Phase-out Of Nuclear Power Research Articles

Analysis of renewable energy and economic growth of Germany

The study aims to investigate the effect of energy use, renewable energy consumption, nuclear energy consumption and air transport freight on CO2 emissions in Germany. Auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL) technique was used to establish the short and long-term correlations between the dependent (CO2) and independent variables (Energy use, nuclear consumption, renewable consumption, air transport freight) on a time series data from 1970 to 2021. The results demonstrated the dependence of energy use on non-renewable energy sources by revealing a significant and positive relationship between short and long-term energy use and CO2 emissions. Similar to energy use, nuclear energy use and air transport freight was also found to be positively correlated with CO2 emissions. On the other hand, despite the fact that there is a strong negative connection between carbon dioxide emissions and renewable energy, the results reveal that the correlation between the two is not statistically significant. The study aims to investigate the effect of important economic factors on Germany’s CO2 emissions in order to move further in a sustainable manner. The data reveals an astonishing increase in the usage of nuclear energy for power generation between 1965 and 1985, which was followed by a fall in 2012 as a result of the Fukushima tragedy and growing social unease in Germany, which ultimately led to the phase-out of nuclear power. Nonetheless, BAU projections revealed that even with 200 nuclear power plants, CO2 emissions would still be reduced to 278 by 2070, in part because of the additional power produced by other energy sources.

The German energy-climate plan: A window on the future difficulties of the Energiewende

Germany's NECP 2023 is a long-awaited and particularly complex exercise. It is eagerly awaited because it comes after the energy shock of 2022, and at a time when the long-term consequences for Germany will be difficult to overcome. Complex because, even before the energy crisis, Germany's 2030 targets looked particularly challenging, requiring it to double the rate of decarbonisation of the previous decade (while completing the phase-out of nuclear power). In this context, the autumn 2023 version is clearly a "work in progress" which, while covering the five dimensions of the exercise, reveals significant limitations: in the precision of the proposed measures and, despite these imprecisions, in the assessment of their scope, leaving little hope of achieving the decarbonisation objectives by 2030 (as also considered by the Federal Court of Auditors). Admittedly, this observation is not entirely specific to Ger- many, but given the position of this economy within the EU, broader questions are raised about the progress towards Fit-for-55.

Energy Security of the European Union in the Context of Russian Aggression against Ukraine

Over the past decades, Russia has used the supply, ownership and control of energy resources as an instrument of its foreign policy to strengthen its political influence not only in the post-Soviet space, but also in the EU member states. During the unprovoked Russian aggression against Ukraine, Moscow used energy policy as an energy weapon (demanding to pay for gas in rubles; stopping gas supplies to certain EU member states, including Poland, Bulgaria, and Finland; reducing the volume of supplies through the Nord Stream pipeline; ignoring the capacities of the Ukrainian GTS; provoking an increase in gas prices), which resulted in an acute energy crisis in the European Union. This prompted the EU and national governments of its member states to make significant adjustments to their energy policies in order to overcome the crisis and prevent gas blackmail by European states as a manipulation to circumvent anti-Russian sanctions and political pressure to withdraw support for Ukraine. The purpose of the article is to study the problems of ensuring the energy security of the European Union and its member states in the context of the energy crisis caused by Russia's aggression against Ukraine. The article is aimed at studying the impact of Russian aggression on the EU's energy security, assessing the state of the Energy Union in 2022, and analyzing short-term and long-term strategies in the development of relevant supranational and national energy policies, mainly from a European perspective. Modern European national and supranational energy and climate strategies envisage postponing the phase-out of coal, oil, gas and nuclear power, while accelerating the deployment of renewable energy, improving energy efficiency and a mandatory commitment to increase energy storage. The European Union and its member states are overcoming the consequences of the energy crisis by developing and implementing national strategies, the REPowerEU plan, as well as a number of other measures to reduce energy prices and ensure security of supply. The REPowerEU plan is fully in line with the European Green Deal and includes measures to save energy, diversify and ensure security of supply, accelerate the deployment of renewable energy sources and a reasonable mix of investment and reform. The modernization of the EU's energy policy is aligned with the EU's long-term climate goals. The EU also supports new partnerships with neighboring countries, including Ukraine, to accelerate the global transition to green and fair energy.

Against Imperial Arbitrators: The Brilliance of Canada's New Model Investment Treaty

Investment treaty arbitration has become politically “toxic” even in states that pioneered the development of investment treaties. There is consensus on the need for reform. But there is a dearth of historical research on what went wrong with investment treaties, when it happened, or how to find the way forward in light of the past. As a result, reform efforts have a stumbling quality. One can see this in multilateral fora, such as the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), where over four years of study and negotiations have produced little consensus. One can also see it in the investment treaty practice of individual states, such as Canada, which has recently lurched across the spectrum from investment treaty arbitration to a permanent international investment court, to the abandonment of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), and back to investment treaty arbitration. This article fills the gap in understanding by explaining what went wrong with investment treaty arbitration and when it happened. It demonstrates that the customary international law on state responsibility for injuries to aliens evolved during the 19th century to protect foreign investors against exceptional failures of the nightwatchman and rule-of-law states. As the consensus regarding customary international law standards of treatment unraveled during the 20th century due to the spread of communism, decolonization, and economic nationalism, capital-exporting states turned in bilateral investment treaties (BITs) to uphold traditional principles regarding the protection of foreign investment. Starting in the late 1990s, however, an unexpected surge of claims brought under NAFTA’s investment chapter fortuitously opened the door to the central problem of modern investment treaty practice: the rise of “imperial arbitrators” who do not merely police exceptional failures of the nightwatchman and rule-of-law states, but who choose to second-guess the normal operations of modern regulatory states without any meaningful checks or balances. Although the NAFTA Parties nipped that development in the bud, the rise of imperial arbitrators leapt to the broader universe of investment treaty arbitration, where it flourished until claims against developed states for measures such as the phaseout of nuclear power brought investment treaty arbitration to a crisis point. Seeking a way forward in light of the past, the article examines Canada’s recent experimentation with investment treaty reforms, including the development of a permanent international investment court in relations with the EU, the complete elimination of ISDS in relations with the United States, and a return to traditional investment

Economic and environmental implications of the nuclear power phase-out in Belgium: Insights from time-series models and a partial differential equations algorithm

By 2025, Belgium will phase-out nuclear power. Unassessed so far, this policy reform may modify the economic and environmental channels through which energy and society interfere in this country. In this paper, we investigate whether this structural energy change may adversely impact the growth of the Belgian economy (i) and its ability to meet its long-term greenhouse gas emission targets (ii). A multivariate model comprising production factors (labor, capital, and exports), nuclear and renewable energy uses, total primary energy supply, economic growth, and CO2 emissions from the power and heating sector is combined with real time-series data spanning the 1974–2019 period. The analysis consists in sequentially assessing two distinct nexuses (energy-economy and energy-economy-environment) over reduced- and augmented frameworks (excluding and including nuclear energy), and through a two-stage empirical strategy: time-series econometric estimations (Toda-Yamamoto causality test, Impulse Response Functions (IRFs), and the Auto-Regressive Distributed Lags (ARDL) and Machine Learning (ML) experiments with a Partial Differential Equations (PDEs) algorithm. For robustness purposes, we conduct two seminal tests which relate to dynamic predictive processes (T-Mat and Verticality tests). Besides confirming the time-series findings, our ML results highlight the necessity to timely manage the process of nuclear phase-out, along with a progressive deployment of installed renewable energy capacity. This should avoid additional economic costs, energy security threats, and undermining of climate targets. In doing so, this study combines macro-level nexus investigations with the politics and institutional determinants of nuclear energy reliance and seeks to bring inclusive knowledge on this topic.

Beliefs and Networks: Mapping the Indian Climate Policy Discourse Surrounding the Paris Climate Change Conference in 2015

ABSTRACT The media represents a discursive site with actors trying to influence the discourse on a particular subject. The paper delves into an exploratory analysis of the policy discourse around climate change in India during the 2015 Paris Agreement by tapping into the data from the print media. Employing Discourse Network Analysis (DNA) and drawing theoretical insights from the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), the paper aims to highlight the dominant policy beliefs and the prominent actors in the Indian climate policy sphere. The findings exhibit a firm agreement on the scientific reality of climate change, along with a continued emphasis on the historical responsibility of the developed countries. The transition to renewable energy is widely accepted, but coal phase-out and sustenance of nuclear power is a contentious issue. The study uncovers a consistent belief system underlying the climate change discourse in India and the challenges in the path towards future energy transition.

South Korea’s Nuclear Power Phase-Out and the Role of Media

South Korea is a resource-poor country, which heavily relies on importing energy from outside. Therefore, the South Korean government tried to develop the technologies of producing nuclear power energy, which was succeeded in the 90s. Furthermore, based on the advanced technology of nuclear power, in 2009, the government celebrated winning a contract to build nuclear power plants in the United Arab Emirates. Since then, in South Korea, nuclear power energy was considered a leading economy for the country’s future. However, there were countless social-environmental conflicts related to using nuclear power energy. Furthermore, with the ‘unexpected’ Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011, the nuclear power phase-out debate has initiated in South Korea. As a consequence, nuclear power phase-out was included in the energy transition policy when the newly elected government took presidential office in May 2017. In fact, nuclear phase-out was a presidential pledge during the presidential election. However, this policy of nuclear power phase-out became one of the most intense social-political conflicts of the society, and the mass media played a key role to intensify the conflict.

Heating France with nuclear power: Alternative heat politics and competing nuclear regimes during the 1970s

Nuclear power is largely analysed as a contested energy production technology with a focus on the factors for the success or failure of the development of nuclear programmes but little questioning of the usages associated with this energy production. By concentrating specifically on the question of usage, this article sheds light on an original timeline of the development of nuclear power in France in the 1970s. It highlights the existence of an intense debate on the means of using the energy that would be produced by this industry and on the models of technical, political, economic and spatial organisation of the energy system that would result. Based on an analytical work of several historical archival funds, this paper brings into light how three sociotechnical regimes were in competition to organize the French energy system during the development of the national nuclear programme. From an historical geography perspective, this paper provides insights for a critical rethinking of the development of nuclear programmes as well as for the politics surrounding the phase-out of nuclear power.

Economics of Battery Use in Agriculture: Economic Viability of Renewable Energy Complemented with Batteries in Agriculture

The production of renewable energy fluctuates in terms of sun and wind and must be supplemented by storage in the system. On an individual basis, i.e., for centralized electricity production and predominantly self-consumption, the use of batteries is considered here. Possible future development scenarios were simulated based on current price relationships (status quo). In the status quo, a selling price for PV electricity of 13 Euro cents (ct)ct/kWh was assumed with a production cost of 11 ct/kWh. The selling price of wind power is 5 ct/kWh with a production cost of 3 ct/kWh. The cost of storing electricity in a battery increases the price by 33 ct/kWh. A price of 20 ct/kWh is assumed for electricity purchases by companies. In the status quo, the use of batteries is not economical given the assumed price relationships. Changing the framework conditions, such as those of the legislature in Germany with the nuclear power phase-out and in the EU with the coal exit and decarbonization, will lead to increased availability of (fluctuating) renewable electricity, especially during the day. The purchase of electricity at other times, when the supply is scarce, can lead to increased electricity prices, especially at night. Together with falling costs for storage, the use of batteries for centralized power generators could be very interesting in the future. The method used in this study is nonlinear optimization of the target function costs of electricity supply in the developed simulation model. The results can also be transferred to other countries, as the assumed trends apply worldwide.

The functioning of the Atomkraft nominative field vocabulary in German-language media against the background of nuclear power phase-out

Statement of the problem. The semantic-cognitive method of language analysis as a means of studying concepts is of interest, because it allows one to identify the cognitive attributes of the concept on a wide and representative material. In the present study, the claimed method is presented in part regarding the analysis of lexicographic data and the cognitive interpretation of the contexts of the use of Atomkraftnominative field lexemes in German. The purpose of the article is to establish the cognitive features of the Atomkraft nominative field lexemes, codified in dictionaries and revealed during the analysis of the text corpus of publications in the media and blogs from 1980 to 2014, for the subsequent construction of a field model of the concept. Of particular interest is the effect of technological disasters in the nuclear energy sector that occurred during this period on the frequency of use and semantics of designated lexical units. Results. Based on the analysis of vocabulary entries, as well as the involvement of a representative text corpus, it is established that the dominant cognitive feature of the concept is “rejection of nuclear energy”, the most widely represented by the tokenAtomenergie. The general field structure of the concept, taking into account all nominative units, is as follows: the core is a sign of “abandonment of nuclear energy” (31%); the near periphery – “political aspects” and “dangers of nuclear power” (31%); the far periphery – “environmental issues” and “the future of nuclear power” (17%); the outer periphery – “nuclear power as one of the problems of our time” and “peaceful use of nuclear energy” (9%). Conclusion. The question of whether there is a correlation between the frequency of use of the lexical units of the field in question and the technological disasters occurring in the world continues to remain debatable. In the framework of the presented study, no reliable evidence of such a relationship was revealed. In the course of the work, it was found that the peak of the use of lexical units of the nominative field occurred in 2008–2009, when preparations for and pre-election campaigns were held in Germany, which suggests the greater influence of the political situation on the semantic content of the concept. This problem, however, requires further research on an expanded corpus of texts.

Функционирование лексики номинативного поля в немецкоязычных СМИ в условиях отказа от ядерной энергетики

Постановка задачи. Семантико-когнитивный метод анализа языка как способ исследования концептов представляет интерес, поскольку позволяет выявить когнитивные признаки концепта на широком и репрезентативном материале. В настоящем исследовании заявленный метод представлен в части, касающейся анализа лексикографических данных и когнитивной интерпретации контекстов употребления лексем номинативного поля Atomkraft в немецком языке. Целью статьи является установление когнитивных признаков лексем номинативного поля Atomkraft , кодифицированных в словарях и выявляемых в ходе анализа корпуса текстов публикаций в СМИ и блогах в период с 1980 по 2014 гг., для последующего построения полевой модели концепта. Особый интерес представляет влияние произошедших в данный период техногенных катастроф в секторе ядерной энергетики (ЯЭ) на частотность употребления и семантику обозначенных лексических единиц. Результаты. На основании анализа словарных статей, а также привлечения репрезентативного корпуса текстов устанавливается, что доминантным когнитивным признаком концепта является «отказ от ядерной энергетики», наиболее широко представленный лексемой Atomenergie . Общая полевая структура концепта с учетом всех номинативных единиц выглядит следующим образом: ядро составляет признак «отказ от ядерной энергетики» (31%); ближнюю периферию - «политические аспекты» и «опасности ЯЭ» (31%); дальнюю периферию - «вопросы экологии» и «будущее ЯЭ» (17%); крайнюю периферию - «ЯЭ как одна из проблем современности» и «мирное использование ЯЭ» (9%). Выводы. Дискуссионным продолжает оставаться вопрос о наличии корреляции между частотностью употребления лексических единиц рассматриваемого поля и происходящими в мире техногенными катастрофами. В рамках представленного исследования не было выявлено достоверных свидетельств подобной взаимосвязи. В ходе работы установлено, что пик употребления лексических единиц номинативного поля приходится на 2008-2009 гг., когда в Германии проходила подготовка и проведение предвыборной кампании в парламент, что позволяет сделать предположение о большем влиянии политической обстановки на семантическое наполнение концепта. Данная проблема, однако, требует дальнейших исследований на расширенном корпусе текстов. Statement of the problem. The semantic-cognitive method of language analysis as a means of studying concepts is of interest, because it allows one to identify the cognitive attributes of the concept on a wide and representative material. In the present study, the claimed method is presented in part regarding the analysis of lexicographic data and the cognitive interpretation of the contexts of the use of Atomkraft nominative field lexemes in German. The purpose of the article is to establish the cognitive features of the Atomkraft nominative field lexemes, codified in dictionaries and revealed during the analysis of the text corpus of publications in the media and blogs from 1980 to 2014, for the subsequent construction of a field model of the concept. Of particular interest is the effect of technological disasters in the nuclear energy sector that occurred during this period on the frequency of use and semantics of designated lexical units. Results. Based on the analysis of vocabulary entries, as well as the involvement of a representative text corpus, it is established that the dominant cognitive feature of the concept is “rejection of nuclear energy”, the most widely represented by the token Atomenergie . The general field structure of the concept, taking into account all nominative units, is as follows: the core is a sign of “abandonment of nuclear energy” (31%); the near periphery - “political aspects” and “dangers of nuclear power” (31%); the far periphery - “environmental issues” and “the future of nuclear power” (17%); the outer periphery - “nuclear power as one of the problems of our time” and “peaceful use of nuclear energy” (9%). Conclusion. The question of whether there is a correlation between the frequency of use of the lexical units of the field in question and the technological disasters occurring in the world continues to remain debatable. In the framework of the presented study, no reliable evidence of such a relationship was revealed. In the course of the work, it was found that the peak of the use of lexical units of the nominative field occurred in 2008-2009, when preparations for and pre-election campaigns were held in Germany, which suggests the greater influence of the political situation on the semantic content of the concept. This problem, however, requires further research on an expanded corpus of texts.

Sentiment analysis of nuclear energy-related articles and their comments on a portal site in Rep. of Korea in 2010–2019

This paper reviewed the temporal changes in the public opinions on nuclear energy in Korea with a big data analysis of nuclear energy-related articles and their comments posted on the portal site NAVER. All articles that included at least one of “nuclear energy,” “nuclear power plant (NPP),” “nuclear power phase-out,” or “anti-nuclear” in their titles or main text were extracted from those posted on NAVER in January 2010–December 2019. First, we performed annual word frequency analysis to identify what words had appeared most frequently in the articles. For that period, the most frequent words were “NPP,” “nuclear energy,” and “energy.” In addition, “safety” has remained in the upper ranks since the Fukushima NPP accident. Then, we performed sentiment analysis of the pre-processed articles. The sentiment analysis showed that positive-tone articles have been reported more frequently than negative-tone over the entire analysis period. Last, we performed sentiment analysis of the comments on the articles to examine the public’s intention regarding nuclear issues. The analysis showed that the number of negative comments to articles each month–irrespective of positive or negative tone–was always larger than that of positive comments over the entire analysis period.

Review of the public law on the Nuclear Power Phase-out Policy

Review of the public law on the Nuclear Power Phase-out Policy

Taiwan’s Nuclear Power Phase-out Decision-Making Process During the Energy Transition Pathway

Taiwan’s Nuclear Power Phase-out Decision-Making Process During the Energy Transition Pathway

How to meet EU GHG emission reduction targets? A model based decarbonization pathway for Europe's electricity supply system until 2050

Globally, due to industrialization, GHG emissions continue to increase. This is despite the existing scientific and political consensus to fight human-induced climate change. To reverse this trend, viable, cost-effective decarbonization pathways are needed. We focus on the European power supply system and demonstrate the techno-economic feasibility of reaching the EU's mitigation targets by 2050. We show that a transition from conventional to renewable-based power supply systems is possible for the EU even with a politically driven nuclear power phase-out. We provide a guideline for European stakeholders that shows how to transform their power generation systems. By following our recommendations, the EU can be a role model for other countries and regions moving towards decarbonization. Our work is guided by two main motivations:• How can the transition of Europe's power system be modeled adequately?• What is the techno-economically optimal transition pathway for meeting the EU GHG power sector emission targets by 2050?A comparison of power system models has revealed a need for a combined short and long-term simulation tool that includes the principal power generation, storage and transmission technologies being considered in Europe. We adapted and applied the linear model elesplan-m to simulate a techno-economically optimized decarbonization pathway for 18 interconnected European regions and found that meeting the EU's reduction targets, i.e. reducing the GHG emissions from 1300 to 24 Mt CO2eq per year by 2050, can be achieved by large-scale capacity investment in renewable energy sources (RES). The levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) would increase from 6.7 to 9.0 ctEUR/kWh and investments of 403 billion EUR would be necessary during the 34 year period analyzed. In 2050, the resulting power supply system is largely composed of wind power (1485 GW) and PV (909 GW), which are supported by 150 GW hydro power and 244 GW gas power. In addition, 432 GW of storage and 362 GW of transmission capacity are required to temporally and spatially distribute electricity.This work provides not only a feasible concept for a decarbonized power supply system, but shows also the implementation steps necessary to make the transition to that system cost-effective.

The effectiveness of full actinide recycle as a nuclear waste management strategy when implemented over a limited timeframe – Part I: Uranium fuel cycle

Disposal of spent nuclear fuel is a major political and public-perception problem for nuclear energy. From a radiological standpoint, the long-lived component of spent nuclear fuel primarily consists of transuranic (TRU) isotopes. Full recycling of TRU isotopes can, in theory, lead to a reduction in repository radiotoxicity to reference levels corresponds to the radiotoxicity of the unburned natural U required to fuel a conventional LWR in as little as ∼500 years provided reprocessing and fuel fabrication losses are limited. This strategy forms part of many envisaged ‘sustainable’ nuclear fuel cycles. However, over a limited timeframe, the radiotoxicity of the ‘final’ core can dominate over reprocessing losses, leading to a much lower reduction in radiotoxicity compared to that achievable at equilibrium. The importance of low reprocessing losses and minor actinide (MA) recycling is also dependent on the timeframe during which actinides are recycled. In this paper, the fuel cycle code ORION is used to model the recycle of light water reactor (LWR)-produced TRUs in LWRs and sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs) over 1–5 generations of reactors, which is sufficient to infer general conclusions for higher numbers of generations. Here, a generation is defined as a fleet of reactors operating for 60 years, before being retired and potentially replaced. Over up to ∼5 generations of full actinide recycle in SFR burners, the final core inventory tends to dominate over reprocessing losses, beyond which the radiotoxicity rapidly becomes sensitive to reprocessing losses. For a single generation of SFRs, there is little or no advantage to recycling MAs. However, for multiple generations, the reduction in repository radiotoxicity is severely limited without MA recycling, and repository radiotoxicity converges on equilibrium after around 3 generations of SFRs. With full actinide recycling, at least 6 generations of SFRs are required in a gradual phase-out of nuclear power to achieve transmutation performance approaching the theoretical equilibrium performance – which appears challenging from an economic and energy security standpoint. TRU recycle in pressurized water reactors (PWRs) with zero net actinide production provides similar performance to low-enriched-uranium (LEU)-fueled LWRs in equilibrium with a fleet of burner SFRs. However, it is not possible to reduce the TRU inventory over multiple generations of PWRs. TRU recycle in break-even SFRs is much less effective from a point of view of reducing spent nuclear fuel radiotoxicity.

Nuclear Power for Good: Articulations in Japan's Nuclear Power Hegemony

The Fukushima nuclear meltdown in March 2011 led the majority of the Japanese to support a phase-out of nuclear power. Yet, nuclear energy has become so interwoven with the social, economic, and political fabric of the Japanese society that its termination requires considerable structural and ideological changes to the society and the culture of Japan. This article examines 4 articulations that helped to shape Japan's pronuclear discourse and maintain its hegemonic status. I discuss the ways in which a variety of discursive practices were deployed to articulate nuclear power as virtuous, absolutely safe, necessary, and environmentally friendly.

The effectiveness of full actinide recycle as a nuclear waste management strategy when implemented over a limited timeframe – Part II: Thorium fuel cycle

Full recycling of transuranic (TRU) isotopes can in theory lead to a reduction in repository radiotoxicity to reference levels in as little as ∼500 years provided reprocessing and fuel fabrication losses are limited. However, over a limited timeframe, the radiotoxicity of the ‘final’ core can dominate over reprocessing losses, leading to a much lower reduction in radiotoxicity compared to that achievable at equilibrium. In Part I of this paper, TRU recycle over up to 5 generations of light water reactors (LWRs) or sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs) is considered for uranium (U) fuel cycles. With full actinide recycling, at least 6 generations of SFRs are required in a gradual phase-out of nuclear power to achieve transmutation performance approaching the theoretical equilibrium performance. U-fuelled SFRs operating a break-even fuel cycle are not particularly effective at reducing repository radiotoxicity as the final core load dominates over a very long timeframe. In this paper, the analysis is extended to the thorium (Th) fuel cycle. Closed Th-based fuel cycles are well known to have lower equilibrium radiotoxicity than U-based fuel cycles but the time taken to reach equilibrium is generally very long. Th burner fuel cycles with SFRs are found to result in very similar radiotoxicity to U burner fuel cycles with SFRs for one less generation of reactors, provided that protactinium (Pa) is recycled. Th-fuelled reduced-moderation boiling water reactors (RBWRs) are also considered, but for burner fuel cycles their performance is substantially worse, with the waste taking ∼3–5 times longer to decay to the reference level than for Th-fuelled SFRs with the same number of generations. Th break-even fuel cycles require ∼3 generations of operation before their waste radiotoxicity benefits result in decay to the reference level in ∼1000 years. While this is a very long timeframe, it is roughly half that required for waste from the Th or U burner fuel cycle to decay to the reference level, and less than a tenth that required for the U break-even fuel cycle. The improved performance over burner fuel cycles is due to a more substantial contribution of energy generated by 233U leading to lower radiotoxicity per unit energy generation. To some extent this an argument based on how the radiotoxicity is normalised: operating a break-even fuel cycle rather than phasing out nuclear power using a burner fuel cycle results in higher repository radiotoxicity in absolute terms. The advantage of Th break-even fuel cycles is also contingent on recycling Pa, and reprocessing losses are significant also for a small number of generations due to the need to effectively burn down the TRU. The integrated decay heat over the scenario timeframe is almost twice as high for a break-even Th fuel cycle than a break-even U fuel cycle when using SFRs, as a result of much higher 90Sr production, which subsequently decays into 90Y. The peak decay heat is comparable. As decay heat at vitrification and repository decay heat affect repository sizing, this may weaken the argument for the Th cycle.

Das Recht der Energiewende als Transformationskonzept: Beschleunigung um jeden Preis oder alles nur eine Frage der Zeit?

The German Federal Administration has committed itself to rather challenging goals with respect to the Energy Reform (�Energiewende�). These goals stretch until the year 2050, or to more than eight further parliamentary terms. In the year 2050, energy supply is supposed to be practically free from greenhouse gas emissions. In light of the the nuclear power phase-out, the imminent end of fossil fuel, and the risks involved through climate change, Germany�s energy law emphasizes constant and repeated reform. Constitutional law requires lawmakers and public authorities to take into account that legal positions acquired under a certain regime may entitle to defy applicable but infringing changes. However, the German Federal Constitutional Court has yet to rule on a case in which it gives priority to the demands of those who have to face losses to their earlier entitlements in the course of reform. The judges seem to place considerable value on the needs for flexibility. One of the crucial elements of Germany�s Energy Reform is the Renewable Energy Act (Gesetz uber den Vorrang erneuerbarer Energien, EEG). In the paper, it serves as a paradigm example of the need of constant reform, as it has been amended 18 times since 2000. In August 2014, the current EEG came into force, once again bringing about major changes to the system. It serves different and partially conflicting purposes, such as security of power supply and cost efficiency. In order to achieve these goals, the act comprises state aid for a mix of technologies including wind energy, both on-shore and off-shore, photovoltaics, biomass, and others. The act relies on a legally binding promise to compensate operators of such installations by a specified feed-in tariff for the duration of 20 years. Currently, there are more than 5000 different tariffs to observe, particularly depending on the year of the installation of the facility, the technology used and its power generation capacity. In sum, the Renewable Energy Act has become a rather complex centerpiece of the efforts to reach ambitious targets as to the percentage of renewable energy in the field of electricity generation.

Energy market impacts of nuclear power phase-out policies

Since the Fukushima disaster in Japan in March 2011, safety concerns have escalated and policies toward nuclear power are being reconsidered in several countries. This article presents a study of the upward pressure on regional electricity prices from nuclear power phase out in four scenarios with various levels of ambition to scale down the nuclear power industry. We use a global general equilibrium model to calculate regional electricity prices that are matching demand with the constrained power supply after the nuclear power phase out. Nuclear power exit in Germany and Switzerland might increase electricity prices in Europe moderately by 2–3 % early on to 4–5 % by 2035 if transmission capacity within the region is sufficient. In a gradual and comprehensive phase out of plants built before 2011, North America, Europe, and Japan face an upward pressure on electricity prices in the range of 23–28 % towards 2035, representing the incentives for further investments in any kind of electricity.