4 May (NucNet): Lower fossil fuel prices and slower economic growth in Southeast Asia will lead to a decline in global growth of nuclear and renewable energy sources, a report by energy company BP says.
BP’s Energy Outlook 2035 report, presented at a conference in Beijing, tests the assumption that the economies of China and India grow at an average of four percent a year until 2035, compared to 5.5 percent in base-case projections, leading to a reduction in energy demand and decreased growth for nuclear and renewables.
The result of the assumption is a six percent reduction in global demand for nuclear compared to the base-case, and an 11 percent reduction in global demand for renewables.
The base-case scenario says the global share of nuclear energy in power generation is expected to shrink, despite estimated growth for nuclear of 1.8 percent per annum until 2035. The report says nuclear’s share of global power generation will be around 10 percent in 2035, down by about eight percent from 1990.
Nuclear energy has “struggled” to keep up with the growth of global power generation and its share will continue to decline, especially in Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, the report says.
But the report notes that global nuclear growth – even though less than expected – will be led by China with an estimated rate of 11 percent per annum. This is an ambitious target, roughly equivalent to completing a new one-gigawatt reactor every three months for the next 20 years, the report says.
Among non-fossil fuel sources, renewable energy technologies are set to rise to eight percent of global power generation in 2035, overtaking nuclear energy in the early 2020s in terms of their share of global electricity production.
In Europe and North America, nuclear capacity will decline as ageing nuclear stations are decommissioned and any nuclear growth will be limited due to “difficult economics and politics”.
The report assumes that Japan will begin to restart its reactors in 2015, but the share of nuclear is not expected to recover to the levels it was at before the March 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi accident.
The report says global emissions of carbon dioxide are likely to grow by 25 percent by 2035 and one way of helping to limit this growth is to increase the share of nuclear energy by six percent of global power generation, from around 12 percent today to around 18 percent in 2035.
There are a number of options available for dealing with carbon emissions, which “are rising too fast for comfort”. The report says nuclear could be increased by six percent and renewables by 11 percent, with improved vehicle efficiency and improved efficiency of electricity production also playing a part.
The report is online: http://on.bp.com/1vSLQUQ
