Chemical industry needs nuclear

Thursday, 22 May 2008

Chemical industry leaders on both sides of the Atlantic agree that nuclear energy is vital for the future of the processes behind the building blocks of the goods and services we all take for granted.

 

Energy is vitally important to the world's chemical industry. The industrial processes which produce the materials used in everything from pharmaceuticals to food packaging, from computers to wind turbines, are intensely energy-hungry, often requiring extremely high temperatures or pressures. But the chemical industry has other needs for energy resources: the hydrocarbon feedstocks it uses come from the fossil fuels used for energy. Security of supply, therefore, is vital to the chemical industry on two fronts and it watches national energy policies very closely.

 

The US chemical industry is the country's largest energy consumer in the manufacturing sector. In a recent presentation to the US Nuclear Energy Institute's annual Nuclear Energy Assembly Jack Gerard, president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council, pointed out that drives for cleaner generation had already led to massive increases in demand for natural gas and higher gas prices. This is bad news for an industry that not only has high energy demands but also uses natural gas in industrial processes (for example in sulphur stripping to create cleaner diesel fuels for transport, in the fertilizer and hydrogen industries and as a feedstock for the manufacture of other chemicals). "The US simply does not have the domestic natural gas supply available to fulfil today's demand, let alone this enormous new demand associated with a lower-emission economy," he said.

 

Gerard slated US energy policy as "an energy policy that doesn't make sense." He cautioned against developing energy and environmental policy along separate tracks, instead calling for policy to focus on diversity, efficiency and supply. "Standalone" policies could cause shortages in apparently unrelated areas, creating competition for resources as well as forcing up prices, and ultimately driving manufacturing overseas.
     

Key to providing sufficient energy supplies to meet growing demand reliably and affordably would be a wide portfolio of low-emission energy sources and technologies, with nuclear energy a key player. "We simply can't afford NOT to secure our nuclear future," he told the conference.
 

Energy efficiency improvements in all sectors could also relieve pressure on domestic gas supplies. The chemical industry, Gerard pointed out, was already doing its bit to improve its energy efficiency, reducing fuel and power consumption per unit output by nearly 27% since 1990, and decreasing its greenhouse gas emissions by 12.5% in absolute terms between 1990 and 2006. "It's not only good for the environment; it makes good business sense," he said.

Transatlantic echoes

 

Gerard's sentiments are echoed by the Chemical Industries Association (CIA), the trade association representing the UK's chemical and chemistry-using industries both at home and overseas.

 

Speaking to World Nuclear News, CIA Economic Adviser Alan Eastwood reiterated the importance of energy for the chemical industry, both in terms of powering energy intensive processes and also the use of hydrocarbons as feedstocks. The UK chemical industry uses methane as a feedstock for fertilizer manufacture, while ethane (a gas found in conjunction with North Sea oil deposits) or naphtha from oil are starting points of most chemical industry processes.

 

Energy prices, especially for gas, have escalated over the last 4 years, but this experience has not necessarily been universal: in particular, there have been differences between the situation in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. Energy liberalisation has served to make the chemical markets become nervous: it has indeed brought cheaper retail margins but introduced greater supply chain uncertainties, and the UK chemical industry has become increasingly dependent on imports through the Interconnector, a bi-directional undersea gas pipeline linking the energy markets of the UK and continental Europe. "Nobody seems to have overall responsibility for long-term planning to make sure there is a steady and reliable supply of gas," Eastwood commented.

 

"We are concerned that we should have adequate energy supplies. We are convinced that this is best met through a spread of diverse energy supplies from diverse geographical origins," Eastwood said, adding: "Yes, we would like to see more nuclear." He went on to explain that using electricity rather than direct combustion of gas to supply the process heat needed for the chemical industry would not be a problem for the industry, and would free up hydrocarbons for other uses. As well as fossil-based hydrocarbon feedstocks, biomass too could be put to use as a source of molecules for chemical products rather than fuel to be burnt for energy.

 

Unlike its American counterpart, the CIA has not found fault with domestic energy policy and has put on record its support for the UK government's 2007 energy White Paper which focuses on energy efficiency and the promotion of low carbon sources including nuclear. It also welcomed the government's January 2008 nuclear power White Paper putting nuclear energy at the heart of the UK government's response to the need for secure, safe, affordable, low-carbon energy supplies.