Expert: Renewable energy resources cannot substitute nuclear energy for now

Limitations of renewable energy sources disallow stating for now that they will be able to fully substitute nuclear energy in the global energy budget. The opinion was voiced by Alexander Perov, Head of Special Projects of the National Energy Security Foundation of Russia, BelTA has learned.

“It is obvious that renewable energy sources cannot replace nuclear energy for now. The reasons are obvious: the high cost of renewable energy and its instability. Solar power generation and wind power generation require backups. As a rule, if people use a renewable energy source at a countryside home, then they definitely have a diesel generator, too. On the national scale we have to deal with the drawback by making the energy infrastructure more complicated. If wind stops blowing, energy generation drops, necessitating energy rerouting from other areas to prevent energy shortage. This is why smart grid systems are growing increasingly popular in Europe but the solution makes renewable energy and the entire infrastructure of the smart grid area more expensive. In practice it turns out that renewable energy is expensive on its own because it requires expensive infrastructure,” explained the expert.

In his words, it is also necessary to clearly understand the limits of using solar and wind energy everywhere. “If you look at Europe, Germany to be precise, there is little space left for installing wind mills, which require large areas. As you know, land in Europe comes at a price and in view of land shortage in European countries renewable energy becomes an even more expensive toy,” added Alexander Perov.

He also noted that the idea of using renewable energy on a large scale is voiced from time to time but it is still a long way from being put into practice. “We cannot place wind mills and solar panels all over the world. It would be very expensive. Europeans themselves now admit that using renewable energy poses new risks for their power engineering industry. The stability of a national power grid is reduced without using expensive smart systems in renewable power generation. I believe that nuclear power engineering is more promising than renewable energy thanks to the advance of technologies. Yes, renewable energy will develop but on a local scale. The pace of its development still needs thinking about. Local is the key word here, large-scale power generation cannot be replaced completely. For instance, renewable energy cannot be sufficient for the operation of the aluminum industry. The industry’s installations used to be built close to hydropower plants, but nowadays there are few spots left to place a dam,” said the expert.

“Don’t forget about negative ecological factors involved in hydropower generation and in wind energy. Adherents of renewable energy speak less about them than they speak about the damage of nuclear power plants. For instance, in the early 2000s the emission of greenhouse gases involved in manufacturing solar batteries exceeded what a solar battery can save during its operating life,” said Alexander Perov.