Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire: Valuing the greenhouse gas emissions from nuclear power: A critical survey Benjamin K. Sovacool

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Valuing the greenhouse gas emissions from nuclear power: A critical survey

Benjamin K. Sovacool

Energy Governance Program, Centre on Asia and Globalisation, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, 469C Bukit Tima

h Road,

Singapore 259772, Singapore

article info

Article history:

Received 25 February 2008

Accepted 21 April 2008

Available online 2 June 2008

Keywords:

Nuclear power

Lifecycle analysis

Greenhouse gas emissions

abstract

This article screens 103 lifecycle studies of greenhouse gas-equivalent emissions for nuclear power

plants to identify a subset of the most current, original, and transparent studies.

It begins by briefly detailing the separate components of the nuclear fuel cycle before explaining the

methodology of the survey and exploring the variance of lifecycle estimates. It calculates that while the

range of emissions for nuclear energy over the lifetime of a plant, reported from qualified studies

examined, is from 1.4g of carbon dioxide equivalent per kWh (gCO

e/kWh) to 288gCO

e/kWh, the

mean value is 66gCO

e/kWh. The article then explains some of the factors responsible for the disparity

in lifecycle estimates, in particular identifying errors in both the lowest estimates (not comprehensive)

and the highest estimates (failure to consider co-products). It should be noted that nuclear power is not

directly emitting greenhouse gas emissions, but rather that lifecycle emissions occur through plant

construction, operation, uranium mining and milling, and plant decommissioning.

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