Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-m8qmq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T00:34:56.995Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Environmental Impact

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2011

Rodney C. Ewing
Rodney C. Ewing
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, USA

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Every energy source has environmental impacts—positive and negative. Nuclear power is a carbon-free source of energy that can reduce CO2 emissions by displacing the use of fossil fuels. The present level of carbon displacement is approximately 0.5 gigatonnes of carbon per year (GtC/year), compared to the nearly 8 GtC/year emitted by the use of fossil fuels. However, there are three major negative environmental impacts of nuclear power: catastrophic accidents, nuclear weapons, and nuclear waste. The last two, weapons and waste, are directly tied to the type of nuclear fuel cycle (Figure 4 in the main nuclear article by Raj et al. in this issue). The different fuel cycles refect different strategies for the utilization of fssile nuclides, mainly 235U and 239Pu, and these different strategies have important implications for nuclear waste management and nuclear weapons proliferation.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Bulletin , Volume 33 , Issue 4: Harnessing Materials for Energy , April 2008 , pp. 338 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2008

References

1.Garwin, R.L., Interdiscip. Sci. Rev. 26, 265 (2001).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2.Carter, L.J., Nuclear Imperatives and Public Trust (Resources for the Future, Inc., Washington, DC, 1987).Google Scholar
3.von Hippel, E.N., Science 293, 2397 (2001).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4.Lutze, W., Ewing, R.C., Radioactive Waste Forms for the Future (North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1988).Google Scholar
5.Ewing, R.C., Ed., Elements 2, 331 (2006).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6.Ewing, R.C., Prog. Nucl. Energy, 49, 635 (2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7.Ewing, R.C., Weber, W.J., Lian, J., J. Appl. Phys. 95, 5949 (2004).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8.National Research Council, End Points for Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste in Russia and the United States (The National Academies Press, Washington, DC, 2003).Google Scholar
9.Abdelouas, A., Elements 2, 335 (2006).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10.Hart, K., in Energy Waste and the Environment: A Geochemical Perspective, Gieré, R., Stille, P., Eds. (Geological Society, London, 2004), p. 25.Google Scholar
11.Hedin, A. (SKB Technical Report 97–13, Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Co., Stockholm, 1997).Google Scholar
12.Macfarlane, A.M., Ewing, R.C., Eds., Uncertainty Underground—Yucca Mountain and the Nation's High-Level Nuclear Waste (The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2006).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13.Ewing, R.C., in Energy, Waste and the Environment: A Geochemical Perspective, Gieré, R., Stille, P., Eds. (Geological Society, London, 2004), p. 7.Google Scholar