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ScienceDirect
Energy Procedia 112 (2017) 412 417

Sustainable Solutions for Energy and Environment, EENVIRO 2016, 26-28 October 2016,
Bucharest, Romania

Optimization of energy mix - Nuclear power and Renewable Energy

for low emissions energy source a benefit for generations to come
Gabriel Lazaro Pavela*, Andrei Razvan Budua, Dominic Eugeniu Morarua
a
University Politehnica of Bucharest, Splaiul independentei 313, Bucharest, Postal code: 060042, Faculty of Power Engineering, Romania

Abstract

The paper addresses the general issues concerning nuclear power generation in todays energy market. Nuclear power with its
characteristic generating cycle parameters is common for base load applications but modern operating nuclear power stations are
able to vary their load according to the demand. Emissions are one of the most important aspects in power generation and the
nuclear power is one of the few low emissions power source. Although nuclear power has at this moment low efficiencies it is a
competitive and reliable power source for generations to come. Recent research achievements showed that nuclear energy could
be also considered renewable.
2017
2017TheTheAuthors.
Authors. Published
Published by by Elsevier
Elsevier Ltd.Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of the international conference on Sustainable Solutions for Energy
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility
and Environment 2016. of the organizing committee of the international conference on Sustainable Solutions for Energy
and Environment 2016
Keywords: low carbon emissions; reliable; competitive power source; energy market; operation procedure

1. Introduction

Two of the most polluting industries, when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, are considered to be the
transport and power. Power generating industry is a complex mixture between high, medium and low emitter
technologies, each one having its advantages and disadvantages. Among other technologies, nuclear power is
considered to be one of the less CO2 emitters in the world. In the European Union (EU), limitations imposed by
various regulations when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions had important impact over technologies allowed and

* Corresponding author. Tel: +4-021-402-9511

E-mail address: gabriel.pavel@gmail.com

1876-6102 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of the international conference on Sustainable Solutions for Energy and Environment 2016
doi:10.1016/j.egypro.2017.03.1092
 Gabriel Lazaro Pavel et al. / Energy Procedia 112 (2017) 412 417 413

available to be used, transposed directly into an important economic impact. Security of supply is also an important
factor that needs to be taken into consideration.
Energy mix is an important factor for ensuring security of supply but todays energy market imposes very high
flexibility for power generating units. On the one hand, considering economical aspects, electricity must be provided
according to ongoing contracts. On the other hand, from the technological point of view, situation has a high degree
of complexity. The newly and highly encouraged technologies like wind, solar, geothermal although are very low
CO2 emitters they are very volatile when it comes to actual energy production. This volatility must be compensated
with the help of other energy producing technologies present in the energy mix in a specific area. The most difficult
situation can be encountered when most of the powers producing technologies are the ones usually used in base
loads with low capabilities for ensuring rapid variations. One key aspect when encountering such situation is a good
interconnectivity between systems present in different areas or in different countries.

Nomenclature

EU European Union
EC European Commission
NDC Nationally determined contributions

2. European Context

In December 2011, European Commission (EC) issued an Energy Roadmap [1] that needed to be adopted by
2050 by EU member states. The Energy Roadmap is focused on the idea of ensuring the well-being of citizens,
industrial competitiveness and a functional society ensuring in the same time a diverse energy production system,
capable of fulfilling these needs. Security of energy supply is a key factor promoted in this roadmap. The roadmap is
based on the Green Paper on the security of energy supply-November 2009 [2] and later on Green Paper - A
European Strategy for Sustainable, Competitive and Secure Energy-2006 [3]. Within these documents six strategic
pathways were identified that need to be tackled in order to obtain a sustainable development (promotion of energy
sources with reduced carbon footprint), competitiveness and security in the power supply (reducing imports, energy
mix diversification, etc.). The stipulated pathways were:

1) build-up of an European electricity and natural gas market;

2) security of supply based on a durable, more efficient and more flexible energy mix;
3) an internal energy market able to guarantee the security of supply;
4) an integrated approach when it comes to issues related to climate change;
5) innovation boost;
6) a coherent external policy with respect to energy issues.

As deadline for actions foreseen in these documents, the year 2020 was stipulated. The year itself was wisely
chosen for the so called 20-20-20 climate and energy package. According to [4], it is a set of binding legislation to
ensure the EU meets its climate and energy targets for the year 2020: 20% cut in greenhouse gas emissions (from
1990 levels); 20% of EU energy from renewable and 20% improvement in energy efficiency.
In December 2015 a historic agreement was agreed in Paris. During the 21st Session of the Conference of the
Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 21) 195 countries set path to keep
temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius this century. After four year negotiations and clear difference between
developed and developing countries, the treaty was finally signed. According to [5] following main decisions were
agreed:

x Reaffirm the goal of limiting global temperature increase well below 2 degrees Celsius, while urging efforts to
limit the increase to 1.5 degrees;
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x Establish binding commitments by all parties to make nationally determined contributions (NDCs), and to
pursue domestic measures aimed at achieving them;
x Commit all countries to report regularly on their emissions and progress made in implementing and achieving
their NDCs, and to undergo international review;
x Commit all countries to submit new NDCs every five years, with the clear expectation that they will represent a
progression beyond previous ones;
x Reaffirm the binding obligations of developed countries under the UNFCCC to support the efforts of developing
countries, while for the first time encouraging voluntary contributions by developing countries too;
x Extend the current goal of mobilizing $100 billion a year in support by 2020 through 2025, with a new, higher
goal to be set for the period after 2025;
x Extend a mechanism to address loss and damage resulting from climate change, which explicitly will not
involve or provide a basis for any liability or compensation;
x Require parties engaging in international emissions trading to avoid double counting; and
x Call for a new mechanism, similar to the Clean Development Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol, enabling
emission reductions in one country to be counted toward another countrys NDC.

Following the COP 21 conclusions it is strongly believed that nuclear energy will continue to play an important
role in the European energy mix along with other low carbon emitters energy producing technologies.

3. Energy mix. Renewable and Nuclear

Energy mix represents all power generating technologies available at a certain moment of time in a specific area
(which usually lies within a countrys sovereign territory). Each country can decide for itself which energy
technology to use according to its needs, according to its financial possibilities and according to
natural/geographical or man-made availability of raw materials. Each technology has its advantages and
disadvantages. Mixture between all available technologies can ensure the well-being of citizens and also security of
supply.
In case of renewable power sources (as those considered to be up to now: wind, solar, water) the other power
sources present in the energy mix of a country, they must be able to replace them due their high degree of
availability volatility in very short time.
In April 2016 following a multi-disciplinary research in the field, scientists from Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory and Oak Ridge National laboratory published in a special edition of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry
Research [6] a series of important advances in uranium extraction [7]. Basically the procedure is very simple and
consists in laying into the seawater some fabrics which have the role of uranium absorbers. These fabrics are
deployed for a certain period of time and afterwards removed. In this time uranium ore present in the water is
adhering to traps fibers and later on it is removed with the help of an acid treatment that also has the role of
regenerating the fibers. Fiber composition research began in 19190s at Japan Atomic Energy Agency and in 2011
following an initiative from Department of Energy, United States, teams from national laboratories and other
research entities developed the fibers so that it can be efficient in retaining uranium particles (as shown in Figure 1
from [6]) and also cost effective. The research in the field reduced the cost of the fibers four times in a period of five
years of research. These being said a new perspective arises, the one that nuclear energy could be considered as
renewable offering thus a high degree of availability and energy security. Uranium extracted from the water comes
from the rocks present on bottom of the sea. Once it is extracted it is considered to be replaced by dissolution of
these rocks/land.
 Gabriel Lazaro Pavel et al. / Energy Procedia 112 (2017) 412 417 415

Fig. 1. Absorbing net for Uranium particles [6]

One other option is the use of smart grids and a very good interconnection with other regional power grids.
Romania has a very balanced energy mix. One can find: hydro power plants, wind, solar, nuclear, biomass, coal,
gas and petrol. According to [8], at the end of 2015 Romania reached 3129 MW of installed capacities in wind
sector, 1325 MW in the solar sector, more than 70 MW in biomass and more than 2700 MW in hydro power plants.
Nuclear sector had a steady 1327 MW. Thus Romania already reached its 20% target of renewable.
Despite huge investments in the sector and important incentives offered by Romanian state, according to Figure
2, the share of wind and solar in the total energy supplied, at the end of 2015 was rather low.

Fig. 2. Romanias energy production (MWh) during 2015 [9]

Due to a very balanced energy mix but also due to favorable geographical conditions hydro power plants can
successfully cover the wide power variations introduced by wind or solar power sources. As it can be seen in Figure
3, on May 29 2015 the total share of hydropower production was more than 50%. Hydro power plants can easily
and fast be started so that they can provide the necessary power.
416 Gabriel Lazaro Pavel et al. / Energy Procedia 112 (2017) 412 417

Fig. 3. Power production on May 29, 2015.[9]

From this perspective Romania has an obvious advantage. As nuclear power plants are designed to work for a
long period of time (usually for one-two years) without refueling this way of operation can ensure long and safe
usage.
On the other hand, countries with energy production coming mainly from base-load technologies, like nuclear in
France had to adapt. According to [10], about 75% of energy production in France comes from nuclear sector. If it is
taken into considerations power consumption variations only during 24 hours one can observe the high degree of
versatility (combined with very good inter-regional power grid connection) nuclear power plant have in France. This
was achieved with the help of huge investments in research related to nuclear power sector. Also, according to
World Nuclear Association [10], France intends to reduce the share of nuclear to 50% by the end of 2025.
Supporting this idea, a recent report [11] released on March 2016 revealed that use of renewable energy in France
was found on an almost vertical trend line over the least 10 years, reaching the level of 20% by the end of 2014 and
more than 23 % by the end of 2015 [12].
As seen in Figure 4, renewable in France were up to 9120 MW wind power generated installed by the end of
2014 and almost 5300 MW installed at the end of same year.
This situation imposed even more flexibility to nuclear power plants involved in power production.

Fig. 4. Wind and solar in France 2014 [11]

 Gabriel Lazaro Pavel et al. / Energy Procedia 112 (2017) 412 417 417

4. Conclusions

Power generation in EU is driven by an open market. One of the two aspects dealing with power productions
concerns the economical one and the other one deal with technology availability in a specific are.
In order to achieve the 20-20-20 target important incentives were given to renewable sector. This lead, in the last
decade, to a spectacular increase in building of wind and solar power producing units. This had a major impact over
the power grid and on other sources of energy.
Two cases were presented. The first was the Romanian one with a balanced energy mix and the second the case
of France where more than 75% of energy is produced via nuclear units. In Romania, due to high presence of hydro
power plants the variations due to solar and wind power can be rather easy balanced in such way power producing
technologies used for base loads could be affected. In France, the trend is to downgrade the share of nuclear to 50%
by the end of 2025 and replacement of obsolete nuclear units with renewable power sources. Even so, the energy
mix is poor and nuclear units sometimes must be used to balance the energy necessary..

References

[1] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=URISERV:em0045&from=EN&isLegissum=true, as of 28.05.2016

[2] http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/energy/external_dimension_enlargement/l27037_en.htm, as of 28.05.2016
[3] http://europa.eu/documents/comm/green_papers/pdf/com2006_105_en.pdf , as of 28.05.2016
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[10] http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france.aspx , as of 28.05.2016
[11] http://www.rte-france.com/sites/default/files/2015_01_27_pk_rte_2014_french_electricity_report.pdf , as of 28.05.2016
[12] http://www.ambafrance-uk.org/Renewable-energy-production-in-France-rose-23-in-2015 , as of 28.05.2016