Mariliis Lehtveer

Nuclear power as a climate mitigation strategy - technology and proliferation risk

Recent years have witnessed renewed interest in nuclear power in large extent due to the need to reduce carbon emissions to mitigate climate change. Most studies of cost and feasibility of stringent climate targets that include nuclear power focus on the currently available light water reactor (LWR) technology. Since climate mitigation requires a long-term commitment, the inclusion of other nuclear technologies such as mixed oxide-fuelled LWRs and fast breeder reactors may better describe the future energy supply options. These different options also entail different nuclear weapon proliferation risks stemming from uranium enrichment or reprocessing of spent fuel. To investigate this relation, we perform a scenario analysis using the global energy transition model. Our results indicate that meeting a scenario with a 430 ppm CO2 target for 2100 is feasible without the involvement of nuclear power; however the mitigation costs increase by around 20%. Furthermore, a lasting contribution by nuclear power to climate change mitigation can only be achieved by alternative fissile material production methods and global diffusion of nuclear technologies. This in turn bears important implications for the risk of nuclear proliferation for several reasons. First, knowledge and competence in nuclear technology becomes more accessible, leading to the risk of nuclear programmes emerging in states with weaker institutional capacity. Additionally, even if the reprocessing step in a fast breeder cycle proves to be essentially proliferation resistant, the build-up of breeder reactor systems necessitates a long transition period with large-scale use of enrichment technology and its related proliferation risks. Our study does not include the costs posed on society by nuclear accident risk and by the need to upscale safeguards and regulatory capacity to deal with increased proliferation risk.

Overview of the Electricity Market of Estonia and the Plausibility of Nuclear Energy Production

The Republic of Estonia is a small country in Northern Europe, with electrical energy production dependent mostly on oil shale. The local supply of oil shale has given Estonia its energetic independence but it also presents great challenges: it is waste-intensive and causes massive emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It also causes damage to the landscape and to the health of the population living near the mining and energy producing area. Due to the above mentioned problems the use of nuclear power has been taken into consideration, but the debate is at its beginning and the need for further analyses is great.