Kyoto Protocol Archives - Nucleation Capital

Author Maureen T. Koetz explores nuclear's history and how air emission credits were the economic birthright of the nuclear industry since the passage of the 1990 Clean Air Act (CAA) amendments, when emission control capability first became a tradable commodity. Yet it took until 2016 for ratepayers and shareholders to receive even a small fraction of this valuable return on investment.

Nuclear’s emission control value actually more accurately dates to 1957, when the first civilian production plant came on line, and this past exclusion of nuclear from credit markets has mislead decision makers for decades. Factoring nuclear out of emission credit markets over the last three decades has proved costly for the entire fission industry. As a policy director at the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), I first developed emission avoidance calculations in 1997; the new data sets confirmed nuclear’s role in eliminating both criteria pollutants under the CAA and greenhouse gases then the subject of planned international controls under the Kyoto Protocol. The calculations also identified what were then hundreds of millions of dollars in emission credit value that had never been booked or realized by plant owners and operators on behalf of shareholders. Twenty years on, the forgone return on investment value has only multiplied.

According to NEI, a 16.4 percent increase in nuclear generation from 1990 to 1995 in 21 states avoided 480,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, or 37 percent of the 1990 CAA amendments reduction requirement. Noting that “no credit was allocated to nuclear plants,” NEI estimated the “contribution” to emission control would have been worth about $50 million, but that’s really only a fraction of the cumulative value. Actual emission credit value accruing to shareholders and ratepayers since the 1960s spans multiple emission categories and regions. Besides historic sulfur prevention, the avoided emission value of nitrogen oxide and particulate matter in heavily controlled areas like California and the Ozone Transport Region are more likely billions even before greenhouse gases are included.

While recent state-by-state ZEC programs are positive steps, they have yet to equalize the value of a proverbial ounce of greenhouse gas prevention with pounds of sequester cure provided to fossil fuel technology. New York’s early adoption of ZECs uses complex formulas based the social costs of carbon that price credits at $17 per megawatt hour at four upstate nuclear units. The overall estimate of $480 million per year in ZEC payments to the James A. Fitzpatrick, R.E. Ginna, and Nine Mile Point Units 1 and 2 plants that annually avoid 15 million tons of greenhouse gases yields $31 per ton controlled under a straight credit pricing basis.

Read more about this fascinating history at NuclearNewswire Woke nuclear?, by Maureen T. Koetz, published September 15, 2021.

Published by Nucleation Capital in Carbon emissions, Corporate purpose, Fossil fuels, Investor activity, LINKS, Nuclear financing, Nuclear-inclusive energy policy, Public companies, Regulatory reform, Zero emission energy

The world’s carbon intensity of energy, namely the amount of CO₂ spewed into the air for each unit of energy consumed, has not budged much since Kyoto was held, 20 years ago. Even among the highly industrialized nations in the OECD, the carbon intensity of energy has declined by a paltry 4% since then, according to the International Energy Agency. This statistic, alone, puts a big question mark over the 100% renewable strategies deployed around the world to replace fossil energy. In a nutshell: Perhaps 100% renewables are not the answer.

Eduardo Porter isn't taking his eye off the ball, the way many reporters are, in gushing over the growth of wind and solar around the world. Instead, he takes a hard look at the carbon-intensity of energy, which we think is the key metric to assess for our progress in addressing climate change, along with the parts per million of CO2 that are interfering with our atmosphere.

Although the world emerged from Kyoto, Japan, with what was billed as the first-ever deal to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases, we have not made a lot of progress reducing the carbon-intensity of energy since then. All but one of the world’s nations — the United States, thanks to then President Bush — committed to making concrete commitments to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels. But now, twenty years later, emissions have kept rising, along with the carbon-intensity of energy, despite the fact that the price of wind turbines and solar panels has plummeted.

"Over the past 10 years, governments and private investors have collectively spent $2 trillion on infrastructure to draw electricity from the wind and the sun, according to estimates by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Environmental Progress, a nonprofit that advocates nuclear power as an essential tool in the battle against climate change, says that exceeds the total cost of all nuclear plants built to date or under construction, adjusted for inflation.

Capacity from renewable sources has grown by leaps and bounds, outpacing growth from all other sources — including coal, natural gas and nuclear power — in recent years. Solar and wind capacity installed in 2015 was more than 10 times what the International Energy Agency had forecast a decade before."

By The New York Times | Source: Environmental Progress with data from BP’s “Statistical Review of World Energy”

Read more of this analysis by Eduardo Porter at the New York Times: "Wind and Solar power Advance, but Carbon Refuses to Retreat."

Published by Nucleation Capital in 100% Renewables, Carbon emissions, Corporate purpose, Future of Energy, LINKS, Nuclear competitiveness, Zero emission energy

Woke Nuclear

Wind and Solar Power Advance, but Carbon Refuses to Retreat