Editorial | Solar, wind or nuclear?

Ironically, Prime Minister Andrew Holness revived his case for Jamaica’s embrace of nuclear power just as Ramon Méndez Galain, the architect of the South American country’s initiative, argued that the island could replicate Uruguay’s almost wholesale transition to renewables - a move that slashed energy costs and created tens of thousands of jobs.

The timing of Dr Holness’ reassertion of his government’s intentions on nuclear power - the deployment of the still experimental and expensive small, modular nuclear reactors (SMNRs) – was, no doubt, coincidental. But the development is a reminder that three years on, the Government is still to launch the proposed robust discussion on the economics and safety of SMNRs

Those conversations must begin now! The Government should, perhaps, create a public-facing nuclear energy task force and institute parallel hearings by a special joint parliamentary committee on nuclear power.  Domestic and international nuclear scientists, energy economists, and grid specialists must be fully engaged in this process. 

Situated on the southeastern corner of South America, next to Brazil, Uruguay, at 68,037 square miles, is more than 15 times Jamaica’s size.  But the countries are roughly comparable in population - Uruguay has 3.5 million people to Jamaica’s roughly three million.

Uruguay is significantly wealthier, with a per capita GDP of US$27,600, over three times that of Jamaica’s. In recent years, Uruguay’s economy has grown at around eight per cent per annum, having been made more competitive in part by cheaper energy after the transition to renewables, which now supply 99 per cent of its electricity needs.

Uruguay always had hydropower, which now accounts for 45 per cent of its energy.  But up to the 2010s, fossil fuels, largely imported oil, provided for the bulk of its energy.  These days, fossil fuel is largely out of the picture -at one to three per cent. Wind generates around 35 per cent of electricity and biomass 15 per cent. Solar closes the rest of the gap. 

Uruguay has become a poster child for the transition to renewables. The difference was Dr Méndez Galain, a particle physicist who served as energy minister between 2008 and 2015.  He shared Uruguay’s experience, and Jamaica’s possibilities in the annual Maurice Facey lecture last Wednesday, the day before Dr Holness reminded in his speech that nuclear power remained on his administration’s energy agenda.

Dr Méndez Galain’s central message was that given a level playing field, renewables can be reliable and competitive, helping to drive national economies.  

Today, Uruguayans pay up to 50 per cent less for electricity than when more than half of the power was generated from oil.  The country is far less subjected to price swings and to energy shocks, such as that caused by the US/Israel war on Iran. Further, for Uruguay renewables opened new industries and created 50,000 new jobs.

The drivers: a strong commitment to transition from fossil fuels; a regulatory framework that removes longstanding and inbuilt incentives for fossil fuel; and competition among prospective suppliers of renewables. That environment helped Uruguay to attract US$6 billion in investment in renewables over five years.

“We have to stop asking renewables to play the game with rules that were not made for them,” Dr Méndez Galain said.

Further, with the prices of solar panels, wind turbines and storage batteries having tumbled in recent years the circumstances are even more favourable for renewables.

He said: “The economics are now making the case. This is no longer simply about climate benefits. It is about lower costs, greater energy security, reduced dependence on imported fuel, more investment, more jobs and greater national resilience.” 

Renewables account for around 17 per cent of Jamaica’s electricity generating capacity. The government has targeted that to increase to 50 per cent by 2030. A year ago it offered licences for 100 MW of solar power. It has invited expressions of interest for another 200 MW. When these are finally installed, they should bring renewables up to over 40 per cent of capacity.

But Dr Holness, whose government is now in licence renewal negotiations with JPS, the monopoly transmission and distribution company, has framed his focus on nuclear as part of a transition to “alternative energy sources” to lower prices.

 “We cannot place all our hopes for reduction on a renegotiated licence,” he told Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC) members last Thursday night.  “... We must prepare ourselves to be able to deploy nuclear technology. …It's going to be a decade or so. But to be able to deploy that, you have to prepare from now.”

The prime minister defined nuclear power as “the de facto clean energy resource”. There are questions of Jamaica’s technical and institutional capacity to manage nuclear power; the readiness of the SMNR technology that the government hopes to deploy.

Currently, there are only two of these small plants in commercial operation anywhere in the world - one in China and the other in Russia - although several countries are contemplating installing them, while researchers jostle for the lead from among nearly 100 emerging technologies.

Moreover, the levelised cost (the average net cost of producing a unit of electricity over a power plant’s lifetime) of energy from SMNRs, at current best-case scenarios, is three times that of wind power - and higher for solar.

There is much to debate on this question.