Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Nuclear power plant operation emits no or negligible amounts of carbon dioxide. However, all other stages of the nuclear fuel chain — mining, milling, transport, fuel fabrication, enrichment, reactor construction, decommissioning and waste management — use fossil fuels and hence emit carbon dioxide. There was a debate on the quantity of greenhouse gas emissions from the complete nuclear fuel chain.
Many commentators have argued that an expansion of nuclear power would help combat climate change. Others have pointed out that it is one way to reduce emissions, but it comes with its own problems, such as risks related to severe nuclear accidents the challenges of more radioactive waste disposal. Other commentators have argued that there are better ways of dealing with climate change than investing in nuclear power, including the improved energy efficiency and greater reliance on decentralized and renewable energy sources.
According to an analysis by the anti-nuclear advocate Mark Z. Jacobson, nuclear power results in 9 to 25 times more carbon emissions than wind power, "in part due to emissions from uranium refining and transport and reactor construction, in part due to the longer time required to site, permit, and construct a nuclear plant compared with a wind farm (resulting in greater emissions from the fossil-fuel electricity sector during this period), and in part due to the greater loss of soil carbon due to the greater loss in vegetation resulting from covering the ground with nuclear facilities relative to wind turbine towers, which cover little ground."
Various life cycle analysis (LCA) studies have led to a large range of estimates. Some comparisons of carbon dioxide emissions show nuclear power as comparable to renewable energy sources. On another hand, a 2008 meta analysis of 103 studies, published by anti-nuclear advocate Benjamin K. Sovacool, determined that renewable electricity technologies are "two to seven times more effective than nuclear power plants on a per kWh basis at fighting climate change".
A 2012 Yale University review published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology analyzing CO2 life cycle assessment emissions from nuclear power determined that.
"The collective LCA literature indicates that life cycle GHG emissions from nuclear power are only a fraction of traditional fossil sources and comparable to renewable technologies."It went on to note that for the most common category of reactors, the Light water reactor:
"Harmonization decreased the median estimate for all LWR technology categories so that the medians of BWRs, PWRs, and all LWRs are similar, at approximately 12 g CO2-eq/kWh"Read more about this topic: Environmental Impact Of Nuclear Power
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