OPINION | JEREMY GORDON
Jeremy Gordon is an independent communication consultant with 18 years of experience in the international energy industry. His company Fluent in Energy supports partners of all kinds to communicate matters of clean energy and sustainable development.
face of nuclear The human
Germany’s recognition that nuclear has a role to play in a clean and secure energy mix is a startling turnaround from one of the world’s most implacable opponents to nuclear power. Now is the time to take that victory and run, by showing the true face of nuclear
THE UNIT: Illustration copyright Alexy Kovynev
“So, do we need nuclear power plants or not?” “I suggest waiting for winter to answer this question.”
or more than 20 years they told us that our knowledge, abilities and labour were not wanted, not needed, and were not part of the future. In fact, they said our occupation is morally wrong, that they wished we didn’t exist and had never existed. All that came to an end when the German government
admitted that it needs its last remaining nuclear power plants. A new social contract for nuclear energy is about to be written and industry needs to get involved.
14 | September 2022 |
www.neimagazine.com
It is no wonder that the nuclear industry quietly despised Germany’s phase-out policy and its most enthusiastic cheerleaders, but it doesn’t give me any pleasure to write that the glossy bubble of a renewables- only future has burst. While wind and solar are brilliant ways to use less fossil fuel, as variable sources they can never replace it (or nuclear) completely – at least not without an as-yet non-existent ecosystem of batteries, hydrogen and demand-side response. In practice, fossil fuels capitalised on the shift towards renewables to embed themselves as essential back-up capacity, often replacing nuclear plants that have been pushed out markets that were designed for the benefit of renewable developers. In Germany’s case, one question we asked was always, “What if Putin’s Russia turns off the gas?” but we had that the wrong way around. The problem actually arose in February when Germany itself went to turn off the gas in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine but found it couldn’t afford to. Now, at the time of writing, Putin has indeed reduced gas flows significantly and all of Europe is bracing itself for a real shut off this winter. In this deadly, economy-killing scenario, simply allowing
its last three nuclear power reactors to keep operating was always the option with the highest yield for the lowest cost available to Germany. Sure, nuclear only offsets a few percent of gas consumption within Germany, but every bit counts in a war effort with energy security impacts across all of its borders. Even if Germany might not have a market need for the additional electricity, its neighbours would happily import it.
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