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EU carbon cuts much cheaper with nuclear: Wood Mac
LONDON (Reuters) - Europe could save 110 billion euros ($173.4 billion) in its quest to cut carbon emissions by building more nuclear power plants, consultants Wood Mackenzie said on Wednesday.
The European Union has set itself a target of getting 20 percent of all energy demand from low-carbon renewable sources by 2020 in an effort to cut emissions of climate-warming carbon dioxide.
But the Endinburgh-based energy consultants said the bloc looked likely to reach only 14 percent of total energy from renewables by 2020 and that the extra 6 percent would mean spending an extra 200 billion euros on new clean plants.
But the estimated 5 percent annual cut in EU carbon emissions could be achieved by building 30 gigawatts of low-carbon nuclear power instead of continuing to use coal-fired plants - and at less than half the cost.
"That's 90 billion, as opposed to 200 billion, to deliver the same reduction," senior European power and gas analyst Peter Osbaldstone told reporters in London.
Wood Mackenzie pointed to soaring costs and planning problems facing major wind farm projects as major obstacles to meeting the EU target for 2020.
The bloc got just 8.5 percent of its primary energy from renewable sources in 2005.
