LONDON — The IEA’s Net Zero by 2050 report, released Tuesday, concludes that nuclear energy will make a “significant contribution” to their Net Zero Emissions scenario, and will provide an “essential foundation” in the transition to a net-zero energy system.

However, the IEA’s Net Zero Emissions scenario puts too much faith in technologies that are uncertain, untested, or unreliable and fails to reflect both the size and scope of the contribution nuclear technologies could make.

If we are to eliminate fossil fuels in less than 30 years, the IEA’s assessment of the role of nuclear is highly impractical.

The IEA’s Net Zero by 2050 report concludes that nuclear energy will make “a significant contribution” in the Net Zero Emission (NZE) scenario and will “provide an essential foundation for transitions” to a net-zero emissions energy system.

The report also notes that failure to take timely decisions on nuclear power would “raise the costs of a net-zero emissions pathway and add to the risk of not meeting the goal.”

Sama Bilbao y León, director general, World Nuclear Association, commented, “The IEA makes it clear that nuclear energy will be an essential component of a global net-zero emissions energy transition. Governments must now take action to ensure that nuclear energy can play a major role in the clean energy transition to which so many of them have now committed.”

According to the IEA’s net-zero emissions (NZE) scenario, the amount of energy supplied by nuclear power will increase by 40% by 2030 and double by 2050. New nuclear capacity additions will reach 30 GW per year in the early 2030s.

An important component of nuclear generation, particularly in the shorter term, will be extended operations of existing nuclear reactors, as according to the IEA “they are one of the most cost-effective sources of low-carbon electricity.”

The report also recognizes the importance of nuclear innovation with small modular reactors and other advanced reactor designs “moving towards full-scale demonstration, with scalable designs, lower upfront costs and the potential to improve the flexibility of nuclear power in terms of both operations and outputs, e.g. electricity, heat or hydrogen.”

Unfortunately, despite this acknowledgement, the NZE scenario’s projection for nuclear growth would see the share of nuclear energy in the global electricity mix falling from 10.5% to 8%. Given that more than 60% of the world’s electricity is currently generated by fossil fuels, if we are to eliminate them in less than 30 years, the IEA’s assessment of the role of nuclear is highly impractical.

Nuclear energy is today the world’s second largest source of clean electricity, the first in developed countries, one with a proven track record in decarbonizing generation mixes. Nuclear energy can contribute much more than what is projected in the IEA report.

Given the uncertainties of the availability and cost-effectiveness of other low carbon technologies, especially those as yet unproven, and the improbability that very different human behavioral patterns can be introduced, there should be far greater ambition in the IEA report for the contribution that nuclear energy should make to meet global net-zero goals.

The global nuclear industry has a Harmony goal by which nuclear energy would provide at least 25% of the world’s electricity by 2050. To achieve this goal would require the deployment of around 1000 gigawatts of new nuclear build and construction levels no higher than those already achieved by the nuclear industry in the 1980s.

The goal would also require the maximization of the contribution from reactors in operation today.

In addition to electricity, nuclear energy can generate zero-carbon heat, thus have the potential to contribute to tackling decarbonization far beyond electricity generation into other hard to abate sectors.

This is an opportunity that the IEA’s report barely touches on. Existing reactors are already being used to provide steam for district heating systems and to produce fresh water.

New reactor designs under development and deployment could provide heat and feedstocks for industry (chemicals, steel, concrete, cement), fuels for heavy transport (shipping, aviation) or generate hydrogen directly.

By failing to consider with adequate ambition the contribution that nuclear energy could make, the ability to deliver on the IEA’s Net Zero scenario has a much higher risk of failure.

The scenario relies on other low carbon generation, particularly wind and solar, to a much higher degree.

While the base cost of wind and solar has decreased substantially in recent years, the share of generation projected for these intermittent technologies would require back-up generation or energy storage, and overall grid management on a scale far greater than has been demonstrated, either in terms of cost, reliability or practicality.

In addition, an expansion of wind, solar and batteries could place an enormous strain on the supply of minerals that they need.

The IEA itself only recently released a report highlighting that a mismatch between the world's climate ambitions and the availability of critical minerals could mean a slower and more expensive energy transition.

In contrast, the IEA identified that nuclear is one of the low-carbon technologies with the lowest mineral intensity and smallest land footprint.

The IEA’s NZE scenario also requires a significant contribution from human behavioral change, with people more restricted in what they eat or how they travel, for example.

This constraint is in part due to the relatively low global energy demand assumed in the IEA net-zero scenario, with global final energy consumption significantly lower than the average in the IPCC 1.5°C Report’s scenarios.

It is far from clear that this level of behavioral change can be achieved, particularly because so many hundreds of millions of people do not at present have access to a modern energy service.

Provision of affordable and clean energy for all is a key UN Sustainable Development Goal that should be met. A more ambitious goal for nuclear energy than that set in the IEA report will help meet both the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and global climate goals.

We applaud the IEA's efforts to bring forward a road map to achieving net zero in the energy sector by 2050. It is essential that we meet this objective.

But by depending so much on such a massive expansion of intermittent wind and solar, and consequently relying so heavily on as yet unproven at scale modern bioenergy, battery storage and hydrogen to cover for this intermittency, the IEA’s NZE scenario carries with it a high degree of unnecessary risk.

The report acknowledges that less nuclear generation than projected would raise the costs of a net-zero emissions pathway and add to the risk of not meeting the goal. It therefore seems evident that increasing the amount of nuclear generation would result in reduced costs and further reduce the risk.

Bilbao y León concluded, “The IEA’s Net Zero Emissions report sets a target that we must achieve. However, their scenario puts too much faith in solutions that are uncertain, untested, or unreliable.

“Proven nuclear energy technologies have demonstrated their ability to take a much larger role in electricity decarbonization in many countries around the world and have the potential to lead decarbonization in many other energy sectors.

“We urge the IEA to explore in more detail the potential for nuclear energy to make a much greater contribution towards global decarbonization, and to help governments assess what steps they need to take to unlock the contribution of nuclear energy for a net-zero future.” — SG