Turkish nuclear power project looks like being shelved

Clouds gather over Turkey’s nuclear ambitions Pantelis Oikonomou is a former nuclear inspector at the International Atomic Energy Agency. The article is an excerpt from his upcoming book “Global Nuclear Threat” (published by Sideris). In early December 2018, five years after Turkey and Japan signed a bilateral agreement concerning the construction of four nuclear reactors in the city of Sinop on the Black Sea, the project looks like it might be shelved. According to foreign news agencies, the Japanese-French consortium is set to abandon the project.The consortium says that delays in launching construction have more than doubled the estimated costs. Tougher international safety measures that came into force following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 have reportedly inflated the bill from 20 billion to 44 billion dollars. Turkey’s economic problems and the significant plunge of the Turkish lira also played a role.

It should be noted that the Turkey-Japan deal and the Turkey-Russia agreement for the construction of the Akkuyu power station in the southern province of Mersin both contain controversial clauses (articles 8 and 12 respectively) giving Ankara access to enriched uranium and plutonium. Both nuclear materials are, under certain conditions, required to build nuclear weapons. According to a senior official in the Japanese Foreign Ministry, Article 8 was included on Turkey’s persistent request.

In early December 2018, five years after Turkey and Japan signed a bilateral agreement concerning the construction of four nuclear reactors in the city of Sinop on the Black Sea, the project looks like it might be shelved. According to foreign news agencies, the Japanese-French consortium is set to abandon the project.

The consortium says that delays in launching construction have more than doubled the estimated costs. Tougher international safety measures that came into force following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 have reportedly inflated the bill from 20 billion to 44 billion dollars. Turkey’s economic problems and the significant plunge of the Turkish lira also played a role.

Pantelis Oikonomou is a former nuclear inspector at the International Atomic Energy Agency. The article is an excerpt from his upcoming book “Global Nuclear Threat” (published by Sideris).

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Energy efficiency – theme for July 2019

Energy efficiency represents the single largest potential contributor to global emissions reduction, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA 2017). It should be a key part of the global energy strategy, for several reasons:

It could reduce global electric demand by more than 20 per cent, based on current rates in the U.S. power sector, while maintaining high levels of services such as heating and lighting.
It avoids the need for increased energy, capacity and grid services, making it the least expensive way to decarbonise at scale.
It can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by billions of tonnes.

A dramatic example of the power of energy efficiency is lighting. In 2017 the United States passed the milestone of 1 billion LED and CFL lights installed, avoiding 142 million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide emissions, at a cost of about $7 per ton of avoided carbon dioxide. In contrast, the cumulative installed capacity of rooftop solar reached 8,000 MW in 2017, saving 8 million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide, at a cost of $360 per ton. Lighting efficiency thus yielded almost 18 times the avoided carbon dioxide, at about 2 per cent the cost per ton of rooftop solar.

Google provides another example of the power of energy efficiency. Its data centers now use 50 per cent less energy than the average data center, according to the company. Google also developed an improved chip, the TPU, which performs 83 times better than standard CPUs. The new chip allowed Google to reduce power consumption at its data centers by a factor of 30—far exceeding the effect on Google’s carbon footprint of all of the company’s renewable energy purchases. ” – John Woolard, Eco Business, 10 June 2019

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