Brussels, 13/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - The shutdown of 200 of the world's 434 currently active nuclear reactors by 2040 is a major challenge for the countries concerned, particularly Europe, stated the chief economist of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Fatih Birol, during the presentation of the IEA's latest annual outlook report on Wednesday 12 November.
According to the IEA, the nuclear share of global electricity production is expected to grow by one point to reach 12% by 2040. Given the rise in global demand for electricity (21% per year), it will nevertheless be a question of a rise of nearly 60% of the installed nuclear capacity (to 624 gigawatts, compared with 392 gigawatts in 2013). With a profound change to the world's nuclear power stations - as installed capacity should increase almost tenfold in China (to 149 gigawatts) so as to represent 25% of the world's nuclear capacity, while the USA would reportedly record weak growth - both the EU and Japan would record a decrease (-14% for the EU).
Europe, which will see the nuclear share of its production decrease from 27% to 21%, will face a double challenge. Firstly, it will be faced with managing the decommissioning and waste - “we don't have much experience and I fear we are ill prepared to manage the decommissioning of 200 reactors in terms of policy and finance”, said Birol, who also underlined the inability of countries using nuclear power to define a real policy for waste management. Secondly, Europe will be faced with the issue of compensation for containing global warming, given nuclear power's contribution to the reduction of carbon emissions from electricity production. According to the IEA, nuclear power plants have avoided the equivalent of two years of carbon emissions since 1971. (EH)