Time taken to ramp up nuclear power will exceed 2030 emissions timeline: Renewable energy agency chief

ABU DHABI - More countries may be considering nuclear power to help them meet their energy security needs while tackling climate change, but the time taken to ramp up nuclear power supply will exceed the 2030 timeline for the world to nearly halve its emissions.

Mr Francesco La Camera, director-general of the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena), told The Straits Times this in an interview on Jan 16, saying that countries should instead focus on ramping up renewable energy supply.

Climate scientists have said greenhouse gas emissions have to be cut by 43 per cent by 2030 to limit global warming to 1.5 deg C above pre-industrial levels.

Keeping to this threshold can help the world avoid the worst impacts of climate change, such as more frequent and severe droughts, heatwaves and rainfall.

“The question is, could nuclear plants be deployed in six years? That’s the reason we think we should focus, at least in this period, on renewables, because it’s the only technology that may produce results in this timeframe,” said Mr La Camera.

He was speaking to ST on the sidelines of the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, hosted by Emirati renewable company Masdar from Jan 12 to 18.

According to UN nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), three recent nuclear projects in China, Russia and the US took between six years and 10 years to build. Nuclear energy now makes up about 10 per cent of electricity production globally, according to IAEA.

Renewable energy accounted for nearly 30 per cent of global electricity generation as at end-2022, with hydropower accounting for the largest share, Irena statistics show.

Meanwhile, total installed capacity in 2023 was 3,865 gigawatts (GW), with solar energy accounting for the largest share. At UN climate change conference COP28, governments agreed to triple global renewable energy capacity to more than 11,000GW by 2030.

Renewable energy plants are considered a major solution to tackling the climate crisis as such facilities do not release greenhouse emissions, unlike fossil fuel plants. However, renewable sources like solar and wind are weather-dependent and can result in inconsistent energy production.

Increasingly, nuclear energy has emerged as a potential energy source for countries, as nuclear reactions do not emit any greenhouse gases and use fewer natural resources to produce large amounts of energy.

To date, 31 countries – including France, Japan and the US – have pledged to triple global nuclear energy capacity by 2050. Six of them, including Kazakhstan and Turkey, joined the movement, launched in 2023 at COP29, in November 2024.

Even Singapore – which in 2012 said that atomic power was unsuitable for the small island state – is warming to the technology. The Energy Market Authority had earlier told ST that the Republic is interested in exploring newer nuclear reactors, such as small modular reactors (SMRs), that are being developed globally.

SMRs are thought to be suitable for Singapore as they are compact and can be installed in dense urban areas, unlike big traditional reactors, which require large buffer zones for safety reasons and emergency response.

Asked about how South-east Asia can ramp up its renewable energy capacity and grid infrastructure, Mr La Camera highlighted the importance of governments in the region in sending clear policy signals.

“It is very important that the South-east Asian countries come up with a plan that can be seen as reasonable and feasible, and it is important that the institutions give special attention to... their policies for development, to the building of infrastructure,” he said.

Grid infrastructure – which includes overland and subsea cables – is critical in ensuring that electricity can be distributed from the generation source, such as a renewable energy project, to where users are.

In South-east Asia, where most countries are still heavily reliant on fossil fuels, scaling up grid infrastructure is pivotal to creating a regional power grid with more renewables.

An Asean grid will allow countries to trade electricity to meet rising demand. This is especially important since renewable resources are unevenly distributed in the region.

Proper grid infrastructure is important to attract investments in renewable energy plants as companies need assurance that the electricity they generate can be distributed to different areas of the market, he said.

Governments should also help to de-risk investments, such as by implementing regulatory incentives, to help lower the capital for private sectors to make them feel confident that their investments will be sustained, Mr La Camera added.

The Asean power grid has been decades in the making, and made progress with the 2022 launch of the Laos-Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore electricity import pilot.

Subsequently, the Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines power integration project was announced in August 2023. It aims to create multiple interconnections across the grids of the four countries.

An Irena report had estimated that enhanced interconnection and grid expansion at the regional level can allow Asean’s total renewable capacity to reach 3,400GW by 2050. As at 2023, Asean members contributed about 105GW of renewable energy capacity, according to Irena.

Asean is aiming to achieve a 23 per cent renewable share in the total primary energy supply and a 35 per cent share of renewable energy in the total installed capacity by 2025. In 2022, renewable energy made up about 15.6 per cent of the total energy supply in Asean.

Meanwhile, Irena is working on a partnership with South-east Asian countries to accelerate energy transition, which can help to spur economic growth, industrial development and job creation, among other things, around renewable energy. It is expected to be rolled out in 2025.

“The fact is in South-east Asia, there is still a lot of economy based on coal... It’s very urgent for South-east Asia to change the energy mix,” said Mr La Camera.