The Coming Nuclear Century

Remarks by John Ritch
Director General, World Nuclear Association

"Energy Choices for Europe" Conference

European Parliament / Brussels
5 March 2003

Distinguished hosts, ladies and gentlemen:

Allow me to begin with a word of personal introduction.

Many people on the political right today are comfortable with nuclear power but remain skeptical about environmental danger and global warming. Many on the political left are concerned about the environment but remain skeptical about nuclear power.

I am engaged in the work I do as one among those who support nuclear power precisely because of a deep concern about the environment.

Our world today is struggling to cope with two monumental imperatives:

• The first, resulting from an explosive growth in global population, is to meet an unprecedented level of human need and aspiration.
• The second is the necessity of drastic action to preserve our biosphere.

In all history, humankind has faced no greater challenge than to reconcile these two imperatives.

It is my thesis that nuclear power will be indispensable if this historic challenge is to be met.

Today we have some 440 nuclear power reactors in the world. We will need thousands.

A Global Crisis Without Precedent

Conservation and efficiency are sound principles. But our world has just begun to consume energy.

Of today's 6 billion people, roughly half live primitively and many hundreds of millions live in misery. In the next 50 years, as global population grows to 9 billion, human need will multiply.

As nations strive to meet this need, world energy consumption will double. In just this narrow 50-year period alone, humankind will use more energy than in all previous history combined.

Today, the global rate of CO₂ emissions is 25 billion tonnes a year, or 800 tonnes a second. Despite rhetoric and diplomacy, this rate continues to rise.

Imagine the weight of the Great Pyramid of Egypt. Imagine a vast plume of CO₂ large enough to equal that weight. Every 90 minutes human activity is adding that much CO₂ to the natural level of greenhouse gases.

By mid-century the greenhouse gas concentration will approach or exceed twice the pre-industrial level.

It is far from alarmist to warn that degraded air and an unstable global climate could soon become threats far more devastating than terrorism or manmade weapons.

To stabilise greenhouse gases , even at a dangerously higher level , we must cut global emissions by at least 50% during this century. Since developing nations such as China and India will inevitably emit far more greenhouse gases, countries that are already industrialised must cut emissions by 75%.

A Future of Radical Change

We face a future of radical change. Either we will achieve radical transformation in the global economy , or we will experience a radical upsurge in human suffering and a radical alteration in the global environment.

No aspect of sustainable development is more elemental than the need to achieve a massive worldwide shift to clean energy.

It is an irony of our age , and it is fast becoming a tragic irony , that so many citizens and organisations most concerned about the clean energy problem are fixated on myths, dogmas and sheer fantasies regarding the solution.

In the realm of reality, projections by the International Energy Agency (in the public sector) and the World Energy Council (in the private sector) point unambiguously to the same conclusion , that our need for clean energy on a colossal scale cannot conceivably be met without a sharply increased use of nuclear power.

Those who persist in opposing nuclear power in the name of environmental preservation will surely earn the scorn of history and of future generations.

The world's environmentalists have performed many valuable services. But they can provide their fellow citizens no greater service now than to discard the fiction that conservation, solar panels and windmills alone can meet human needs.

Sustainability requires nuclear energy; and the path of sound environmentalism today is to embrace, fight for , and finance , a future in which nuclear power and "new renewables" function as clean-energy partners in a transformed global economy.

Preparing for Nuclear Century

In the century ahead, the world should come to recognize its debt to the scientists and diplomats of the last half century whose efforts have paved the way for an era in which the power of the atom will be indispensable to human welfare:

• Proliferation. First, we are meeting the challenge of proliferation. The global regime founded on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty constitutes one of the great diplomatic achievements in history. We cannot erase the danger of illicit nuclear activity. But, through ever-stronger IAEA safeguards, we have taken enormous strides to fulfil the pertinent goal, which is to ensure that valuable use of nuclear technology does not abet the illicit production of nuclear weapons.
• Safety. Second, we have met the challenge of safety with a combination of technological advance and an ever-improving nuclear safety culture that draws on over 11,000 reactor-years of practical experience. This safety global culture relies on high standards promulgated by the IAEA and reinforced by the World Association of Nuclear Operators. Created in response to the unique accident at Chernobyl, WANO represents an extraordinary achievement in private-sector diplomacy. Today its network of technical exchange and peer review encompasses every power reactor worldwide. In future, advanced reactors using "passive" design features will provide still another layer of operational safety.
• Transport. To assure safe transport, today's industry uses highly engineered containers able to withstand enormous impact. To date, more than 20,000 containers of spent fuel and high-level waste have been shipped safely over a total distance of 20 million miles. During the transport of these and other radioactive substances , for nuclear power, research and medicine , there has never been a harmful radioactive release.
• Terrorism. As potential targets of terrorism, nuclear reactors and used fuel facilities are robust structures of heavily reinforced concrete and steel that are far, far less vulnerable than chemical factories or most key elements of modern infrastructure. In military parlance, nuclear is a far less lucrative target. Since 9/11, state-of-the-art computer modelling shows that a similar assault against U.S. nuclear facilities , even under extreme worst-case assumptions , would result in no release of radionuclides. Such facilities represent a standard of impregnability attainable by new reactors everywhere.
• Cost. As to cost, steady reductions are carrying us toward a future in which nuclear power will emerge as a clear winner on the field of affordability. Today nuclear is the cheapest clean-energy source, and in many locales , such as the USA , nuclear has lower production costs than carbon fuels. Nuclear's higher capital costs will steadily fall , through simplified, standardised reactor designs and faster construction. Meanwhile, fossil costs , particularly for gas and oil , will rise, as shortages engender price spikes and energy insecurity. Soundly conceived emissions penalties (whether through trading or taxes) will tilt this balance even faster, enabling nuclear power to dominate any market that imposes a real price for environmental damage. Clean coal, if and when technically feasible, will be needed, but will almost certainly be far costlier than nuclear power.
• Waste Disposal. Finally, as to waste, nuclear power has made enormous progress, both technically and politically. The irony that some environmentalists oppose nuclear energy is compounded when they oppose it on the grounds that waste is the insoluble problem of nuclear power. In truth, waste is the greatest comparative asset of nuclear power because the volume is tiny and can be safely managed without harm to people or the environment.
  
  Future progress in partition & transmutation may reduce volume and decay-life. But, even with current technology, geological repositories are extremely safe and feasible. Only political hurdles remain; and these are now being overcome , beginning with the U.S., Finland, Sweden, Russia and, we must hope, by new initiatives in the EU.

The Vision of Hydricity

Soon, another atomic marvel , the uniting of hydrogen and oxygen to make electricity , will lift our prospects for a clean-energy future.

Hydrogen offers a means, for the first time in history, to store enormous quantities of electricity , for use, on demand, in cleanly powered transportation and in the full range of traditional electrical uses for home and industry.

But hydrogen's environmental value depends on making it cleanly , using the clean primary energy that only nuclear power can provide on a vast scale.

Today nuclear power makes base-load electricity. Hydrogen provides the bridge by which nuclear power can contribute to the entire spectrum of energy use. With this bridge, it is now possible for the first time to envisage a thriving, large-scale, emissions-free industrial economy , with nuclear power and renewables providing clean primary energy for direct electricity and for electricity storage via hydrogen.

The man known as the father of the hydrogen-fuel cell, Geoff Ballard, describes this as an economy operating on "hydricity". Both a pioneer and a realist, Ballard is a strong advocate of nuclear power.

"Hydricity" is exciting technologically, and can also inspire action diplomatically.

Our need is for a comprehensive treaty regime in which all the nations of the world , developed and developing , undertake a binding commitment to use emissions trading as the driving economic incentive for a long-term evolution to a global clean energy economy.

Our failure thus far traces ultimately to the lack of a plausible vision as to how a collective commitment to deep emissions cuts might realistically be fulfilled.

The emergence of a technologically feasible, widely understood clean-energy vision could break this logjam, stimulating nations to undertake the commitments that will accelerate the vision's fulfilment.

Past, Present and Future: The Growth of Nuclear Power

A future in which nuclear power plays a central role in supporting "hydricity" will require no radical change , but only an acceleration , in current trends. Indeed, for four consecutive decades, including the 1990's, nuclear power has been the fastest growing major energy source in the world.

Today:

• Thirty-one nations representing 2/3 of humanity have nuclear power;
• Important nations representing an additional half-billion people are planning to begin to use it for the first time;
• Nations representing half of world population are building nuclear power plants, and
• The U.S. nuclear industry , which is not building today , plans 50% growth over the next 20 years.

The essential issue about nuclear power is not whethe r it will grow but how fast:

• Will it grow fast enough to meet the world's urgent need for clean energy on a massive scale?
• Will we further strengthen the global infrastructure of people and institutions to guide and promote its growth?

The goal of the World Nuclear Association is to promote that strong rate of growth and to help build that infrastructure of people and institutions.

To that end, we are now working with the IAEA and WANO to build a World Nuclear University that unites, coordinates and supports many educational and scientific institutions around the world.

With a headquarters in Europe, the World Nuclear University will carry a mandate to promulgate knowledge of peaceful nuclear technology and to imbue the highest ethical and professional standards for this indispensable and expanding global industry.

The World Nuclear University is a powerful idea whose time has come, as we lay the groundwork for this nuclear century.