Nuclear Power and CO2 Emissions.

Chicken Yoghurt celebrates the return to blogging of Rochenko and especially recommends his piece on nuclear power. Which contains this:

Right. So, who’s not joining up their thinking now? Carbon emissions being a global problem, we’re talking about global solutions here. Replacing gas and coal is one such. Nuclear power is a non-renewable resource, that relies on a relatively scarce raw material. Further, uranium needs to go through a lengthy industrial process in order to be useable. How much energy does the process of mining and refining use, and how much carbon does it produce, in order to provide fuel for just one station?

Fortunately I’d written a piece on this very subject. Unfortunately the editor I sent it to did not wish to purchase it. So you, you lucky people, get to see it for free and get an answer to that very question.

We all know that we’re not allowed to use nuclear power to beat global warming, don’t we? Nasty, horrible, vicious stuff, why, it might even allow people to keep the lights on, cook meat even, possibly, dare we whisper it, allow capitalism to survive! Which would be quite unsupportable given that we know the correct method of reverence for Gaia is to be knitting our clothes out of tofu while feeding the kids on lentils in the dark (and I really don’t want to think about that no diaper training  thing in that scenario).

Which is why I always find it a little puzzling that those most vociferous against the use of nuclear power have to, err, be economical with the truth in their arguments. A couple of years ago, you may remember, we were told that nuclear did have CO2 emissions as there was lots of concrete used in the construction of plants. This has rather been put to one side now that several (gleefully on my part) have pointed out that wind turbines actually use more concrete than nuclear for the same electricity production capacity.

An example of this economy with the facts turns up in today’s Guardian written by one David Lowry (who is ”nuclear issues coordinator for Labour's environment campaign, Sera “).  The essential argument is that the total fuel cycle uses energy (true) that some of this is fossil fuel derived (true) and that therefore nuclear is not a completely non-emittive technology (true). As for the conclusion?

Using sensible assumptions, Professors Smith and Van Leeuwen determined that nuclear generation produced about a third as much CO2 per kWh as conventional mid-sized gas-fired electricity generation.

The important question is thus not whether there are emissions but how many of them there are? Most especially, how does nuclear measure up to all of the other alternatives when we look at the whole lifetime of the equipment and the fuel? According to our Mr Lowry:

As several papers made clear when presented to the World Nuclear Association's annual symposium last month, the industry will increasingly have to rely on poorer-quality uranium ores, and thus CO2 emissions from the nuclear cycle will increase. Öko's analysis shows that nuclear CO2 emissions are up to four or five times greater than those from renewables.

Well, is it true? Is it so that nuclear is good but not good enough? A truly interesting question and one that rather depends upon that assumption that increasingly low quality ores will have to be used. Which, according to another paper from the World Nuclear Association (Hey, if we’re allowed to use “several papers” and leave them unidentified then I can use one identified one from the same source, yes?) is a misunderstanding of how mining works and is in any case not true for any likely scenario in the next three or four decades.

Which rather leaves us wandering around in search of more realistic figures on what are the CO2 emissions from nuclear power plants. We’re also interested in how these compare to other forms of electricity generation. We could look here for construction figures perhaps but then that was written by those trying to justify nuclear power. Obviously, I mean obviously, they are also being economical with the truth. Or the NEI blog has several pieces . But then again, the Nuclear Energy Institute, no matter what they say, cannot be expected to be neutral on such issues now can they? So we mustn’t pay too much attention to this from the same source.

 

Comparison of Life-Cycle Emissions

Source: "Life-Cycle Assessment of Electricity Generation Systems and Applications for Climate Change Policy Analysis," Paul J. Meier, University of Wisconsin-Madison, August, 2002.

I mean, really, who could ever believe that? Nuclear emits less than solar? Than geothermal? Hah! Who would ever believe that? Not our Mr. Lowry, of course. He closes his article with this:

Before starting down the nuclear route promoted by Tony Blair at Labour's conference, ministers need a proper comparative analysis of nuclear's hidden carbon emissions.

Indeed they do and I hope that young David isn’t the one providing it to them. But all of the above is just nit-picking. It’s one boring group of scientists shouting at another over interpretations of this and that and yaaaawn, isn’t it all so dreary? So why don’t we go back to a piece of the science that many would take as being a very high estimate but one which our Guardian writer would actually agree with.

...nuclear generation produced about a third as much CO2 per kWh as conventional mid-sized gas-fired electricity generation.

A third eh? 33% of gas generation? So about 20% of coal generation then? You know, roughly, splitting the difference and all that? And what was it that we had to do to stop the world’s supplies of brown rice from melting in the capitalist inspired boiling of everything decent and good? Reduce emissions by 80% from 1990 levels wasn’t it? So, if we stuck everyone in hydrogen powered cars , junked gas and coal fired electricity generation and replaced it with nuclear (as, on the generation front, France has) then we’ve cracked it, solved the problem, eh? Why didn’t you just say so at the beginning David? Even by your, terribly pessimistic, figures there is a technological way out, we don’t all have to return to medieval peasantry, spinning our food and kneading our clothes by flickering torchlight, capitalism is saved!

Perhaps that’s why he doesn’t like it, he’s realized that nuclear works.