Quantification of the Lifecycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Nuclear Power Generation Systems

Akhil Kadiyala, Raghava Kommalapati and Ziaul Huque
Additional contact information
Akhil Kadiyala: Center for Energy & Environmental Sustainability, Prairie View A & M University, Prairie View, TX 77446, USA
Raghava Kommalapati: Center for Energy & Environmental Sustainability, Prairie View A & M University, Prairie View, TX 77446, USA
Ziaul Huque: Center for Energy & Environmental Sustainability, Prairie View A & M University, Prairie View, TX 77446, USA

Energies, 2016, vol. 9, issue 11, 1-13

Abstract: This paper statistically quantifies the lifecycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from six distinct reactor-based (boiling water reactor (BWR), pressurized water reactor (PWR), light water reactor (LWR), heavy-water-moderated reactor (HWR), gas-cooled reactor (GCR), fast breeder reactor (FBR)) nuclear power generation systems by following a two-step approach that included (a) performing a review of the lifecycle assessment (LCA) studies on the reactor-based nuclear power generation systems; and (b) statistically evaluating the lifecycle GHG emissions (expressed in grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt hour, gCO 2 e/kWh) for each of the reactor-based nuclear power generation systems to assess the role of different types of nuclear reactors in the reduction of the lifecycle GHG emissions. Additionally, this study quantified the impacts of fuel enrichment methods (centrifuge, gaseous diffusion) on GHG emissions. The mean lifecycle GHG emissions resulting from the use of BWR (sample size, N = 15), PWR (N = 21), LWR (N = 7), HWR (N = 3), GCR (N = 1), and FBR (N = 2) in nuclear power generation systems are 14.52 gCO 2 e/kWh, 11.87 gCO 2 e/kWh, 20.5 gCO 2 e/kWh, 28.2 gCO 2 e/kWh, 8.35 gCO 2 e/kWh, and 6.26 gCO 2 e/kWh, respectively. The FBR nuclear power generation systems produced the minimum lifecycle GHGs. The centrifuge enrichment method produced lower GHG emissions than the gaseous diffusion enrichment method.

Keywords: lifecycle assessment; greenhouse gas emissions; nuclear energy; power generation; reactors; enrichment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/9/11/863/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/9/11/863/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:9:y:2016:i:11:p:863-:d:81304

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().