Less nuclear energy, higher emissions?
The International Energy Agency has warned that the world is facing higher energy costs, higher C02 emissions and greater supply uncertainty if it stops the nuclear power. Nobuo Tanaka, executive director, has been interviewed by The Guardian and has confirmed that reducing the use of nuclear energy will cost more, will be less sustainable and less secure. A bleak prediction if we take into account the current governments of Germany and Japan that are demanding more independence on the nuclear power and have decided to cut nuclear power after strong public pressure generated after Fukushima crisis. The issue has attracted great political importance in Europe and the most recent example is Italy, where citizens have voted with an overwhelmingly majority the fact of coming back to nuclear energy.
However, according to Laszlo Varro, head of IEA’s gas, coal and power division, Germany will be able to achieve the goal of cutting nuclear power since the economy is rich and sophisticated but the cost in infrastructure will be greater and more challenging.
But is it the cost the only that we should be worried about? Does not nuclear energy produce higher emissions in the atmosphere if we compare to the solar and wind renewable energies? It is not even sure that renewable power will cost more but what it is true is that is less risky to extract and less harming to the environment if we compare it to the oil. As Charlie Kronick, senior adviser at Greenpeace has said in the interview to The Guardian: “Energy is going to get more expensive irrespective of what happens in the world of nuclear power because companies like BP, Shell and Exxon are moving into more deepwater drilling, the Canadian tar sands, and now the Arctic. Oil in these places is inevitably more expensive as well as riskier to extract.”
