Cover image Aviator by Bung Carol
The title for this week’s update comes from my readings on Ethics of Nuclear Energy, a collection of essays from various thinkers, mostly philosophers, who are proposing reflective questions around the use of nuclear energy. The one that reverberates to me the most comes from Rafaela Hillerbrand titled “The Role of Nuclear Energy in The Future Energy Landscape: Energy Scenarios, Nuclear Energy, and Sustainability” (Taebi & Roeser, 2015). I will not talk about her main argument in the writing, but rather highlight some aspects which I judge relevant to us to enrich our point of view about our current energy crisis in Europe mainly due to the Russian-Ukrainian war.
One interesting thing which profoundly impresses me is the idea that affordability or sustainability alone does not make an action ethical. Just because we create less pollution in our energy production or because renewables are more affordable to us than before does not mean that entirely transitioning to renewables is an ethical thing to do. Another element must be present in the equation, and that is what this essay is trying to answer.
Energiewende and Anti-Nuclear Spirit
Hillerbrand briefly mentions in her article that Germany’s Energiewende expresses the country’s tenacity to make public decisions in a crucial sector, namely, energy, based on ethical considerations alone, i.e. environmental ethics (Taebi & Roeser, 2015). It was envisioned in the 80s, put into policy in 2000, and sped up after the Fukushima disaster in March 2011 (“Energiewende,” 2012).
Aiming for a sustainable energy system is at the forefront of Energiewende. Consequently, fossil fuels are the first ones aimed by this project.
“For a sustainable energy supply, the consumption of fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal must be reduced. Burning these fossil fuels produces energy in the form of heat and the green-house gas carbon dioxide, which has a high environmental impact and is an important contributor to global warming. The key to more climate protection is an energy transition that saves on fossil fuels through the expansion of renewable energies and greater energy efficiency.” (Energiewende – BMBF, 2012)
The moral value driving BMBF’s goal is therefore pivoted in environmental value, precisely the opposition against energy systems which emit high green-house gas. Further details on this plan are explained following this moral foundation, namely increasing energy efficiency by developing storage solutions and decentralisation of supply. Sustainability as environmental moral values is thus translated into research advancement in renewables.
That being said, advancing renewables through suppressing fossil fuels is just one part of applying this vision. Another side of BMBF’s vision which is implicit in it, but is already in the process, is to shut down all nuclear power plants across Germany, otherwise known as nuclear phaseout. While this action is indeed done as a reaction towards the reactor accident in Fukushima Daiichi, Japan, on 11 March 2011, this policy still sets up as additional motivation to crank up the decentralisation of renewables and its storage technology development. This decision is even put into action following the cross-check and cross dialogue between the country’s Reactor Safety Commission (Reaktor-Sicherheitskommission – RSK) and the Ethics Commission for a Safe Energy Supply (Operating Times and Electricity Volumes of German Nuclear Power Plants, 2022; Stipulation of Dates for Shutdown Dates, 2022).
Therefore, two main factors clearly interrelate in Energiewende’s ambitious renewable advancement: battling against fossil fuels’ polluted energy and Nuclear Power Plant’s (NPP) safety risk. Public policy makers behind these documents clearly seem to translate ethics of energy sustainability as battling against energy polluters and risky energy power plants. Whether or not this step is truly moral will be analysed further.
Energiewende’s Environmental Effect
The latest statistic from the Federal Statistical Office of Germany was published on July 15, 2021, and it records German households’ consumption from 2010 to 2019. The number of households does not change that much, only a 1.4% increase, i.e. from 40,301,000 households in 2010 to 40,864,000 in 2019. The annual electricity consumption per household, however, decreased by 10.5%, i.e. from 3,471 Kilowatt Hours in 2010 to 3,106 Kilowatt Hours in 2019 (Energy Consumption, 2019a; Energy Consumption, 2019b; Energy Consumption, 2019a; Energy Consumption, 2019b)).
In total, annual electricity consumption for German households decreased by 9.3% from 139,872 Gigawatt Hours in 2010 to 126,932 Gigawatt Hours in 2019 (Energy Consumption, 2019a).
As one of the most advanced countries in the world and one of the leading innovators in renewable technology, Germany is also active in the electricity market. As of the data from September 7, 2022, the country produced around 152,133 Gigawatt Hours of consumption-ready electricity from the first quarter of 2022 and 130,694 Gigawatt Hours from the second quarter. This number already includes storage difference and electricity supply from abroad in which the country imported 10,480 Gigawatt Hours during the first quarter of 2022 and 12,868 Gigawatt Hours during the second quarter (Production, 2022).
That production number would have some partial cut for around 12% to 15% being distributed abroad. During the first quarter of 2022, out of 152,133 GwH consumption-ready electricity, around 23,468 GwH was distributed abroad; whereas during the second quarter of 2022, of 130,694 GwH consumption-ready electricity, only 16,083 GwH was distributed abroad (Production, 2022).
Henceforth, compared to developing countries such as Indonesia, securing electricity supply is not much of a problem. This situation would of course take a different tone with natural gas dependency needed for electricity – but more importantly for heating – from Russia. That is, however, a subject for another topic since we are trying to see how environmental Energiewende really is when applied to hundreds of thousands gigawatt hours of electricity mix.
Remember that Energiewende is executed through investing in renewables and nuclear phase-out. Stephen Jarvis, Olivier Deschenes, and Askhya Jha’s research result, however, shows the third side of this phase, namely, increasing use of fossil fuels (Jarvis et al., 2022).
Javis, Deschenes, and Jha show with the above table that lignite, hard coal, and natural gas are increasingly used in the offset of nuclear power. Figure (a) shows that “electricity production from nuclear sources dropped by roughly 5 GWh on average across all levels of net demand. Panels (b)-(d) demonstrate that this lost nuclear production was offset in large part by increases in electricity production from fossil-fuel sources. Specifically production from lignite increased by roughly 1 GWh on average at low levels of net demand. Finally, gas-fired electricity generation also increased by roughly 2 GWh on average, and by as much as 6 GWh for hours-of.sample with very high net demand.”
This result explains why by 2022, Germany is still dependent on coal, if not more than before nuclear phase-out. Following the increasing electricity supply from renewables – from 43.8% during the first half-year of 2021 to 48.5% during the first half-year of 2022, the country’s dependency on conventional energy sources (fossil fuels and nuclear) is still dominant – from 56.2% during the first half-year of 2021 to 51.6% in the first half-year of 2022. Inside these numbers, coal remains the dominant electricity supplier, if not more dominant than before. It supplied 27.1% of electricity during the first half-year of 2021 and up to 31.4% – a third of German electricity – in the first half-year of 2022 (Electricity Production in the 1st Half of 2022, 2022).
The figure speaks for itself. With nuclear phase-out integrated in Energiewende, the country pollutes more.
What Makes An Energy System Ethical?
In the energy context, the good or bad is normally judged with regards to either how human beings or the environment are treated. Nothing is controversial to say that not polluting the environment is good just like stating that treating human beings as ends and not means is also good. When these two qualities are at odds, say, when we need to provide electricity with highly polluting materials such as coals, normally we make priorities. This is what actually happens now in Germany where the country is again resorting more to coal mining to make up for the loss of nuclear power.
When nuclear phaseout was already taking place, the energy crisis due to the Russian-Ukrainian war forced Germany to postpone the phasing out of its two reactors, Neckarwestheim in Baden Württemberg and Isar 2 in Bavaria until April 2023 (“Germany to Delay Phasing Nuclear Plants out as Russia Cuts Supplies,” 2022).
Not only that the nuclear phaseout is sloppily implemented, it is proven to be counterproductive to human lives who are in need of energy and not environmentally friendly due to its coming back to open-pit coal mining.
Can we confidently say that failing to meet both human needs and opting for polluting energy sources is a morally good action?
As it is, Germany’s Energiewende fails to fulfil two important moral criteria in the energy system, namely, (1) supporting the energy demand of concrete human beings (2) without polluting the environment. Integrating the anti-nuclear movement in Energiewende turns out to be a morally bad decision for what it entails to both concrete human beings and the environment.
An ethical energy system is the one which supports, first and foremost, human lives, and while doing so, responsibly not polluting the environment. The anti-nuclear spirit and implementation from 2012’s Energiewende does not unfortunately fulfil this criteria.
Energiewende needs to reconsider the morality of nuclear phaseout in its policy making.
