Renewable energies were compared with the nuclear option by looking at the quantities of power they can both generate and the level of financial support this requires. This mirrors the extra costs which must be borne by the end consumer or society. Five different renewable technologies were analysed: biomass, onshore and offshore wind, small-scale hydropower plants and photovoltaics.
Governments across the G20 countries are estimated to be spending $88 billion every year subsidising exploration for fossil fuels. Their exploration subsidies marry bad economics with potentially disastrous consequences for climate change. In effect, governments are propping up the development of oil, gas and coal reserves that cannot be exploited if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change.
This report identifies billions of dollars in subsidies for fossil fuel exploration from the world's wealthiest countries. This government support for expanding oil, gas, and coal reserves continues despite a 2009 commitment by G20 countries to phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, a pledge that has been repeatedly reiterated since then, including by G7 leaders in their June 2014 declaration.
The Inventory Of Estimated Budgetary Support and Tax Expenditure for Fossil Fuels 2013 collects details on more than 550 fossil fuel support measures in the 34 OECD member countries, including many provided by state and provincial governments. The report also highlights progress made and the benefits identified by a number of OECD countries in reforming support to fossil fuels in recent years. It updates an earlier report released in 2011.
The report provides an extremely detailed review of policies within France that have the effect of harming biodiversity, though does not rank these subsidies in terms of which are most damaging. The report looks at a vast array of policies that encourage urban sprawl, over-exploitation of resources, and the introduction of exotic species, in the process triggering habitat loss. The analysis also looks at subsidies to pollution. Although the authors were able to quantify many specific subsidy items, they were not able to present an aggregate tally due to the complexity of s
The general message is clear: in France nuclear power works, in 2007 providing 77% of the electricity in the country and 47% of all nuclear electricity in the EU. “The requests by countries that wish to profit from that clean and cheap source of energy are legitimate”, claims French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. But does it really work that well and is it all that clean and cheap in France?
The paper reviews the history and the economics of the French PWR program, which is arguably the most successful nuclear-scale up experience in an industrialized country. Key to this success was a unique institutional framework that allowed for centralized decision making, a high degree of standardization, and regulatory stability, all epitomized by comparatively short reactor construction times.