A recent article by Sovacool shows a better correlation between use of renewables and low emissions per capita than between use of nuclear and low emissions. As a result, everyone is yelling. Here is some light in the storm. Thread.
First, the article without the paywall, thanks @martiskainen : rdcu.be/b76hW
Sovacool published and retracted a similar paper a few years ago and is against nuclear power (thanks @OskaArcher) : thompson.energy/2016/11/28/res…
Now what bothers me is that this new paper seems really interesting to me after a quick read, but everyone is misinterpreting the results! So here are some clarifications...
No, the paper does not show that renewables emit less GHG than nuclear power. LCA tends to show that emissions per kwh are on the same scale, or slightly lower for nuclear than for wind or solar.
No, the paper does not show that adopting a renewable strategy in your country will lead to lower emissions than adopting a nuclear strategy. Right now in Europe the grid cannot support a large share of diffuse, non-adaptable sources like wind/solar.
What the paper shows is that, as a whole, countries using renewables have lower emissions per capita in the last 30y than countries using nuclear, corrected for gdp. This raises several important questions.
1) Are there side effects of adopting either technology that explain the difference? (E.g. more heavy industry in nuclear countries) It's possible that a nuclear plant on its own shows low emissions while the broad adoption of a nuclear strategy leads to higher emissions overall.
2) Could the difference be explained by the starting year? Sovacool starts his analysis in 1990 but the nuclear transition in e.g France started in the late seventies.
3) Is there indeed a crowding out effect? The paper suggests that in some but not all cases, the adoption of one strategy might have excluded the other. Can we have nuclear AND renewable, and if not, why can't we? (No causal link in the paper)
We desperately need a rational discussion about this. The issue is extremely polarized. No time for biased reporting and insults! I hope this will result in fruitful discussions. #Sovacool #renewable #nuclear #energy #transition /thread over
Let me clarify that I'm not taking sides and I think the paper raises interesting questions. My hope is to avoid miscommunication. Some pro nuclear or pro renewable actors sadly default to blindly praising their solution and insulting the other side. We need a pragmatic debate!
For the sake of providing a complete picture: the author wrote a blog post discussion the retraction of the previous paper, issues of polarization and advocacy in energy discussions. Thanks again to @martiskainen for providing context. socialsciences.nature.com/posts/the-sust…
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