As delegates at a Paris summit haggle over how to curb global warming, the role of nuclear energy in limiting climate-changing emissions is the subject of fierce debate between champions and critics of atomic power.
Energy production accounts for 35 percent of the greenhouse-gas emissions that fuel global warming, with 25 percent coming from electricity generation alone. Unlike polluting coal, oil and gas-fired power plants, nuclear facilities do not generate emissions by producing electricity.
Like solar panels or wind turbines, they only indirectly generate emissions during their life cycle, namely in the construction of reactors and the extraction of the uranium they use as fuel.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates the median value of emissions from nuclear plants at 16 grams of CO2-equivalent per kilowatt hour, about as much as a wind turbine and far less than the footprint of plants that burn fossil fuels.
The IPCC, which tracks global warming for the UN, puts nuclear power on a par with renewables among the low-carbon energy sources whose share of electricity generation must grow to 80 percent by 2050 -- compared with 30 percent today -- if global warming is to be capped at 2 degrees Celsius over pre-Industrial Revolution levels.
But not everyone agrees that more nuclear is the answer.
A report by the WISE-Paris research agency commissioned by several NGOs, including Greenpeace, concluded that the safety concerns over nuclear power -- as exemplified by the 2011 Fukushima disaster -- rule it out as a viable energy source.
Highlighting the exorbitant cost of nuclear power compared with renewables, the report also accused the nuclear industry of overstating its contribution to the fight against climate change.
"From uranium mines to nuclear waste, including radioactive and chemical pollution from nuclear reactors, every phase of the nuclear cycle brings about pollution," the report said.AFP
Unlike polluting coal, oil and gas-fired power plants, nuclear facilities do not generate emissions by producing electricity. But those against using atomic energy put forth safety and cost concerns
Unlike polluting coal, oil and gas-fired power plants, nuclear facilities do not generate emissions by producing electricity. But those who are against atomic energy put forth safety and cost concerns
