Is nuclear energy sustainable? Scientific committee says EU should seek further details

The EU Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (SCHEER) has recommended that the European Union examine the environmental impacts of nuclear energy in greater detail before classifying nuclear energy as sustainable under the European taxonomy. It reached this conclusion based on its review of a report by the Joint Research Centre (JRC), which at the end of March endorsed the classification of nuclear energy as a sustainable source. 

The European debate over the sustainability of nuclear energy is still not over following last week’s reports, and is likely to continue. This is despite the fact that, at the end of March, members of the JRC expert group classified nuclear energy as sustainable in a comprehensive report.

It was this report that was submitted for review to two other scientific groups of the European Commission. Although the EU Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks supported most of the report, it raised several objections and recommended that some of its conclusions be examined in greater detail by the European Commission.

For a technology to be considered sustainable under the rules of the European taxonomy, it must contribute to at least one of the six fundamental objectives set out in the taxonomy and, above all, must not cause significant harm to the environment (the do no significant harm principle).

SCHEER sees the main problem with the JRC expert group’s report precisely in compliance with the rule on doing no significant harm. In some of its conclusions, the report assessed whether nuclear energy “causes less significant harm” than other comparable technologies. The review report concludes that these two principles are not the same.

SCHEER highlights this fact as its first point in its review report and recommends that the report be developed further and supplemented with additional evidence.

The second review report, prepared by a group of experts on nuclear safety and radioactive waste management, supported and agreed with the conclusions of the original report. According to Reuters, the European Commission will not respond to either review report.