On Friday 2 July, the European Commission published the opinions of the two bodies responsible for examining the report of its internal scientific service (the Joint Research Centre or JRC) on the potential inclusion of nuclear energy in the European Union’s taxonomy. While they point to some shortcomings in the JRC report, both evaluations are relatively positive.
Aiming to determine whether nuclear power generation meets the ‘do no significant harm’ (DNSH) criterion set out in the EU’s taxonomy regulation (2020/852), the JRC report stated that the centre had found “no scientific evidence that nuclear power is more damaging to human health or the environment than other power generation technologies already included in the taxonomy” (see EUROPE 12688/5).
In its opinion issued today, the group of national experts established by the Euratom Treaty concluded that compliance with the provisions of the Euratom legislation “provides sufficient confidence that the potential environmental consequences and inherent risks of long-term nuclear waste management [...] remain acceptable”.
It added, “The conclusions of the JRC report are based on well-established results of scientific research, reviewed in detail by internationally recognised organisations and committees”.
This expert group also endorsed the JRC’s conclusions on deep geological repositories.
Based on the current state of knowledge, it is correct to consider these methods as “appropriate and safe means of isolating spent fuel and other high-level waste (HLW) from the biosphere for very long time scales, and the necessary technologies are now available”, its assessment states.
These experts also share the belief that the environmental control standards necessary to protect the general public “are likely to be sufficient to ensure that other species are not put at risk”.
In contrast, the opinion of the ‘Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks’ (SCHEER), the second body responsible for reviewing the JRC report, is more critical on this point.
Calling this claim “simplistic”, the SCHEER stresses in particular that it does not share the view that thermal pollution of seawater is less of a problem due to “practically infinite mixing”, as “the potential problems in shallow coastal areas and vulnerable ecosystems (e.g. coral reefs) are overlooked”.
The SCHEER is also sceptical about non-radiological impacts. While the Committee considers that the report’s conclusions and recommendations on this point “are mainly comprehensive”, it is also of the opinion that there are several conclusions where the report needs to be supplemented by additional evidence.
“For the DNSH criteria, in many cases the findings are expressed as do less harm than at least one of the comparator [energy generation] technologies, which in the SCHEER view is different from ‘do no significant harm’”, the assessment said.
The “residual risk” from nuclear power “remains acceptable”, says the SCHEER.
Finally, the SCHEER opinion states that this committee did not include experts on the technologies and risks associated with the treatment and long-term storage of high-level radioactive waste. Therefore, “any comments on those sections are limited”, the document stresses.
See the SCHEER evaluation: https://bit.ly/3dF6EZk
See the evaluation by the expert group: https://bit.ly/3qFWLzR (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)