Thread by @simonwakter

@ClaudeTurmes at the seminar "Nuclear Energy and the EU Sustainable Finance Taxonomy" says that the EU JRC nuclear report is biased, unscientific and complains over lack of transparency, calling the EU JRC a "pro-nuclear, industry organisation".

In my opinion these are completely ludicrous accusations. If @ClaudeTurmes hade any actual insights on the facts presented by the JRC then he should have presented those instead.

Next is Ben Wealer, who is presented as a "nuclear expert and expert in nuclear power and decommissioning".

The fact that Wealer is a research associate in economics who has never worked on any nuclear project is not mentioned.

Wealer presents an overview of nuclear power and then goes on to say he hasn't read the JRC report.

Of course that does not stop him from having plenty of opinions about it.

Wealer's chief complaint is that the JRC talks about breeding reactors.

He completely forgoes to mention that the JRC report also clearly states facts about deep repositories, stating "there is broad scientific consensus" that it is safe and appropriate.

Wealer concludes by stating that "nuclear could not and should not" be included in the taxonomy.

In doing so he confuses the descriptive and normative roles of science and any researcher.

Next up is Wendel Trio of Climate Action Network Europe.

Wendel states that meeting the climate ambitions of 1.5 and 2 degrees will be extremely challenging.

But he also says that it is possible while phasing out nuclear energy (27% of European electricity).

Wendel Trio says that "nuclear and renewables can not really co-exist" based on input of a 100% renewable researchers network and a study from the University of Sussex.

(The study by the University of Sussex has met broad opposition and is basically a re-do of a similar study which was released and retracted a few years ago.

I would not be surprised if the new study is also retracted.)

Trio says there are two reasons why nuclear is not an option:

1. The climate emergency. Nuclear costs too much and takes too long.

2. Nuclear has many times higher emissions, more than 9 times higher emissions. "The idea that nuclear energy is carbon neutral is non-existant"

Trio sums up:

"Nuclear is not carbon neutral, it is in fact a carbon emitter. It is too slow and too expensive".

He cites number from M.Z. Jacobson and other infamous scientists that nuclear emits ~100 gCO2/kWh.

These numbers are of course completely nonsense, as established by the IPCC (nuclear emits around 12 gCO2/kWh).

Trio also doesn't adress how phasing out nuclear will help if the climate is such an emergency.

Trio finished by saying that nuclear also brings additional risks which are unacceptable and also "countries use nuclear power to produce nuclear weapons" and mining of uranium is unacceptable.

The fact that "Nearly every solar power panel sold in the European Union has its origins in China’s oppressed Xinjiang region." does not seem to bother Trio.

politico.eu/article/xinjia…

Trio states a lot of nonsense numbers, e.g. "10% of uranium miners" dies of lung cancer.

According to Trio this is "60 times higher than from smoking".

All of this is of course also nonsense, as indicated by this fact:

"*Two-thirds* of those people who were still smokers when they died, died because of their smoking."

https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser/status/1362024831735259138?s=20

Next up is Patricia Lorenz of Friends of the Earth Europe.

According to the moderator, Lorenz has earlier complained about "a biased and one-sided discussion on nuclear energy".

Lorenz makes her position clear from the start:

"I'm not an expert so I will not mention the facts again, but it is obvious that nuclear can not be sustainable"

Patricia Lorenz then has some connection problems with her presentation and to be honest I have no clue what she is on about.

Her reasoning is extremely difficult to follow, she is clicking around in what seems to be windows 2007 (maybe?)

Lorenz claims that the release of tritium in Japan proves that nuclear is incompatible with "Do no significant harm".

The fact that there is already many thousands of times more tritium in the oceans doesn't seem to bother her.

Questions now. Moderator is Patricia Heidegger from the European Environmental Bureau, EEB.

First question is about the waste.

As there are solutions to the waste, why is it considered a problem?

Claude Turmes gets to answer first.

CT says that as the EU has a goal of a circular economy, producing waste if fundamentally unsustainable.

Ben Wealer weighs in to say that there are no solutions for the waste.

Next question is about the risk.

@ClaudeTurmes answers again.

He explains that "in a free capitalist society" there is no company willing to insure nuclear risk.

@ClaudeTurmes explains (actually he is shouting now) that "there is insurance for everything!"

I don't think he has ever tried to insure a hydro dam. Actually, I don't think he has a single clue what he is talking about.

@ClaudeTurmes goes on to say that the liability for damages for nuclear power plants is extremely bad.

Yet again, Turmes does not have a single clue what he is talking about.

As he specifically mentioned Germany, lets have a look shall we?

world-nuclear.org/focus/fukushim…

Next question is about nuclear production and the climate challenge.

Wendel Trio replies that the problems with single projects such as Olkiluoto 3 shows that nuclear can not scale quickly.

I don't think Trio has heard of Markbygden, Europe's largest onshore wind farm (when it's finished).

The project started in 2006, got all permissions in 2011 and after several delays they expect it to be finished around 2026.

Trio also doesn't seem to know that nuclear is the fastest, scalable method for electricity production that we know of.

The pretty graph is from @GrantChalmers

More questions, some of the replies are completely unimaginable from official EU ministers like Claude Turmes:

https://twitter.com/simonwakter/status/1382337362261372932?s=20

In case anyone still isn't familiar with the energy minister of Luxembourg (which has the highest emissions in Europe and barely any energy production what so ever).

https://twitter.com/simonwakter/status/1377248776914677766?s=20

Now the moderator is asking about a quote from the report:

"The analyses did not reveal any science-based evidence that nuclear energy does more harm to human
health or to the environment than other electricity production technologies already included in the
Taxonomy..."

The question is:

Is the report conclusions final or can they be changed?

Lorenz says that she admires the spin but that the report is so faulty that the countries or the parliament need to say:

"thank you very much but this is wrong"

Now MEP @JuttaPaulusRLP has joined the Q&A session:

Jutta says that they plan to counter the report with a report of their own together with the Böhl-foundation.

"if we wrote a report of our own it wouldn't be trusted so we need to find a scientific institution"

The Heinrich Böhl foundation (Boell foundation) fund several anti-nuclear acitivities, such as WNISR, a report which poses as an industry report when in fact it is written by people with no nuclear expertise.

Here is a link:
boell.de/en

@JuttaPaulusRLP goes on to say "the parliament is not ready to change their mind on nuclear" and accuses the EU Joint Research Center report of being biased and of cherry-picking.

Claude Turmes demands that the authors of the report are made public and that Ursula von der Leyen is held personally responsible for the report.

He wants von der Leyen to say "This is nuclear and it is sustainable and safe..."

Both @ClaudeTurmes and @JuttaPaulusRLP are upset that there are no authors.

Claude states that his staff has checked and "all reports have authors, why are there no authors"?

@JuttaPaulusRLP states that "the report has not been released, there is no official link to the report and how do we even know that this report has been official"?

I guess Jutta hasn't seen this link?
ec.europa.eu/info/sites/inf…

Patricia Lorenz says that "there was no final audit of this report, which is frankly very upsetting and unfair".

Not sure why any politicians should be allowed to comment on the EU JRC scientific report.

Jutta is clearly upset and says that:

1. There are no authors. All JRC reports have authors (I'm not sure this is true, but I can see why this one doesn't).
2. The report hasn't been released (yes it has).

3. There is too much lobbying, and lobbying from gas and nuclear (not sure where gas comes).

I would be interested to see the magnitude of lobbying from EEB, Greenpeace and other "green organisations".

Claude Turmes has some final words.

He appeals to Ursula von der Leyen to withdraw the report, and says the report risks the whole credibility and authority of the European Union.

Surprise wrap up from @JakopDalunde to finish the seminar:

He says "renewables and energy efficiency are the only ones that don't need subsidies and says nuclear is incompatible with sustainability. The EU must go for 100% renewables"