Electricity and Nuclear Energy | That is why the government says categorically no to building nuclear power in Norway

The alarm bell sounded again when last week Statnett presented a new report in which they looked at the amount of electricity Norway would need over the next 28 years.

Since the last time they calculated this, the need has been 30 TWh – 30,000,000,000 kWh – higher than previously assumed.

Maybe 40 TWh higher.

The last time they relied on this was only two years ago.

Just the increase In estimates from last time, somewhere between 11 and 15 new wind farms equal the size Vossen windNorway’s largest wind power plant.

In the report, Statnett warns that too little development of new energy production could cause electricity prices in Norway to be twice as high as they would otherwise be. This will, among other things, lead to higher prices for Norway compared to Denmark and Germany.

It is believed that Norway will become dependent on floating offshore winds

Statnett believes the potential is in hydroelectricity, solar cells, onshore wind and offshore wind Collected It will not suffice.

– We expect offshore wind to cover much of Norway’s growing energy demand from 2030 onwards, where contributions from solar, hydropower and onshore wind will not be sufficient. Because there is limited space for fixed offshore wind in Norway, really high growth in consumption will require floating offshore wind to be sufficiently competitive, they wrote in their report.

The challenge with floating offshore wind is that the technology barely exists. Today it is only in the trial stage.

– For floating offshore wind, there is still a lot of technological and manufacturing development before it is possible to bring costs down to a competitive level.

When the floating offshore wind development license out of Utsera is announced soon, there will be government subsidies. The amount of support depends on the need. The government didn’t want to say anything about how much money it would put on the table.

Certainly more expensive

According to an overview from NVE, floating offshore wind is today what will require the highest visible electricity price in order to be profitable. Estimates are NOK 1.45 per kWh (including VAT). It is several times higher than the historical average price in Norway.

In addition, there are network and energy balancing costs. This is an entirely unknown quantity, but Statnett understands that more renewable energy will require further development of other types of electricity.

The reason is simply that there must be electricity available for everything, whether for the consumption of the day, and new consumptioneven when it’s not sunny or windy.

Increasingly weather-dependent electricity production means that Statnett believes electricity prices will become more volatile. So does the government:

Electricity prices will vary more in the future, and the era of 30 øre per kWh over time is probably over, Energy Minister Terje Aasland said recently Tronder Avisa.

In comparison, the cost of nuclear power in the same overview of NVE is about 45 percent lower than that of floating offshore wind. It’s also short of solar and offshore wind, which Statnett assumes will be built in large numbers in the future.

Moreover, the base force is predictable and partially adjustable. Thus, there is no need for an expensive counterweight.

He does not mention nuclear power as a possibility

On the other hand, nuclear power is not mentioned as a potential word in Statnett’s report. This is despite the fact that the industry is in the process of revival all over the world. Among other things, Sweden will again invest more.

The combination of zero CO2 emissions and little interference with nature makes the technology increasingly attractive. bloomberg He recently wrote, among other things, that climate goals in 2050 are not possible without nuclear power.

Last week, among other things, the company acquired NuScale Approval of the first SMR reactor (small modular reactors) by the US energy authorities.

In Norway, among other things, an initiative called Norsk Kjernekraft is being built, headed by billionaire Trond Mohn.

We don’t want subsidies. But we do not need opposition. Otherwise, we wouldn’t ask for much, said Soneva Rose, a nuclear physicist and director of communications NRK. I repeated the same thing in Tuesday’s debate.

According to Nettavisen, nuclear power is not being assessed more carefully as a possibility by the Energy Commission, which will present its report next week. They have a position that you should follow the developments.

Statnett: – Don’t make specific plans

According to Statnett, they have not researched the possibilities of nuclear power, as they see it as unlikely to reach Norway.

– Statnett is not responsible for ensuring production or evaluating which power plants to build. At the same time, we have a clear responsibility to analyze needs and notify the need for more energy and more energy in the coming years, in order to meet the increase in consumption that we expect. Then it is also natural to think about what types of production are likely to come and where the need is greatest. We’ve recorded that there is discussion about nuclear power in Norway, but we haven’t seen that there are concrete plans to set up nuclear power production here yet, Statnett’s director of communications Martha Hagerup Nilsson tells Nettavisen.

At the same time, they think it will be expensive.

– Developing nuclear energy in Norway is likely to be much more expensive than similar development in countries that have nuclear energy today. This is because development in Norway must also include building a solid vocational environment in nuclear physics, as well as creating waste storage solutions – something the ‘nuclear power nations’ already have.

Therefore, the government clearly says no

Energy Minister Terje Asland (Ap) has been asked several times recently about the possibility of nuclear energy. In a written response to the Norwegian Parliament in early January Among other things, he noted that nuclear energy was dealt with in Norway in the 1970s.

– Building nuclear power did not gain support in Parliament during the debate, and nuclear power has not been considered since then as a real alternative in Norway’s energy supply, he wrote in his answer.

Before Nettavisen, Aasland reiterates that he has no connection with Norway, although he understands that the question is open:

– Our main focus in the future is the development of renewable energy, and nuclear energy does not seem relevant to the Norwegian energy source. In the coming years, there will be a great need for zero-emission energy production, while at the same time there is an increasing need for stable and predictable energy in an energy system that is increasingly dependent on weather. Naturally, the rise in electricity prices will activate the discussion about new forms of energy and new energy production. We have a lot of experience and good resources related to producing renewable energy, and the government believes this is where we should focus our efforts, Asland says.

Aasland draws mainly from the fact that regular nuclear power plants are “expensive and take a long time to build”, the challenges associated with waste management and the fact that new expertise must be built.

– The new modular stations are still only in the experimental stage, and are not currently considered relevant for the Norwegian Energy Source. However, for other countries that already have a well-established nuclear power industry, nuclear power is likely to be an important part of their energy supply in the future.