IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/diw/diwdeb/2017-48-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Nuclear Power Unnecessary for Climate Protection—There Are More Cost-Efficient Alternatives

Author

Listed:
  • Claudia Kemfert
  • Thorsten Burandt
  • Karlo Hainsch
  • Konstantin Löffler
  • Pao-Yu Oei
  • Christian von Hirschhausen

Abstract

The world needs to continue working to protect the climate—this is generally undisputed. However, there is no agreement on which technologies should be used to decarbonize the energy sector. Many international scenarios still assume a relevant role for nuclear power in the future. However, a study by the German Institute for Economic Research shows that the Paris climate protection target— limiting global warming to below two degrees—can be achieved inexpensively without nuclear power. The results of a global energy system model indicate that no new nuclear power plants have to be built in order to meet the global climate target. It would be cheaper to use a combination of renewable energy and energy storage systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Claudia Kemfert & Thorsten Burandt & Karlo Hainsch & Konstantin Löffler & Pao-Yu Oei & Christian von Hirschhausen, 2017. "Nuclear Power Unnecessary for Climate Protection—There Are More Cost-Efficient Alternatives," DIW Economic Bulletin, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 7(48), pages 498-506.
    • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwdeb:2017-48-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.572291.de/diw_econ_bull_2017-48-2.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Christian von Hirschhausen & Claudia Kemfert & Fabian Praeger, 2020. "Fossil Natural Gas Exit – A New Narrative for the European Energy Transformation towards Decarbonization," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1892, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    2. Sadiqa, Ayesha & Gulagi, Ashish & Breyer, Christian, 2018. "Energy transition roadmap towards 100% renewable energy and role of storage technologies for Pakistan by 2050," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 518-533.
    3. Löffler, Konstantin & Burandt, Thorsten & Hainsch, Karlo & Oei, Pao-Yu, 2019. "Modeling the low-carbon transition of the European energy system - A quantitative assessment of the stranded assets problem," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 26, pages 1-15.
    4. Gulagi, Ashish & Ram, Manish & Solomon, A.A. & Khan, Musharof & Breyer, Christian, 2020. "Current energy policies and possible transition scenarios adopting renewable energy: A case study for Bangladesh," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 899-920.
    5. Christian von Hirschhausen, 2017. "Nuclear Power in the Twenty-First Century: An Assessment (Part I)," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1700, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Nuclear power; renewable energy; energy system model; climate policy; decarbonization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L91 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Transportation: General
    • L95 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Gas Utilities; Pipelines; Water Utilities
    • Q4 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:diw:diwdeb:2017-48-2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bibliothek (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/diwbede.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.