Title of paper

1. Introduction

Climate change caused by humans is real and it is happening now. Carbon emissions need to be decreased drastically and rapidly to reduce the impact on the global climate. There is worldwide concern over the prospect of global warming primarily caused by emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from burning of fossil fuels.
Proponents of nuclear power argue that generation of nuclear power is climate friendly due to low carbon emissions and push for a nuclear renaissance. The nuclear lobby has started a worldwide campaign to promote nuclear energy as a solution to curb the greenhouse effect. While it is true that the process of running a nuclear power plant emits only small amounts of CO₂, the entire nuclear fuel chain is very energy intensive and emits significantly more carbon than all sources of renewable energy. Some research even shows that a nuclear power plant generates less energy than it uses in the entire fuel chain over its lifetime. As mining of uranium persists, the ore-grade of uranium will drop fast, resulting in increased fossil fuel inputs to mine usable amounts of uranium. As high-grade uranium ore decreases, the CO₂ emissions related to mining and milling will increase.

2. Carbon footprint

Is nuclear power the solution to climate change? There is certainly no quick answer.
Generally, it is true that all electricity generation technologies emit greenhouse gases (GHG) at some point in their life-cycle and hence have a carbon footprint. Carbon footprints are sensitive to factors such as the technology used and the country of its manufacture.
Electricity generated from fossil fuels has a high carbon footprint, with most emissions produced during plant operation. Renewable energy generally has a low carbon footprint. The carbon emission of a nuclear reactor itself is also fairly low. However, the carbon footprint of nuclear energy is caused by the entire nuclear chain and only minor by the actual fission in the reactor.
The nuclear system is the most complicated and extensive of all energy systems. It includes ore mining and milling, enrichment of uranium and fuel fabrication. These steps are the so-called upstream fuel-cycle. Downstream activities include the construction of the nuclear power plant and its decommissioning, the handling of nuclear waste, its reprocessing, and its storage. The entire fuel chain is extremely energy intensive; all steps use fossil fuels and produce greenhouse gases. The enrichment of uranium, in particular, is highly complicated and extremely energy intensive. The fuel for nuclear reactors has to have a higher concentration of U²³⁵ as exists in natural uranium and needs to be enriched from 0.7% as in yellowcake to about 5-7%.
For the construction of the nuclear plant and all facilities in the upstream and downstream of the nuclear fuel system, huge amounts of steel, concrete and other materials are necessary. The energy used for the production of the materials and the activities involved comes from fossil fuels, which cause GHG emissions. White calculated that the typical nuclear plant needs 170,000 tons of concrete, 32,000 tons of steel, 1,363 tons of copper, and a total of 205,464 tons of other materials. A typical nuclear plant needs 50 miles of piping welded 25,000 times, 900 miles of electrical cables, thousands of electrical motors, relays, transformers etc. (White, 1995). Fabrication of all materials is carbon intensive. The processes dealing with highly dangerous radioactive material need lots of facilities and equipment; as example robots are used to demolish decommissioned power plants avoiding exposure to humans.
Uranium is not infinite. If more nuclear plants are to be constructed, the demand for uranium will increase, the ore grade of uranium deposits will fall rapidly, and lower and lower ore grade will be mined. Thus more energy will be needed as much more ore has to be processed to produce uranium. Assuming that global nuclear power generation remains at present level, the ore grade of uranium will fall significantly from today’s levels and after 2070 nuclear energy generation will consume more energy than it will be able to produce (Greenpeace, 2007: 14). This effect will occur even earlier if more nuclear power plants are constructed as planned especially by China and India.
The uranium concentration of ore varies greatly from country to country and from deposit to deposit; in rare cases it is as high as 16% and more like in Canada, although 0.2% and less is more common. In Namibia, the ore concentration is very low and varies between 0.01 and in best cases 0.09% uranium. At present the price for uranium is so low that mining of low grade ore is not profitable anymore resulting in stagnation of uranium mining. This might change in (unforeseeable) time. However, predictions made in previous years that the price for uranium will improve did not yet happen.
The Nuclear Energy Institute of the United States stated in 2007 that “it is important to build emission-free sources of energy like nuclear”. The world’s major nuclear power company Areva claimed in 2007 that “one coal power station of 1 GW emits about 6 million tons of CO₂ annually while nuclear is quite carbon-free”.
The potential of nuclear power has raised serious questions about being the best strategy to save the climate. Opponents of nuclear power argue that nuclear plants are poor substitutes to other less greenhouse gas intensive generators. Supporters of nuclear power argue that nuclear should be accepted to qualify for the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol⁸ to support sustainable development. The CDM is one of the “flexible mechanisms” that is supposed to facilitate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries. This should happen by allowing developed countries to offset their continuing emissions against emissions avoided in developing countries by investing in more climate-friendly technologies or initiatives than would take place without their investment (Earthlife Africa, 2000: 12).
The Kyoto Protocol incorporates conditions that effectively exclude nuclear energy as an option for implementation under the “flexibility mechanisms”. Nuclear plants cannot be used by developed countries to counterbalance their existing carbon emissions.