We have been reluctant so far to add our comment to the huge amount of early analysis about the implications of the Fukushima Daichi nuclear facility explosions in Japan that one can read on the media and social networks. It is still quite early, and the first thing to say at this point is that out thoughts are mainly with the thousands of people affected by the unspeakable tragedy caused by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, who have lost loved ones, been injured, been displaced or lost their homes.
Also, even though many of our supporting organisations oppose nuclear power, the debate pro and against nuclear power is not the main one we are dealing with on this blog and not our area of expertise. However, our concerns are now out in the open: this excellent article (which is actually more detailed and extensive than this blog entry) published today on Euractiv uses calculations made by our campaign expert Edouard Toulouse of ECOS about the number of nuclear power stations that could be not built if we implemented strong energy conservation policy.
While we do not wish to engage in the details about nuclear power safety, what we can say for sure is that a lot of the debate and reactions in the media and social networks so far appear to have neglected the need for massive investment in additional energy conservation measures if we are to avoid having to build lots of new nuclear power stations in the future. Yes, we need more renewable energy, as many have said, and it’s good to hear that renewable energy investment and stocks are going up now.
However, it’s also true that renewables can’t do the job alone. But it's not necessarily more nuclear power they need to "help", it's a massive increase in the ambition of our energy conservation efforts.
The answer to those who worry about the impact of this crisis on the future energy mix – and the perceived lack of solutions to satisfy the world’s growing demand for energy – is that we need much, much more effort to conserve energy, which is not only cost effective, and more often than not even profitable, but also generally risk–free.
Now, this means putting in place a variety of different policies, including much more ambitious standards and plans for housing and industry sectors, where the potential is huge. Then, setting minimum energy efficiency and ecological requirements for products we use is also an extremely important part of the picture. And this is where the Ecodesign policy comes in. It covers a market of almost 500 million people – in the EU alone – so it can really have a massive impact, provided it is taken far more seriously by politicians than is currently the case.
For instance, as we’ve said before, through ambitious requirements for water heaters and boilers the EU could cut CO2 emissions drastically and slash bills by around €44 billion a year.
But even more to the point, let’s look at more interesting facts and figures.
According to information available to us, the Fukushima power plant has 6 nuclear reactors. In total, a power capacity of 4,700 MW (and 2 more reactors were planned on the site to start activity in 2012). The average power of these reactors is 780 MW each. These are quite old reactors and less powerful than the most recent ones (which can be up to 1,600 MW). A reactor of 780 MW produces yearly 5.5 TWh of electricity (in ideal conditions). The whole Fukushima plant produces about 33 TWh per year.
So, according to calculations by Edouard Toulouse of ECOS:
In 2009 alone, the Ecodesign policy measures that were approved are leading (over time, and by 2020) to electricity savings of 340 TWh of electricity, which is the equivalent of 10 Fukushima–type plants (62 nuclear reactors), or about half that figure if you consider the most recent designs for nuclear reactors. If we were to manage to implement all the energy efficiency requirements that are currently underway for 2011/2012, we could secure energy savings equivalent to another 9 of the most modern nuclear power plants, or be able to retire around 16 nuclear plants (98 nuclear reactors) of the same type and size of Fukushima.
Of course we are not saying that this is an immediate solution to the nuclear radioactivity problems faced by Japan right now. But energy conservation can actually be implemented quite rapidly, so we hope to be providing hope that it’s really not all about nuclear vs renewables for the future energy mix in Europe and globally. There is an important solution called energy conservation that has huge potential and should really not be overlooked in this debate.