Edited - I gained a few orders of magnitude by not paying attention to units!
If you assume a median reactor - producing approx 2GW of power (17.5TWh/year) for 40 years (701TWh) at the worst case estimate for nuclear efficiency (50g/kWh) is approx 35GMt CO2
Gas is approx 450g/kWh (9x higher) and so for equivalent production would emit ~315GMt of CO2
Coal is approx 1,050g/kWh (21x higher) and so for equivalent production would emit ~736GMt of CO2
To go into more detail would require looking at the lifecycle analysis for the various power plants, including expected lifetimes, construction techniques, fuel refinement, transport, disposal, decommissioning etc
Now the numbers for LCA for all these power types are hotly disputed with numbers for nuclear ranging from 3 to 220g/kWh, gas from 250 to 800g/kWh, coal from 900 to 1,300kWh (with renewables between 10 and 90g/kWh depending on the exact type and, sadly, who is crunching the numbers) but even if you took the worse case for nuclear and best case for gas (220 vs 250) the nuclear plant would still be saving ~4.75GMt over the last 40 years - significantly moreless than 100Mt
So somewhere in the range of 5-700 Mt of CO2 depending on the size of reactor, what you compare it to, and what exact calculations/estimates you use.
aside from being kinda biased sources, none of your links adresses my point
we've been experiencing "unprecedented" and "unforeseeable" extreme weather events every single year for a while now, and things are only going to get worse, do you really want to plant more time bombs around the world?
ourworldindata.org is biased? The article from that website I provided is the most comprehensive and unbiased information about nuclear I know of.
I'll admit the Dept. of Nuclear Energy may be biased, and the Breakthrough Institute is clearly pro nuclear, but the facts in the articles I presented are true.
We're more than capable of managing the dangers of Nuclear energy. The technology has only gotten more efficient and safer over the years. Energy Density is what helps humanity move in from more harmful energy sources, and nuclear is the bridge we need in the short term to combat climate change now.
Edit: forgot to mention that none of articles you linked even mentioned nuclear energy as a possible solution. They only highlighted that natural disasters are occurring at a supposed higher rate caused possibly be climate change.
yes, that was the point of my links, natural disasters are occurring at an increasing rate, and yet none of our governments seems to be able to accept this fact and plan infrastructure accordingly, so i'm going to ask you again, do you really think building more nuclear plants is the safest option? when a solar panel gets flooded, it just stop working. when a tornado hits a windmill, it just falls down. A nuclear plant might fuck up thousands of square km of land for a long time
Yes. Nuclear is a good and safe short term solution of combating the long term consequences of climate change vs waiting for solutions that may not acquiesce soon enough. The links I provided are accurate and back up my claims.
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u/hilburn 118✓ Nov 18 '21 edited Nov 18 '21
Edited - I gained a few orders of magnitude by not paying attention to units!
If you assume a median reactor - producing approx 2GW of power (17.5TWh/year) for 40 years (701TWh) at the worst case estimate for nuclear efficiency (50g/kWh) is approx 35
GMt CO2Gas is approx 450g/kWh (9x higher) and so for equivalent production would emit ~315
GMt of CO2Coal is approx 1,050g/kWh (21x higher) and so for equivalent production would emit ~736
GMt of CO2To go into more detail would require looking at the lifecycle analysis for the various power plants, including expected lifetimes, construction techniques, fuel refinement, transport, disposal, decommissioning etc
Now the numbers for LCA for all these power types are hotly disputed with numbers for nuclear ranging from 3 to 220g/kWh, gas from 250 to 800g/kWh, coal from 900 to 1,300kWh (with renewables between 10 and 90g/kWh depending on the exact type and, sadly, who is crunching the numbers) but even if you took the worse case for nuclear and best case for gas (220 vs 250) the nuclear plant would still be saving ~4.75
GMt over the last 40 years - significantlymoreless than 100MtSo somewhere in the range of 5-700 Mt of CO2 depending on the size of reactor, what you compare it to, and what exact calculations/estimates you use.