Clean Energy Insight - Moving Energy Forward

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Myth: Nuclear Power Emits Massive Amounts of Greenhouse Gases

I have heard many times before that Nuclear Power emits a lot of greenhouse gases. In all actuality Nuclear Power emits NO greenhouse gases while producing electricity, but if you look at the entire life cycle of nuclear (mining, construction, etc.) you will see that it does emit a minimal amount of CO2 because of the labor involved in manufacturing and the construction of the units. This is the same for all other forms of energy producing sectors as well, including wind, solar, and hydro.

Yes–you read that correctly, all forms of energy production releases some sort of greenhouse gases in their life cycle. If you think about it for a minute, this statement makes total sense. Humans release CO2 into the atmosphere, we even breathe out CO2, and since we have to work at these facilities all facilities will release some CO2.   Manufacturing and construction of the facilities will also emit CO2.  The truth of the matter is, we can’t possibly have 100% CO2 free energy, but we should produce large amounts of energy while keeping our CO2 emissions to a minimum. Luckily, we have that technology available to us today and that is nuclear power!

Lets look at the graph below, it illustrates the amount of CO2 energy the US has avoided by the use of nuclear power production.

How about the rest of the energy industries you ask? Well lets look at the graph below to see how much energy is avoided by other energy producing industries. You can see that nuclear power far exceeds the amount of avoided CO2 by the top “renewable” energy productions.

Nuclear power accounts for 73.6 percent of all the energy production methods considered to be CO2 free. The graph below shows you how much energy is produced by nuclear power compared to other CO2 free emitting energies. This is one of many reasons why we should have a big portion of our energy come from nuclear power, but this is not to say that we should not keep using the other forms of clean energies. In fact, in order for the US to have the greatest benefit, the US will need to use all forms of CO2 free emitting energies, but for the most part the main producer and base power producer should be nuclear power.

This is great information to have but one might ask, “How much CO2 is released by nuclear?” Great question! The answer is in the graph below. It illustrates the amount of CO2 that is released during the life-cycle of energy production from 8 different energy industries. As you can clearly see nuclear power is a close 3rd place but is very comparable to both Wind and geothermal. Now lets combine the information above with the amount of energy produced from nuclear and you have a clear winner of where our country needs to get their base power from…Nuclear Power!

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In an article released today by Reuters, some light was shed on a study done by EPRI which calls for 45 more Nuclear reactors in the United States by 2030. The study takes into consideration many different scenarios such as climate legislation, increase in cost of electricity, price to construct nuclear plants, increase in number of electric plug in cars and trucks, etc.

You might think 45 is a lot of new plants to build, but if you take into consideration that this is over 21 years away and the status of the licensing of existing plants, this is very feasible. Many plants will be at the end of their 20 year license extension around year 2030 and will have to be shut down and decommissioned. Therefore, we have to look at the affect that decommissioning plants will have to the overall nuclear power produced along with the CO2 prevented from nuclear power production.

Currently, Nuclear power makes up about 20% of the energy produced in the US today. It also accounts for almost 700 million metric tons of CO2 avoided in the US. Compare this to 200 million metric tons of CO2 avoided by hydro power, 27 million by wind power, and 0.5 million by solar power. If we want to keep that 20% of power produced and the avoidance of 700 million metric tons, these new 45 plant reactors will be crucial. Taking the decommissioning plants into consideration, the new 45 plants will help in replacing the loss of existing plants, along with adding more energy production and CO2 avoidance.

This EPRI report also indicates something very important that most people forget to see, EPRI states that in order to reduce CO2 emissions and keep costs from getting out of control, we need a MIX of all forms of energy not just one or two. The truth is the right mix is one that includes a large portion of nuclear with an increase use of solar, wind and other renewable technologies.