Nuclear power - Is an opt-out possible?

Not only diminished societal acceptance, but also economic reasons currently advocate opting out of the generation of nuclear power. Prices of substitute energies, such as oil, natural gas, and imported hard coal, have dropped considerably over the past few years. In addition, technical progress has been achieved mainly in gas-fired power plants. Power utilities nowadays would not build nuclear power plants, but decide to invest into modem combined cycle plants fired by natural gas. The capital costs of building new combined cycle plants (DM 1000/kW) are clearly below those of nuclear power plants (DM 1000/kW). Analyses of three opt-out scenarios show that the least harmful way would be to seek a soft landing by phasing out nuclear power in a natural way in Germany without exerting any political pressure. This would meet the four targets of energy policy: There would be no price increases and no destruction of capital: the continuity of pou er supply would not be jeopardized; natural resources would be conserved, and environmental goals would be achievable. Instant opt-out within five years, on the other hand, is incompatible with the objectives of energy policy. The brevity of the period available for opting out would result in extra cost to the national economy of approx. DM 88 billion (over the period under review until 2030); the continuity of energy supply would be difficult to uphold on the short term, and resource conservation would be out of the question. In case of an immediate opt-our, the policy of achieving certain environmental goals would be faced with a dilemma: Either this opt-out causes an immense loss of reputation of Germany because of the country's inability to keep its international promise to reduce CO2 emissions by 25 per cent by 2005. Or the attempt to opt out at short notice and, at the same time, meet the CO2 targets gives rise to considerable extra cost of CO2 reduction. This would require interventions into the consumption areas of transport, household, and industry. An orderly opt-out procedure would be more easily managed in the light of the environmental objective. The costs of this scenario (capital costs and costs of avoiding increased CO2 emissions), which amount to slightly less than 1 Pf/kWh, thus roughly corresponding to the former "coal penny," seem to be tolerable by comparison, all the more so since the deregulation of energy markets in Europe will open up a margin for price cuts by at Least 20 to 30 per cent on a medium term. Moreover, it is by no means impossible that nuclear power, in the longer term, will experience a renaissance also in Germany, not least because of the greenhouse effect.