BASE statement on the role of nuclear power in the current discussion on the EU taxonomy

Source: pa/dpa | Arne Immanuel Bänsch

On December 31, 2021, the EU Commission presented a proposal for the classification of nuclear power under the EU Taxonomy Regulation. According to this proposal, both the construction of new nuclear power plants licensed for operation until 2045 as well as the lifetime extension of old power plants are classified as sustainable economic activities.

Research and development projects concerning so-called advanced technologies related to the use of nuclear energy are also to be included in the taxonomy regulation. The proposal defines the following preconditions: the compliance with international safety regulations, the establishment of a financing fund for waste disposal and the development of plans for the operation of a final repository for high-level radioactive waste from 2050 onwards.

The Commission proposal is mainly based on a report by the EU's Joint Research Centre (JRC) of March 2021, which BASE had analysed in detail and assessed in a technical opinion published in June 2021.

BASE’s overall conclusion was that the JRC report’s presentation of the impacts of nuclear energy use was incomplete, methodologically inadequate and highly simplistic. The EU Commission's proposal of 31 December, 2021, perpetuates these shortcomings.

“From a technical point of view, the classification of nuclear power as a sustainable form of energy production is untenable," explains BASE President Wolfram König. "Nuclear power is a high-risk technology, generates waste and poses the risk of misuse of radioactive material for terrorist and military purposes. We are thus imposing a considerable burden on future generations, and this is not in line with the claim to intergenerational justice, either.”

From a technical point of view, the EU Commission’s current draft mainly suffers from the following shortcomings:

• The use of nuclear energy involves potentially high risks in operation: the current safety regulations are intended to prevent serious accidents as far as possible and to limit their effects, but they can never be ruled out. Severe accidents in the operation of nuclear power plants can have significant cross-border environmental impacts, especially following an uncontrolled release of radioactive substances. The consequences can be immediate, extensive danger to life and health within the European Union, and have far-reaching economic and psycho-social effects. The realisation of the so-called "residual risk" of nuclear power use has been empirically proven several times over the past decades.

• Lifetime extensions for existing nuclear power plants, which were often designed for 30 to 40 years of operation, make retrofitting necessary. Yet, retrofitting is only possible to a limited degree because of the structural conditions. Questions must also be raised about the ageing process and the brittleness of materials and therefore the long-term behaviour of nuclear power plants beyond the original design period.

• In many countries of the European Union, operator liability is severely limited. In the case of severe accidents with significant radioactivity release, the liability amounts will not be sufficient, thus violating the ‘polluter pays’ principle.

• Why the so-called "advanced technologies" should be included in the taxonomy remains incomprehensible: A number of these internationally discussed reactor types are based on principles that have been known for decades, but that never prevailed for safety and/or commercial reasons. Others are concept studies that have never been tested at industrial scale, thus making a final safety assessment impossible. Moreover, BASE is not aware of a single concept proposal for new reactor types that would make a deep geological repository superfluous. On the contrary, the waste from some new reactor types would even create new problems for disposal.

• Nuclear supply: By recognising power plant operation as sustainable, the Commission is also indirectly promoting the mining of uranium - a finite raw material the extraction of which is associated with considerable environmental risks.

• Nuclear waste disposal: 70 years after the introduction of the technology, the issue of high-level radioactive waste disposal remains unresolved worldwide: deep geological repositories that have to guarantee safe containment of radiotoxic waste for hundreds of thousands of years must be built, operated and sealed. In recent years, a few countries have specified their plans for the first final repositories. However, there is no empirical operating experience for these repositories as yet. Even if the first final repositories for high-level radioactive waste were to be commissioned, the site- and concept-specific characteristics are very complex, making it difficult to draw conclusions about the safety of other national repository projects from the first projects.

• Technologically speaking, the civil use of nuclear energy cannot be completely decoupled from military use - i.e. the construction of nuclear weapons. The complex international security regime to prevent nuclear proliferation has shown to fail in the past. The risk of misuse - both for military and terrorist purposes - can increase significantly, especially with the promotion of so-called "advanced technologies".