Climate Energy Politics

Without phasing out nuclear power, Germany would have saved hundreds of billions of euros

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The original article can be read as “Schlumpfs graphic 127” in the online Nebelspalter of 7 October 2024.

What would have happened if Germany had invested in the continued operation of existing nuclear power plants and the construction of new reactors instead of in a massive expansion of wind and solar energy? What impact would this have had on the declared goal of climate neutrality by 2045 and on overall energy costs? This important – and so far unaddressed – question is the subject of a new study by the Norwegian scientist and industrial engineer Jan Emblemsvåg (see here) – Alex Reichmuth has already reported on it in the “Nebelspalter” (see here).

What is important:
– According to a Norwegian study, the German energy transition has cost around 700 billion euros over the last twenty years. This has led to a 25 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
– If Germany had continued to operate its nuclear power plants instead of implementing this energy transition, it would have saved 600 billion euros while maintaining a comparable carbon footprint.
– If it had also built new nuclear power plants, the country could already be virtually carbon neutral today – and would have saved over 300 billion euros in the process.

These are the results of Jan Emblemsvåg’s study “What if Germany had invested in nuclear power?”, which was published in 2024 in the renowned journal “International Journal of Sustainable Energy”. Jan Emblemsvåg is a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Ålesund. 

In his study, he first examines the costs and climate impacts of the German energy transition between 2002 and 2022, the period under review. As the following graph from the study shows, Germany has massively expanded its electricity capacity during this time:

Kapazitäten De2
Source: Energy Charts

The graphic shows how much capacity in gigawatts (GW) was installed in the German power system in each year and how this capacity is distributed among the various carriers. Overall, the total electrical capacity doubled from 116 to 233 GW between 2002 and 2022. The capacity of nuclear energy, at 25 GW (light yellow below), practically disappeared completely, while wind (dark green) and solar energy (dark yellow above) increased elevenfold from 13 GW to 143 GW. The fossil share of coal (light and dark gray) and gas (red) remained unchanged at around 75 GW.

With the expansion of renewables, the electricity yield decreases

Surprisingly, however, this massive expansion of capacity was offset by relatively constant net electricity generation in Germany: the figure for 2022 is even slightly below the figure for 2002. It is quite clear that a strong focus on weather-dependent energies has its weaknesses: the energy yield per installed unit of capacity drops sharply. This drives up costs.

The study breaks down the total costs of the German energy transition into two blocks: on the one hand, the direct costs paid by the power plant owners and, on the other hand, the indirect costs incurred by the state financed by taxes. The study puts the direct costs, which consist of capital and operating costs, at a total of 387 billion euros for the period from 2002 to 2022.

The energy transition has cost 696 billion euros

In addition, there are the indirect costs that were paid through taxes, fees and levies. To avoid double counting, taxes and fees are not included. What remains are the levies – in other words, subsidies. These consist of the difference between payments made by grid operators to wind and solar power producers and the exchange revenue from electricity sales. After weighing up various estimates of these subsidies, the study arrives at a total cost of €309 billion for this cost item. By the end of 2022, the German energy transition will therefore have cost a total of €696 billion.

Reducing greenhouse gases like Switzerland

Despite this expensive green energy transformation, Germany has only reduced its total greenhouse gas emissions by a little over 25 percent (see here): Switzerland has achieved exactly the same percentage reduction, even though it started from a level that was half as high per capita.

The study then uses this status quo as a starting point to analyze an initial nuclear alternative: how would the continued operation of the 19 nuclear reactors in operation in 2002 have affected costs and climate compatibility? In 2002, nuclear power accounted for 31 percent of Germany’s electricity supply.

Continued operation of nuclear power plants for only 91 billion

Based on cost estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA) for the extension of the operating life of nuclear power plants in Switzerland, Sweden, the USA and France, the author of the study concludes that an extension of the operating life of all German nuclear power plants until 2022 would have cost 91.3 billion euros. And because the share of nuclear power in 2002 was practically the same as the share of electricity from new renewable sources in 2022, the greenhouse gas balance of such a nuclear policy would have yielded a comparable result: the same climate impact with savings of around 600 billion euros!

But what if these savings had been invested in new nuclear power plants? The calculations for this second nuclear alternative examined in the study are inherently subject to many imponderables and uncertainties. Nevertheless, two scenarios are analyzed in the study. First, reactor types currently available in the West could have been purchased. Second, China’s nuclear expansion serves as a model. 

Theoretically climate-neutral even with the most expensive reactor

In scenario 1, either the European EPR-1600 or the Korean APR-1400 reactor would be considered. The next table shows how the study estimated what could have been done with the 600 billion euros:

Epr Oder Barakah
Source: Jan Emblemsvåg


The table shows, from top to bottom, the figures for the EPR Olkiluoto 3 in Finland and, below that, the figures for the APR in Barakah (United Arab Emirates). With a total cost of 11 billion for Olkiluoto 3, Germany could have bought 55 reactors with a budget of 600 billion (2nd column). This would have resulted in 694 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity generation (last column). With the APR-1400, which was built in Barakah for 8 billion, 88 reactors with an annual electricity production of 971 TWh could have been purchased. A mix of these two types (3rd row) would have generated 822 TWh of electricity annually. To this must be added the electricity from existing nuclear power plants, which amounts to 186 TWh per year. In total, Germany could have generated 1007 TWh of electricity per year in this scenario.

However, because Germany’s electricity consumption in 2022 was only 680 TWh, the country could have been climate-neutral in this way. This is especially true because only about 30 percent of the thermal output of nuclear power plants is converted into usable energy when electricity is produced – all the remaining heat energy could still be used for various other applications. 

Continued operation and expansion of nuclear power would have saved 300 billion

Of course, this is utopian. Above all because 55 EPR reactors could never have been built in Germany alone in the time frame considered. And yet the example shows that a targeted expansion of nuclear energy brings enormous advantages. This can currently be seen in China, where many new nuclear power plants are being built. That is why the author also explored a second scenario in the study, which assumes that the expansion of nuclear energy in Germany between 2002 and 2022 would have taken place at the same pace as in China. And with the financial resources that would have been freed up by not investing in wind and solar energy. 

The bottom line of all these calculations is the cost conclusion, which is illustrated in the next graphic:

Fig9
Source: Jan Emblemsvåg


Phasing out nuclear power: the biggest mistake

The chart shows with the blue bars – now with corresponding fluctuation margins – that the current energy transition in Germany has cost 696 billion euros. The green bars illustrate that savings of 605 billion euros would have been possible if the existing nuclear power plants had continued to operate. And the red bars indicate that savings of 332 billion euros would still have been possible if existing nuclear power plants had continued to operate and new ones had been built.

Conclusion: Germany’s decision to completely phase out one of the world’s best nuclear power systems is probably the stupidest and most consequential mistake our northern neighbors have made recently.

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