To date, nuclear power plants have been regarded as unsustainable for several reasons. Uranium is needed to run a nuclear power plant. This is a so-called non-renewable resource. CO2 is emitted during extraction and transport. A nuclear power plant itself does not emit CO2, but you do end up with radioactive nuclear waste.
Gas is also non-renewable. Gas-fired power stations also emit CO2, although it is considerably less than coal. Nevertheless, certain investments in gas and nuclear energy will receive a green stamp if the new plans go ahead.
Green waxes
There are, however, conditions attached to the proposal from the European Commission. For example, gas-fired power stations are not allowed to emit much. Emissions will have to be captured using modern techniques. Nuclear power plants must have good plans for safely storing nuclear waste.
Environmental organizations such as Milieudefensie, Greenpeace and Natuur & Milieu have been responding critically for some time. They are afraid that the new rules will in fact become a way of ‘greenwashing’ investments. In other words, investors can mainly polish their sustainability image.
–
–
In a brief to the Dutch government at the end of last year they are calling on the cabinet not to support the plans. “We call on you to [..] ensure that natural gas is not labeled as sustainable.”
‘Bad start to the year’
To achieve zero net CO2 emissions by 2050, as EU countries want, will require billions of euros of investment. But the environmental clubs fear that we will ‘be stuck with fossil infrastructure for decades to come’.
MEP Bas Eickhout (GroenLinks) read the plans on 1 January of the new year. “What a bad start,” he wrote on Twitter.
–
–
The European Commission sees it differently. In order to eventually become climate neutral, you cannot ignore gas and nuclear energy in the coming years. The green label is therefore temporary. For gas until 2030 and for nuclear energy until 2045.
Countries are divided
The plans have been discussed for a long time, but countries still do not agree with each other. France has many nuclear power plants and is in favor. Poland is interested in gas, because it now mainly burns coal. Germany is strongly against nuclear energy. Ireland, Luxembourg, Denmark and Spain are also against the plans.
The various EU countries are still allowed to react to the European Commission’s plans before the final proposal is voted on. If the plans go through, they will take effect in 2023.
–
–
