A new study compared the carbon emissions of nuclear power versus renewable energy and finds that renewables resulted in a more serious reduction of national carbon emissions. Scientists analyzed data from 123 countries from the years of 1999 to 2014. Not only did nuclear power not show a significant reduction in carbon emissions, it even showed increases in carbon emissions in some developing countries.
The evidence clearly points to nuclear being the least effective of the two broad carbon emissions abatement strategies, and coupled with its tendency not to co-exist well with its renewable alternative, this raises serious doubts about the wisdom of prioritising investment in nuclear over renewable energy…”
Benjamin Sovacool, a professor of energy policy at the University of Sussex
Nuclear power has been sold as a solid, more environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels, and there have been advances in nuclear technology since 2014, the last year that this study was examined. In addition to that, many of the nuclear plants analyzed were older and needed more energy to be maintained. Even with those caveats, it’s clear that nuclear power won’t benefit the environment the way a strategy consisting of renewable energies like wind and solar would.
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