NUCLEAR FACTS Environment
Quantifying nuclear
energy's environmental benefits
Annual emissions avoided
Each year, U.S. nuclear power plants prevent 5.1 million tons of
sulfur dioxide, 2.4 million tons of nitrogen oxide, and 164 million
metric tons of carbon from entering the earth's atmosphere.
25-year period emissions avoided. Between 1973 and
1998, U.S. nuclear generation avoided the emission of 87.3 million
tons of sulfur dioxide, more than 40 million tons of nitrogen oxides,
and 2.47 billion tons of carbon.
Nearly half of total voluntary greenhouse gas
emissions reductions. According to the Energy Information
Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy, nuclear power plants
were responsible for nearly half of the total voluntary reductions in
greenhouse gas emissions reported by U.S. companies in 1998. Nuclear
plants avoided 100 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, while the
combined industrial reduction for the year was 212 million metric
tons. EIA calculations are based on 1990 baseline emission levels on
average, nuclear power plants avoid more than 600 million metric tons
of carbon dioxide each year.
Global benefits of nuclear energy
Worldwide, in 1997 430 nuclear power plants in 31 nations produced 17
percent of the world's electricity. By replacing fossil fuels in
electricity generation, these nuclear plants in 1996 reduced carbon
dioxide emissions by some 500 million metric tons of carbon, displaced
eight million tons of nitrogen oxide emissions, and displaced 16
million tons of sulfur dioxide emissions.
U.S. Acid Rain Program compliance
In the U.S. Acid Rain program, 21 states achieved a 16.4 percent
increase in nuclear generation between 1990-95 that avoided 480,000
tons of sulfur dioxide 37 percent of the required emissions reduction.
Under the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, no credit was allocated to
the nuclear plants. But, based on the average value of publicly traded
sulfur dioxide credits, this contribution would have been worth about
$50 million.
U.N.
Climate Change Treaty compliance
The amount of
carbon nuclear generated electricity avoids each year is equal to the
amount of reductions needed from today's emissions levels to achieve
the 1990 levels agreed to in the United Nations Climate Change Treaty
signed in Rio de Janiero in 1992.
Kyoto Protocol compliance
Without the emission avoidances from nuclear generation, required
reductions would increase by more than 50 percent to achieve targets
under the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement reached at the
United Nations Convention on Global Climate Change. The United States
had committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 7 percent below
1990 levels, the equivalent of closing 150 1,000-megawatt fossil fuel
burning plants.
Small
amount of waste carefully managed
The high-level waste currently produced by all U.S. nuclear power
plants as used fuel rods totals about 2000 tons per year, compared to
about 41 million tons of hazardous waste produced by the United States
each year. The trillions of kilowatt hours of electricity generated
from nuclear energy during the U.S. industry's 40-year existence has
produced about 40,000 metric tons of radioactive material. If these
used fuel rods were stacked together, they would fill a football field
to a depth of only five yards. All used nuclear fuel has been managed
so that no adverse impacts to human health or the environment has
occurred.
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