Nuclear Fission Report
In September 2010 ERP published a report on nuclear fission that took a long-term view of nuclear as an energy source, looking at future fuel cycles, capacity and responsiveness as well as recognising security and proliferation issues.
The subsequent report UK Nuclear Fission Technology Roadmap: Preliminary Report, published in February 2012, identified the issues that a nuclear R&D roadmap should consider.
Background
At the time the proposals for nuclear generation in the UK were for a new build programme of up to 16 GW of capacity by 2025, to replace the current capacity. Over the next decade and a half, all but one of the current reactors will be closed down and decommissioned. Beyond that the UK had not set out any plans for how nuclear power will develop.
Conclusions and Recommendations
The ERP report concluded that a long-term strategy was needed for the development of nuclear power in the UK, combined with a detailed R&D roadmap. The report recommended that this should happen as a matter of urgency to inform decisions about R&D and to avoid the risk of the UK losing its world renowned expertise in reprocessing and recycling technologies. It identified key issues that needed to be considered in developing the roadmap. These included:
- The long term role of nuclear generation in the UK and the potential need to develop new fuel-cycle and reprocessing technologies.
- Capitalising on the growing international deployment of nuclear fission: Selling fuel-cycle technologies and services into the international market, developing an industrial base and contributing to the development of key technologies.
- Defining the UK’s role in non-proliferation debates which will require supporting RD&D to inform positions and support international developments.
The report noted there is a strong business case for a healthy and vibrant research base in the UK that would support the national nuclear programme and provide the necessary skills, but would also provide benefit from exploiting the growing global market.
Follow up activities
Following publication of the ERP report a project was set up in early 2011 to consider what such a roadmap might look like. Funded by the EPSRC, Energy Technologies Institute and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority with support from the National Nuclear Laboratory and the ERP, the report provides a strategic outline of the issues that need to be addressed in developing a roadmap for nuclear research and development in the UK. The project engaged widely with industry, academia and regulators.
The report was published in February 2012.
ERP’s report and some of its Members provided evidence for the House of Lords Inquiry into Nuclear Research and Development Capabilities. Published in November 2011 the report called for a nuclear R&D roadmap.
Since then the Government asked the Government’s Chief Scientific Advisor to lead a review of the current nuclear R&D landscape in the UK. Launched in April 2012 it will report later in the year. ERP are represented on the Review’s Advisory Board.
Steering Group
ERP’s 2010 report was prepared by Richard Heap in the ERP Analysis Team with input from ERP Members and their organisations.
Project chair
- Sue Ion – Royal Academy of Engineering
Steering Group Members
- Doosan Power Systems
- E.ON
- SSE
- DECC
- EPSRC
The views are not the official point of view of any of these organisations or individuals and do not constitute government policy.
Further Information
Further information from Richard Heap in the ERP Analysis Team.
Other Relevant Links
The increasing significance of the legally binding 80% CO2 emissions reduction has led most major organisations in the public and private sectors to take a view on how the energy system will evolve to 2050. Scenarios have been developed using a range of techniques; some forecasting likely developments given the current technological, geopolitical, commercial and social environment. Others are ‘backcasting’ from an idealised low carbon system to devise trajectories that achieve an optimal outcome. Some are built from quantitative modelling techniques using optimisation or macroeconomic approaches to building feasible scenarios; others have a descriptive or consultative approach to building a qualitative perspective on the future possibilities.
ERP’s report Energy Innovation Milestones to 2050 built on an analysis of public and private sector scenarios for the UK’s energy system, bringing out some of the common themes and areas of uncertainty. The individual scenarios are described below, followed by an overview of the key messages form the meta-analysis.
Scenarios
ERP’s analyses of the scenarios that were studied for the ‘Milestones’ report are available from the links below. Each document summarises the objectives, assumptions, outputs and key messages of the scenario, with links to the full report or documentation where available.
New or updated scenarios will be added as they become available. We welcome any comments or corrections.
Meta-analysis
The meta-analysis is described in Chapter 2 of the Milestones report (available separately here link). It identifies areas of consensus and diversity across scenarios and models, also highlighting some of the critical decision or divergence points in the timeline to 2050.
The main conclusions are summarised below, against:
- demand reduction and efficiency,
- power generation, flexibility and control,
- heat supply and
- transport.
As new scenarios become available, the conclusions will be reviewed.
1. Energy demand reduction and energy efficiency
- Energy conservation Agreement this was a key enabler in meeting the 80% target. Final energy demand from end users must stabilise, and preferably reduce, with the majority of scenarios suggesting a reduction of between 30% and 50% on current levels.
- Behavioural change Many scenarios made strong assumptions about the capacity to bring about the necessary demand reductions. There was also a general presumption that demand would be reduced without a corresponding reduction in energy service delivered. The role of energy efficiency across the board was essential, the range of efficiency assumptions varied with each scenario but the reliance on incremental improvements to deliver the same standard of energy service for less was consistent.
- Demand reduction Divergence and uncertainty around whether levels of demand reduction are actually achievable. Although all scenarios recognised that it was necessary, some models, particularly those with a forecasting approach, concluded that this level of demand reduction was not a feasible outcome, either because there are not suitable demand side technologies to make the reduction, or, because the behavioural element of technology use would lower the performance efficiency of end-use technologies.
2. Power generation and power system control
- Decarbonisation of power Consensus on the need for rapid decarbonisation of power generation
- Electricity demand Divergence on the extent of increase in demand with the range varying from 10% to well above 100%.
- Generation Agreement on the main components of the power system in 2050, with centralised provision from nuclear, wind, fossil (mostly coal) with CCS taking a lead role, but there were variations in proportion of each major technology.
- Other technologies No consensus on the role for other low carbon generation technologies such as tidal, wave, energy from waste, bioenergy, solar photo-voltaic and concentrated solar power. Most studies picked out a small role for a wide range of other technologies but there were no obvious patterns in these conclusions.
- Intermittency Scenarios did not agree on how system control would evolve to resolve intermittency issues. A range of solutions were deployed by the models, from flexible conventional generation, to flexible demand, interconnection to mainland Europe and large scale storage solutions.
- Forecasting studies cited gas as primary source of system flexibility, particularly in the short to medium term (out to 2030), although this was often coupled with failing to achieve the full 80% CO2 reductions by 2050.
- Back casting studies showed more of a role for interconnection and storage (e.g. pumped storage). The involvement of the demand side in treating flexibility was dependent on the electrification of heat and transport and assumptions around behaviour change and end-use technology capabilities (e.g. to enable vehicle to grid interaction).
3. Road transport
- Effciency Efficiency gains in conventional vehicles and hybrids drove the bulk of emissions reductions in road transport up to 2020/2025. Post-2025 there was a diversity of fuels playing a role in both passenger and freight transport. Nevertheless, the table also shows there was a significant role for electric drive-train vehicles with some scenarios seeing electric vehicles dominating after 2025.
- Electrification General shift toward the large-scale electrification of transport (particularly domestic transport) after 2025. A limitation of many of the scenarios studied is that the modelling approaches used are not well adapted for representation or costing of infrastructure developments. So comparison of alternative transport options is limited to end-use technology.
- Technology Assumptions around the efficiency improvements (or lack of them) for electric, biofuel and fuel cell vehicles drove scenarios down various alternative paths.
- Bioenergy This was still quite unclear across the energy system with some scenarios seeing a strong role for biofuels in the post 2025 system. But again, highly dependent on assumptions around availability of biofuels and conflicting demands between modes of transport, from other energy services and from non-energy sectors.
- Infrastructure Assumptions around the feasibility and cost of infrastructure evolution also drove the interplay between biofuel, hydrogen and electric transport futures.
4. Heat supply
- Electrification Across scenarios there ws some diversity in the energy sources used for provision of heat but with a slight shift towards electrification away from gas-based heating. There was a general theme of heat supply being provided by multiple technologies (electric heat pumps, gas domestic-scale CHP, biomethane, district heating), so moving away from a single dominant technology (gas central heating).
- Demand The role of responsive demand (particularly use of low-grade heat as a storage device through heat pumps and domestic heat storage) in providing power system balancing services was a recurring feature of the scenarios. However, there was variation in assumptions regarding responsiveness of end users (caused by both technical and/or behavioural limitations).
- Technologies There was considerable uncertainty around deployment and acceptability of new (or alternative) heating technologies. Many of the solutions suggested would require a change in the way that domestic dwellings receive heat services, others require a completely different approach to installation that may not be compatible with retrofit into existing homes and many are susceptible to less than optimal running efficiencies through user behaviour.
Background
The UK Government has set challenging targets for the reduction of carbon emissions: 34% by 2020 and 80% by 2050. A better understanding of technology RD&D pathways, critical decision points and risks, will inform public and private sector decision makers on innovation policy and funding issues to help meet these targets. The Energy Research Partnership bropught together stakeholders from across the energy sector to develop such a vision.
“Developing a consensus on the technology that a decarbonised society might need in 2050 is essential. The Energy Research Partnership will be carrying out work to focus on key research, development and demonstration milestones.” HMG’s Low Carbon Transition Plan, July 2009
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Aim
The aim of the ERP “Innovation Milestones to 2050” project was to develop a shared understanding of what current analysis tells us about the technology development milestones and critical decision points for the likely key components of the energy system in 2050. Using this, the ERP set out a vision, briadly shared by Government and industry to give a better common understanding of technology pathways, timeframes and risks, and their contribution to the targets.
For ERP, this provides a context for our future work on technology assessments of RD&D challenges, gaps and opportunities. Combined with an oversight of the innovation landscape, this can be used to identify and address gaps in provision and priorities for support.
Outputs
The first phase of the project was a review and meta-analysis of a wide range of public and private energy system scenarios for 2050. The high-level / meta-analysis link above describes the process, gives the conclusions and provides high-level analysis of major UK energy system scenarios.
The report was published in March 2010.
