Can we replace all fossil fuels with nuclear energy?

Nuclear energy is increasingly attracting attention as an inexhaustible and low-carbon source of energy. Can we replace all oil, gas and coal with nuclear energy?

How much nuclear energy do we need?

In this study we assume that all primary energy consumption, which is not supplied by renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, is covered by nuclear energy. This is therefore not only electricity, but also transport, heating and industrial consumption.

Nuclear power plants can supply energy in two ways: in the form of electricity (duh) and heat. This means that all cars, trucks and inland shipping must switch to electric alternatives (or to a less efficient alternative such as hydrogen).

Heat networks can largely be run on nuclear energy, as is already happening in Russia and increasingly in China. You could also heat greenhouses and part of the industry with the heat from nuclear power plants. Dutch people who live outside the delivery area of ​​a heat network will have to make do with heat pumps.

Total energy consumption in the Netherlands

The total energy consumption in the Netherlands is around 1900 petajoules (530 billion kilowatt hours, 530 terawatt hours). That is slightly less than thirty thousand kilowatt hours per Dutch person. The good news is that if we switch to electric alternatives, we can make do with less energy.

For example, the efficiency of heat pumps is between 400 and 600 percent. A high-efficiency boiler achieves 90-95 percent, much less. That is because a heat pump pumps heat from the outside in, whereby you can pump in 4-6 joules of heat with every joule of energy.

The energy content of a liter of petrol or diesel is around 10 kWh. A motorist drives an average of 15 km with it. For comparison: a modern electric car drives between 3 and 4 km per kWh, so would only need 4 to 5 kWh here. Less than half. There are, however, load losses and transport losses.

How many nuclear power plants are needed?

If we assume the most pessimistic scenario and assume a 1:1 energy consumption, nuclear power plants must therefore produce 1900 PJ per year. You can achieve this, if you assume a load factor of 100%, with 60 gigawatts of power. At the moment there is about 42.2 gigawatts of installed thermal capacity in the Netherlands. In other words: this is what these power plants consume. The actual output is lower, around half. If we want 60 gigawatts of actual power, we need about 120 Borsseles of 500 MW each, or fifteen very large nuclear power plants, such as those at Olkiluoto in Finland.

How much will this cost?

According to the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, the construction of a nuclear power plant costs around 1.9 billion euros per gigawatt. A simple calculation shows that we will then have to spend around 110 billion euros to have the Netherlands completely switch to nuclear.

In exchange for this, we will receive very cheap electricity of less than 2 euro cents per kilowatt hour for sixty years. We also achieved all conceivable climate targets in one fell swoop, because according to climate figures only 12 grams of CO2 are released per kilowatt hour of nuclear energy.

The Netherlands currently spends around 10 billion per year on petrol and diesel (excluding excise duties and VAT) and around 20 billion for the 44 billion cubic meters of natural gas that we consume per year (again: excluding energy tax and VAT, under normal market conditions).

If we again assume the 530 billion kilowatt hours at 2 cents that this will replace, we arrive at a cost of around 11 billion euros. One third of what we spend now. However, the interest costs for the nuclear power plants are added to this. These are at 110 billion euros, around 3-4 billion per year if we let the State borrow directly. We also have to work on storage capacity to be able to absorb peaks and troughs, although this will be much cheaper than what is needed for solar and wind.

Conclusion: economically viable

The arguments of opponents of nuclear energy that it is all very expensive do not seem to hold. The nuclear fuel is cheap per kilowatt hour. The main investment is the nuclear power plants themselves.

Because nuclear energy is a stable, controllable energy source, storage is much cheaper than alternative energy sources. Especially when we look at the astronomical amounts that the government wants to spend on sustainability and climate, 35 billion euros for only a small reduction, this is a bargain.