Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Source:
data from IEA, 2003
Figure 6.5
IEA Total Reported Government Energy Technology R&D
Budgets for 1974 and 1998
power, both nuclear fusion and fission. Table 6.9 shows the R&D expenditure
of the German government since 1954 as an example.
The situation is similar in many other IEA countries. Figure 6.5 shows the
IEA total reported government energy R&D budgets of the years 1974 and
1998. The majority of the R&D expenditure of the past few decades has also
been spent on nuclear energy in these statistics. Even today, nearly half of the
total R&D budget is allocated for nuclear energy. Before the mid-1970s there
was almost no R&D budget for renewables. Since the oil crises and the
Chernobyl nuclear accident, renewable energy budgets have increased;
however, they were still rather low compared to the nuclear energy budgets at
the end of the 1990s.
This unequal research policy causes a distortion of competition, mainly to
the benefit of nuclear power. If the enormous R&D budgets for nuclear power
had been spent on renewables, their costs would be much lower today and
they could very probably compete in the global energy market without any
other further subsidies.
