The Road to EU Climate Neutrality by 2050 – bad news for wind/solar

 Here is a link to a 456 page peer-reviewed publication for ECR Group and Renew Europe, European Parliament, Brussels, Belgium.

The Executive Summary follows.

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The EU is committed to achieving climate neutrality (i.e. net zero greenhouse gas emissions) by 2050. Electrification of the energy system is a key component of this strategy. This implies that the electricity (or power) system must be completely ‘decarbonized’ over the next three decades.

This study analyses and compares two climateneutral power-generating technologies that can result in decarbonization of the electricity system6 -- wind/ solar and nuclear. We assess the amount of space necessary for each technology to deliver the power required, and the costs of the power thus generated. This analysis has been done for two EU member states: The Netherlands, a country along the North Sea with abundant wind, and the Czech Republic, a landlocked country with no access to sea and less wind. This study also assesses the effectiveness of EU climate neutrality.

Space demand

We found that amount of space required to provide annually 3000 PJ of power in The Netherlands by wind and solar power7 in 2050 would range from 24,538 to 68,482 km2. To put this in perspective:

* 24,538 km2 is roughly the size of the five largest provinces of The Netherlands combined (Friesland, Gelderland, Noord-Brabant, Noord-Holland, and Overijssel); and

• 68,482 km2 corresponds to about 1.8 times the entire land territory of The Netherlands.

To generate the same amount of energy, nuclear power would require, on average, no more than 120 km2, which is less than half the size of the city of Rotterdam. Thus, due to their low power density, wind energy requires at least 266 (offshore) to 534 (onshore) times more land and space than nuclear to generate an equal amount of electricity; for solar on land, at least 148 times more land is required (disregarding, in all cases, the additional land required for the necessary network expansion and energy storage or conversion solutions).

For the Czech Republic, the amount of space required to generate 1,800 PJ by wind and solar8 would range from 14,630 km2 to 43,758 km2. To put that into perspective, that covers 19 % and 55 % of the Czech Republic’s available land. Achieving the same level of electricity output with nuclear power would require no more than 269km2.

Costs

The cost of nuclear is generally lower than the cost of wind/solar, in most scenarios by a significant margin. In the best-case scenario for wind/solar, the cost of nuclear is still slightly lower. In the worst-case scenario for wind/solar, nuclear cost only one fourth as much as wind/solar, i.e. wind/solar cost four times as much. For an average Czech household,9 this means an annual electricity bill of that is at least €50 more expensive for wind/solar compared to nuclear; for the Dutch,10 it implies an annual electricity bill that is at least €165 more expensive for wind/solar compared to nuclear. In reality, the cost of wind/solar is even higher because these technologies require other expenses to bring the power where it is needed and to maintain the integrity of the electricity system (so-called integration- and system-related costs).

Based on ETM modelling for The Netherlands, we found additional integration cost for wind/solar at levels of up to 18 %, further deteriorating the economic case for wind/solar.

Effectiveness of EU Climate Neutrality

EU 2050 climate neutrality, if achieved, will likely cause only a very small decrease in the global average atmospheric temperature increase. Relative to current policies, 2050 EU carbon neutrality will add no more than between 0.02 and 0.06 °C average temperature reduction in 2050 and between 0.05 and 0.15 °C in 2100, if no carbon leakage occurs, which the EU cannot prevent. For the EU to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050, it must begin now deploying renewable energy at a rate at least 4 – 7 times higher than the average rate over the last 12 years. Even if the EU can do so over three decades, there still is a very high likelihood that other countries will not limit their emissions, thus frustrating the EU’s efforts.

To exclude this unfortunate outcome, the EU would have to curb also carbon emissions from outside EU territory. A relatively certain way for the EU to prevent carbon dioxide emissions in the rest of the world would be acquiring the current estimated reserves of fossil fuels.11 Such a purchasing program would impose a minimum cost of €560,000.00 per household, or a total expense of €109,200,000,000,000, which is approximately 7 times the entire EU’s annual GDP and thus would be prohibitively expensive. This number not only gives us an idea of the economic value of fossil fuels, but also shows that a sure way to prevent the EU’s climate neutrality efforts from being futile, is unrealistic. Put differently, the enormous cost of buying up all fossil fuels casts doubt over the practicality of EU climate neutrality policy

No regrets’ solutions

The ineffectiveness of the EU climate neutrality program gives policy makers a good reason to consider space- and cost-effective ‘no regrets’ solutions, such as nuclear power. Nuclear power can also play a role in the evolving hydrogen technology, which is another part of the EU’s climate neutrality strategy. At the same time, an unambiguous choice for the nuclear power option would meet the EU policy objectives of energy security, affordability, and social acceptability. 12 EU energy policy-making, however, should also consider impacts of various power generation technologies on other EU policies and interests, such as environmental and health policies. In many areas, nuclear energy would appear to perform well relative to renewable energy.

Policy Recommendations

Thus, to realize its climate neutrality ambition, the EU needs to end the unjustified discrimination of power generation technologies and create a technologyneutral13 level playing field for decarbonized power generation technologies. To this end, the EU can adopt a ‘Nuclear Renaissance’ program that places nuclear energy on equal footing with renewable energy. The study report provides 12 policy recommendations for such a program.