Energy mix without nuclear?

The combined earthquake/tsunami which triggered the dramatic events at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex on March 11, 2011 has raised the concern on safety issues of nuclear power plant.  Nuclear power will not result in direct CO2 emission and is therefore, according to Nuclear Energy Agency "Red Book", worldwide nuclear power capacity is expected to increase up to 110% by 2035.  

What would happen if nuclear power policies is more restrictive thus this alternative option of fossil fuel emission is less available for climate change mitigation policies?  What are the cost to the global economy?  How do we fill the energy gap under carbon budget?  

Bauer. N et al. (2012) is my main reference in this post.  In the 22nd round of the Stanford Energy Modelling Forum, nuclear power generation is expected to increase 34%-180% by 2035.  However with the safety concern of nuclear power plant, the future of nuclear power is uncertain.  

Fig.1 

Bauer compares the economic impact and energy mix differences under two scenarios.  The baseline scenarios is nuclear renaissance without the imposition of carbon budget and to compare it with when carbon budget is imposed.  In the reference case (w/o carbon budget with old power plants refurbishment), global nuclear power generation remains the same until 2050, however the majority will be shifted towards OECD and Asian countries.  If under carbon budget and nuclear power production phase-out scenario, the decrease in use of fossil fuels would be, compare to 2020: coal by 40% and gas by 18%.  The net shortfall is compensated by low carbon technology (including nuclear power) and renewable energy 

The impact of nuclear renaissance is very small in short term until 2035 when nuclear starts to play a more significant role in the energy mix.  Renewable energy such as wind deployment is unlikely to fill the energy gap as the increase in production of these sources significantly increase the already high cost.

How costly is nuclear renaissance?  Bauer claimed that the larger the strength of climate polices the more costly the nuclear phase-out would be.  This is due to the fact that the energy gap can not be filled by cheaper alternatives i.e. fossil fuels.  Without carbon budget, the cost phase-out scenario (old power plant refurbish) is as low as 0.0006% of global real GDP differences (base: 2010).  However full exit with carbon budget could be as much as 0.75%.

Therefore, the impact of restrictive nuclear power policies is actually not significant, as nuclear power is only moderately important in carbon emission policies.  The impact will kick in in the medium term but combination of alternative energy sources could well compensate the gap.

However some people hold a different view, claiming that nuclear power is essential in the energy mix, at least for their countries, or perhaps for their interest.  

#Eskom CEO Brian Molefe

"There is an urgent to build more nuclear plants in South Arica" 

"We don't think it is possible to have an energy mix without nuclear" 

#James Hansen, former NASA scientist and professor at Columbia University.

"We do not have a prayer of winning this fight without it (nuclear)”