Because Iceland’s electricity is 100% renewable, the CO2 output of an EV in Iceland is virtually none.

Nevertheless, 40% of new cars in Iceland are bought by car rental firms. Icelanders then buy these cars as nearly-new a year or two later. These companies have been reluctant to take on vehicles using alternative fuels such as EVs, and thus the supply of these cars in the near future is likely to be limited.

Sweden aims at carbon-neutral concrete

Sweden’s concrete industry is developing a road map for climate neutralisation in conjunction with Fossil Free Sweden (FFS), a government body set up prior to COP21 in Paris. It will be submitted to the Swedish Prime Minister in March 2018. The process will be led by the Concrete Initiative, an alliance of concrete companies, municipalities, organisations and builders.

Cement production accounts for more than 90 percent of the climate impact of concrete and represents the largest source of emissions to the concrete industry. In 2016, greenhouse gas emissions from Sweden’s concrete industry amounted to about 5 percent of total emissions in Sweden.

Climate-neutral cement production is technically possible today through the use of carbon capture and storage but is 70 percent more expensive than conventional cement, so the technology has to be further developed if it is to become competitive. About 30 percent of cement’s climate impact can be reduced with a transition to non-fossil fuels, but other measures, such as carbon dioxide separation, are required for the remaining 60-70 percent. Climate neutrality also involves dealing with the residual carbon dioxide arising in the cement production itself.

Despite the high additional cost of climate-friendly concrete, it only adds 0.5 percent to the cost of a completed building.

According to FSS, in Germany and Poland the company Thomas Betong is looking into reducing the amount of cement clinker (which represents the majority of the CO2 emissions) by using different kinds of binding material, while one of the Swedish cement companies is collaborating with Norway on carbon capture and storage. However, the Swedish initiative is probably the most ambitious in terms of environment-friendly concrete.

Climate-enhanced concrete is currently available for concrete for building construction and the development of cement and concrete for infrastructure. This includes work with alternative binders, climate-smart recipes, optimization of design and construction, transport and energy supply.

Svante Axelsson, national coordinator for FFS, points out that “if we are to build the volumes of housing and infrastructure required in the coming years while living up to the climate targets, climate-neutral concrete production is a prerequisite.”

Note: This article was originally written for ENDS Europe but deemed not newsworthy enough. But I think it’s fascinating so decided to use the material as a blog instead.

Nordic countries support UN’s sustainable development goals

I’ve just written an article about how the PMs of the 5 largest Nordic countries – Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Iceland – have put together a joint platform called Nordic Solutions to Global Challenges, which is designed to use examples from the Nordic countries to help achieve the UN 2030 Agenda and its associated 17 sustainable development goals (SDGS).

The two-year initiative focuses on 6 flagship projects – sustainable cities, energy, climate change, food, gender and welfare – and covers most of the 17 SDGs. The Nordic Council of Ministers also co-hosted the recent World Circular Economy Forum in Helsinki, but the circular economy – which is a buzzword in environmental circles nowadays and many see as a key to achieving the SDGs – is hardly mentioned in the information associated with Nordic Solutions to Global Challenges. Still, in the run-up to the Finnish forum the Nordic council produced a special online newsletter on how the circular economy can help achieve the SDGs.

Maybe I should write another article about that subject…

As an aside, Sweden has just announced that it aims to become carbon-neutral by 2045 – a lofty but worthy declaration.

 

Have the Danes learnt from Brexit?

Copenhagen

Thousands of British people are now waking up to the reality of what an exit from the EU might mean. There had been warnings before the referendum, but the Leave faction had also given warnings, not to mention empty promises.

Can people learn from this? Maybe. In Denmark, a company called Voxmeter carried out an opinion poll a week before the Brexit referendum and another a week after it. The results were clear: Before the referendum, 40% of Danes said they wanted a referendum similar to Brexit and 60% wanted to remain in the EU while only 32% wanted one a week after the referendum and 70% wanted to remain in the EU. Before the referendum, 22% of Danes felt that Denmark is better off in the EU but two weeks later this figure had dropped to 18.2%.

The same trend has been seen in Sweden and Finland. In Sweden, support for ongoing membership of the EU increased from 49% to 52% while in Finland 56% wanted the country to remain in he EU whereas this figure was 68% after Brexit.

Icelanders have faced the opposite dilemma: whether or not to join the EU. It would be interesting to see figures now, in the light of Brexit.

 

Refugees need more than just a helping hand

As has been widely reported in the Icelandic media as well as CNN, the BBC, the Guardian and other media outlets, thousands of Icelanders have entreated Iceland’s welfare minister, Eyglo Hardardottir, to accept more Syrian refugees than the 50 already pledged, and have said they are willing to house and support them in other ways.
And Hardardottir and other representatives of the Icelandic government have said that it is likely that more than 50 will be accepted – although whether the figure will reach 500 or even 5000 is unknown. 60 is also more than 50.
But psychiatrist Pall Eiriksson, who has worked in refugee camps in Sweden for people who have fled from former Yugoslavia, said that many if not most of these refugees have deep-seated traumas from being exposed to the horrors of war, and in an article in the newspaper Fréttablaðið is quoted as saying “How many Icelanders have witnessed a murder?”
He says that the majority of the refugees will need some form of psychological assistance as well as all the support provided by the Red Cross and municipalities housing the refugees. Although the Iceland acts as a role model in many ways for the way in which it accepts refugees, psychological and psychiatric services are in many ways inadequate to deal with the situation.

It reminds me somewhat of the time when the rape crisis centre Stigamot opened a refuge for women who wanted to get out of prostitution. Both Icelanders and foreign women used the centre, and some women were probably also victims of human trafficking. However, it was virtually impossible to get the suspected trafficking victims to reveal anything, partly because they were scared of the repercussions. In additions, many of the women had drug and/or alcohol problems. The centre was eventually closed down after two years after  Stigamot staff realised the problem was far more complex than they had originally envisioned, and the problem needed to be dealt with differently (which it isn’t, or at least not sufficiently, but I won’t go into that here).

I fear that these two situations have similarities.

Anyone want an article?

UPDATE: The government has now announced that 55 Syrian refugees will arrive in Iceland next month, 20 adults and 35 children.  Not enough, really. They will go to 3 municipalities.

UPDATE no. 2: Although the refugees were meant to arrive before Christmas, now they will come mid-January.