Earth Day is Saturday! Hooray?

“Saving humanity from the climate crisis,” says EarthDay.org, requires us to “push away from the dirty fossil fuel economy.” //

“Three billion people in the world still use less electricity than a typical refrigerator,” explains Alex Epstein, author of “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.” If they’re going to have “their first well-paying jobs,” “their first consistent supply of clean water,” “a modern life,” “that’s going to depend on fossil fuels.”

But the greens say we have a better replacement: wind and solar power. //

So I push back at Epstein: “Solar is getting cheaper all the time. It’s already cheaper than fossil fuels.”

“When we look at solar and wind around the world,” he answers, “it always correlates to rising prices and declining reliability. Why? Because solar and wind are intermittent. At any time, they can go near zero.” //

That means wind turbines and solar farms don’t replace fossil-fuel plants. You have to build them in addition to fossil-fuel plants.

Backing up all solar and wind with batteries would cost “multiples of global” gross domestic product, responds Epstein. “This is a total fantasy.”

“You say unaffordable,” I push back, “but who’s to determine what that is?”

“The general narrative is we’re destroying the planet with fossil fuels, so who cares how much energy costs?” Epstein says. “The truth is, the planet is only livable because of low-cost, reliable energy from fossil fuels.”

Before fossil fuels, “Life expectancy was below 30. Income was basically nonexistent. The population was stagnant because people had such a high death rate. The basic reason is that nature is not a very livable place for human beings.”

By contrast, thanks to cheap fossil fuels, “We make it unnaturally safe by producing all forms of climate protection. We produce drought relief . . . sturdy buildings. We produce heat when it’s cold, we produce cold when it’s hot. We have this amazing, productive ability. That’s the only reason we experience the planet as livable.” //

If we want more of the poorest people to have decent lives, we need to invest in both fossil fuels and nuclear power.

Open system, private data.
It's not that other energy monitors are bad, but they are different in that they are mostly closed systems that provide limited data and require that you use their cloud and phone app platforms.  IoTaWatt collects many more metrics and stores that usage history locally.  With it's integrated web-server you can manage setup, view real-time status or create detailed graphs using the browser on your computer, tablet or phone. It's your data, in your own home, and subject only to your own privacy and retention policy. You don't need the cloud to get a handle on your hot-tub, EV, solar or heat-pump.

IoTaWatt can, however, easily upload usage data to any of several third party databases with associated apps and analytic tools.  For instance PVoutput is a free service that connects easily with IoTaWatt and provides world-class solar energy analytics. There is full support for uploading to influxDB.  There is also an API interface for those who want to query data for their own applications or to use in spreadsheets, and there are integrations available for home automation software like Home Assistant.

A universal solution.
IoTaWatt is probably the only monitor in it's class that can literally be used to monitor any power system.  It is in use in over 60 countries worldwide.  USA split-phase 120V/240V is easy, but also 230V single-phase as in Europe, 230V three-phase as in homes in Australia, Germany and norway to name a few. Most folks only care if it will work in their situation.  The answer is an unqualified yes.

There are also many commercial/industrial users monitoring high voltage three-phase systems including 277V/480V industrial with 600Amp service using several megaWatt-hours per day - more than most households use in a year.

Jag Levak
Smack-Fu Master, in training
1m
20
Yesterday at 8:14 PM
#104
violaceous said:
It's a bad idea due to one and only one reason:
Solid/liquid radioactive waste pollution stream
We have no where to put that crap!

Do you think this is an issue which is merely not presently solved, or one which cannot be solved?
Do you reject all options that have wastes?
Do you oppose the development of kinds of nuclear which could consume the spent fuel we already have?
If waste is contained, is it really pollution?
If there are fission products we can find uses for, would those still count as waste?

We did launch nuclear power before we had a real plan for what to do with the spent fuel, but because we didn't wait we also got some benefits, like:
nearly 2 million people avoided choking deaths, millions more avoided serious illness, many hundreds of billions in health care costs were avoided; around 60 billion tons of CO2 were displaced, thousands of tons of mercury and other heavy metal poisons were not released; and our power plants gave us the means to destroy the fuel from 20,000 nuclear warheads. And in exchange for all those benefits, we now have some spent fuel which has never killed anyone. Do you feel that was a bad trade? //

JohnDeL
Ars Praefectus
7y
4,952
Yesterday at 4:40 PM
#93
ranthog said:
Fusion plants may be practical for several reasons.

They can help displace coal and natural gas faster than just building wind and solar.

Let's check that, shall we?

Right now, the US has approximately 360 coal-fired plants with a total nominal capacity of 260 GW. And in this year alone, there will be about 27 GW of solar or wind power added to the US grid. So, even if the pace of solar and wind power plant building doesn't increase (and there is every reason to think that it will), renewables will be able to completely replace coal in under a decade.

Any bets on fusion being ready for commercial-style plants in a decade?

There is roughly three times as much power produced from natural gas-fired plants in the US, so it would take another three decades at the current rate of adoption for solar and wind to replace natural gas.

Will fusion be ready in four decades? Maybe?

Should we keep researching into fusion power? Heck, yeah. If nothing else, fusion is the best way to move around the solar system. But count on it as an alternative to solar and wind? Heck, no. Not unless there are a lot of advances in a very short time - but I wouldn't bet on that happening.

Unimportant Smack-Fu Master, in training
3y
96
Admiral Rickover's 1953 paper reactors memo:

http://www.ecolo.org/documents/documents_in_english/Rickover.pdf

Still a classic.

Excerpt:

An academic reactor or reactor plant almost always has the following basic characteristics:

It is simple.
It is small.
It is cheap.
It is light.
It can be built very quickly.
It is very flexible in purpose (“omnibus reactor”)
Very little development is required. It will use mostly “off-the-shelf” components.
The reactor is in the study phase. It is not being built now.
On the other hand, a practical reactor plant can be distinguished by the following characteristics:

It is being built now.
It is behind schedule.
It is requiring an immense amount of development an apparently trivial items. Corrosion, in particular, is a problem.
It is very expensive.
It takes a long time to build because of the engineering development problems.
It is large.
It is heavy.
It is complicated.
Click to expand...
That said, some PWR and BWR modular designs are very far along and should be started soon. //

panton41 Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
13y
8,509
Subscriptor
One thing I keep in mind is that there's a few companies in the United States that install 3-4 reactors a year and generally on-time and under budget - General Dynamics Electric Boat Company, Huntington Ingalls Industries and Newport News Shipbuilding.

In his continuing war on fossil fuels, President Biden and the Environmental Protection Agency are planning to announce a severe new proposal forcing the nation’s power plants to dramatically cut their emissions by 2040. Similar efforts by Biden and President Obama before him were struck down by the Supreme Court.

If the liberal Washington Post is calling the proposal “drastic,” you know it’s going to be contentious. Their headline? “EPA plan would impose drastic cuts on power plant emissions by 2040.” //

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 2022 that an Obama-era regulation curbing power plant emissions was unconstitutional since the EPA did not have explicit power to make such rules. Unfortunately, Biden’s behemoth, inflation-causing “Inflation Reduction Act” passed in August 2022, and it has a provision allowing the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

For all leftists, climate alarmists, and other dwellers in fantasy land, happy Earth Day! Unfortunately for “climate change” true believers, not only have climate predictions been consistently and wildly wrong for 50 years now, but “clean” or “green” energy is toxic for the environment, inefficient, and unprofitable. //

First, it’s literally impossible to produce the amount of energy and electricity society currently uses with “green” energy. That’s why climate propagandists like World Economic Forum tell people to get used to being poorer. But also, much of that “green” energy is actually terrible for the environment. Solar panels and wind turbines have killed billions of birds, and offshore wind turbines can be deadly for whales. //

EV batteries, which have to be replaced every few years, are very toxic to dispose of. The “mining, manufacturing, and disposal of [EV] batteries threatens to be a major environmental concern in the coming years.” Solar panels and wind turbines also generate lots of toxic waste. //

Any reasonable person who has seen wind or solar farms has to notice they take up massive amounts of land. In other words, to put up wind turbines or solar panels, huge swathes of natural scenery and farmland must be ruined. This includes killing literally millions of trees.

Back in 2016, a planned solar panel farm in New Jersey required cutting down 15,000 trees. 200-year-old rainforest trees were axed in Tasmania in 2019 to clear land for a wind farm. In Scotland, as of 2020, almost 14 million trees had been cut down to make way for wind turbines. By 2021, Scotland was reportedly still cutting down an estimated 1,600 trees a day to make way for wind turbines. In 2022, Germany was planning to clear a large swathe of the thousand-year-old forest known as the “treasure house of European forests” to make way for a wind power plant.

The USA and Indonesia have announced a strategic partnership to help Indonesia develop its nuclear energy programme, supporting Indonesia's interest in deploying small modular reactor (SMR) technology to meet its energy security and climate goals.

22 December 2022

Inspection and certification company Bureau Veritas (BV) recently signed an agreement with nuclear power technology developer ThorCon for the Technology Qualification and subsequent development of a 500MW molten salt nuclear power barge intended for operations in Indonesia. Thorcon has been promoting its technology to key Indonesian institutions since 2015, the year that, Indonesia decided to cancel its $8bn plans to construct four nuclear plants with a total capacity of 6GWe by 2025.

In 2014, Thorcon’s parent company Florida-based Martingale, completed the preliminary detailed design of its molten salt reactor, technical details of which were published at thorconpower.com “It is the basis for securing feedback, funding, and siting for the project,” it said, adding that “the goal for 2015 is to identify a host country and site for construction of the non-nuclear prototype ThorCon, along with funding to enable construction”. In January 2015 Martingale formally unveiled its ThorCon liquid-fuel nuclear reactor design, which uses uranium and thorium fuel dissolved in molten salt, and these same details are now available on the Thorcon website. At that time, production was expected to start by 2020.

Indonesia Power selected Oregon-based NuScale Power OVS, LLC (NuScale) to carry out the assistance in partnership with a subsidiary of Texas-based Fluor Corporation and Japan’s JGC Corporation. The proposed 462-megawatt facility would utilize NuScale’s SMR technology and advance Indonesia’s clean energy transition.

Westinghouse's heat-pipe reactor theoretically outputs respectable power compared to larger reactors using light water, heavy water, or both, to cool the fission core. To scale this tech down to a form factor that fits on the back of an 18-wheeler trailer is a feat within itself. //

At its core, the eVInci heat pipe microreactor almost resembles a large gas canister more so than it does a mobile power generating station. Inside this large metal cylinder, nuclear fuel rods of particularly high quality are arranged into a compact but powerful fissile core with large metal heat transfer pipes running through the core's center. The fuel in question is known as Tri-structural isotropic particle fuel, or TRISCO for short. It consists of a proprietary blend of Uranium isotopes mixed with carbon and oxygen to form a fuel kernel the size of a poppy seed.

These highly enriched and energy-potent fissile fuel pellets can theoretically remain critical without the need for refueling for up to eight years. At this point, the whole device can be packed into a shipping container and sent back to Westinghouse's facility in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania, for proper disposal of spent nuclear fuel rods. On top of that, Westinghouse reckons it's possible to install an eVinci power station in as little as 30 days. //

a pint-sized fission reactor capable of delivering up to five megawatts of electrical power and up to 13 megawatts of thermal energy out of a system that could fit comfortably inside an average-sized warehouse.

House Republicans retreated to talking points and missed a key opportunity to highlight Biden’s return of ‘sue and settle.’ //

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle shared frustration over the nation’s archaic permitting process Wednesday at a House Natural Resources Committee hearing on energy and minerals. //

Last summer, the Biden administration reintroduced “sue and settle” practices brought to a halt under President Donald Trump. The practice refers to when lefty environmental groups allied with the government position on an issue present a legal challenge to a project and, in turn, voluntarily settle. The preferred policy outcome is implemented as a result under the cover of the courts, and liberal interest groups pocket a lucrative profit from the taxpayer.

“It takes 16 years now to permit a new mine,” Rick Whitbeck, the Alaska director for Power the Future, told The Federalist. “Part of the process — at least from the environmental activists — is to ‘litigate and make them wait,’ where they continuously file legal motions, find a friendly judge, and delay the permitting process.” //

In July, President Joe Biden’s Department of the Interior took an axe to her predecessor’s order and scrubbed the agency website placing settlements and consent decrees in public view.

The move reintroduces a signature feature of the kind of Beltway swamp activity that ushered President Donald Trump into the White House six years ago. Lawmakers, however, remained silent on the reintroduction of “sue and settle” cases despite industry leaders complaining again and again that environmental litigation is crippling the country Wednesday. //

When you look at litigation, it’s really easy to find some analysis in a 5,000 page document that could have been done better. And it’s supposed to be done on the best available information, not waiting years and years for more information to come in or requiring the project proponent to go off and do a science project and come back 10 years later. So I would say constraining it to what the focus is on the impacts on the ground of that project. Not hypothetical impacts 10 years into the future.

Republicans had a prime opportunity to highlight the administrative return of sue and settle. Instead, the hearing was a four-hour regurgitation of talking points on how Biden was bad to shut down the Keystone Pipeline.

When you hear the words “clean energy,” what comes to mind?

Most people immediately think of solar panels or wind turbines, but how many of you thought of nuclear energy?

Nuclear is often left out of the “clean energy” conversation despite it being the second largest source of low-carbon electricity in the world behind hydropower.

So, just how clean and sustainable is nuclear?

Try these quick facts for starters.

1. Nuclear energy protects air quality

According to the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the United States avoided more than 471 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions in 2020. That’s the equivalent of removing 100 million cars from the road and more than all other clean energy sources combined. //

2. Nuclear energy’s land footprint is small

A typical 1,000-megawatt nuclear facility in the United States needs a little more than 1 square mile to operate. NEI says wind farms require 360 times more land area to produce the same amount of electricity and solar photovoltaic plants require 75 times more space.

To put that in perspective, you would need more than 3 million solar panels to produce the same amount of power as a typical commercial reactor or more than 430 wind turbines (capacity factor not included). //

https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/infographic-how-much-power-does-nuclear-reactor-produce

3. Nuclear energy produces minimal waste

All of the used nuclear fuel produced by the U.S. nuclear energy industry over the last 60 years could fit on a football field at a depth of less than 10 yards!

This year, however, Biden has supported growing the production of off-shore wind energy “by a factor of 714 by 2030.”

Yet nowhere in the Biden plan is there mention of its potential environmental hazards. For instance, there seems to be a connection between off-shore wind turbines and recent whale deaths. By disrupting communication between marine animals, noise from the turbines is hazardous to whales, dolphins, and other underwater creatures, according to the federal government’s own research. And environmentalists say that disruption could even be deadly. Yet corporate media are trying to cover for the Biden administration by characterizing these observations as a Republican “conspiracy theory.”

The problems with wind turbines are bigger than the ocean. They’re known to slaughter eagles, disrupt wildlife habitats, and displace bird feeding and nesting areas. A 2013 study found that wind turbines kill an estimated 140,000 to 328,000 birds each year in the U.S. — a number that’s surely higher after another decade of climate-crazed activism. That’s to say nothing of the negative effects wind turbines have on people. //

Yet with all the disastrous effects wind turbines have wrought on both human and animal life, they are no real substitute for coal or nuclear energy. Not only are turbines unreliable as they depend on wind to operate, but they only make up a small fraction of American energy consumption; in 2020, wind and solar production combined accounted for less than 5 percent of total energy consumption. //

“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action. That can’t happen at the expense of some people. Then it is not climate justice,” Thunberg told Reuters.

This time, she’s right. When environmental policy becomes anti-human and anti-nature, it should be resisted.

Using litigation to achieve policy ends has become a tried and true tactic in political and advocacy fights. However, in recent years, climate activists have used the courts as a weapon to attack large energy companies — essentially leveraging the legal system as a proxy to win a war of public opinion. Nowhere is this form of “lawfare” more pronounced than in the raft of climate litigation facing energy producers. //

The counties, cities, and states filing climate lawsuits are not only attempting to pin down fossil fuel producers for alleged harms but also to leverage America’s state and district courts to diminish their standing in the court of public opinion. Leveraging of the judicial system in the name of politics not only threatens the rule of law, but also jeopardizes whether oil and gas will be available when America and its allies need them. //

Energy production provides tangible benefits to all Americans. First, hydrocarbons are central to powering our economy and creating essential products. In fact, the U.S. Department of Energy notes that Americans use at least 6,000 everyday products manufactured with petrochemicals. //

Second, homegrown fossil fuels ensure America’s energy security and reduce our dependence on less reliable and often untrustworthy foreign countries and companies along with their dirtier product and insecure supply chains. Third, and importantly, energy producers are often the ones paving the way for low- and zero-carbon energy solutions through innovating next-generation technology. Climate lawsuits undermine all these goals. //

The ironies here show the goal of these lawsuits is bringing litigation to change behavior, not to uphold the rule of law. In reality, plaintiffs do not have to win in court to succeed. By casting energy producers as villains, they advance the dubious narrative that the companies producing the energy the American economy requires are blocking a low-carbon future. As one journalist explained, climate lawsuits are useful tools for special interests because of the “effect the suits could have even before they’re decided in court.” Such suits do not have to prove any actual wrongdoing or legal violations, as long as the “lawfare” they wage degrades the reputation of energy producers.

Mainspring’s linear generator may speed the transition to a zero-carbon electrical grid. //

The linear generator can quickly switch between different types of green (and not-so-green, if need be) fuel, including biogas, ammonia, and hydrogen. It has the potential to make the decarbonized power system available, reliable, and resilient against the vagaries of weather and of fuel supplies. And it’s not a fantasy; it’s been developed, tested, and deployed commercially. //

It is currently installed at tens of sites, producing 230 to 460 kilowatts at each. We expect linear generators at many more locations to come on line within the next year. //

So rather than mimicking an engine, we designed a new machine that ties the compression and expansion motion directly to the generation of electricity, and in doing so provides the necessary reaction control. This machine ended up looking completely different from—and having almost no parts in common with—a conventional engine. So we felt a new name was needed, and we called it the linear generator.

How the linear generator works
Picture a series of five cylindrical assemblies arranged in a line, held within a boxlike frame. The central tube is the reaction chamber; it’s where the fuel and air go. On either side of it sits a linear electromagnetic machine (LEM) that converts the push from pressure directly into electric power. At each end of the generator is an air-filled cylindrical chamber that acts as a spring to bounce the moving part of the LEM back to the center. The whole arrangement—two air springs, two LEMS, and a reaction chamber—forms a linear generator core. It’s long and skinny: A machine rated at 115 kW is about 5.5 meters long and about 1 meter high and wide.

The LEM, in principle, is an electric motor that has been unrolled to form a line instead of a circle. It consists of a moving part—the translator—and a stationary part—the stator. //

One real-world example of the system working this way pairs our generators with a 3.3-megawatt rooftop solar array. When the sun is shining, our generators turn off, and when the sun goes down or goes behind a cloud, our generators automatically turn on within seconds, immediately providing precisely as much power as the building requires.

Nuclear energy has fallen off the radar screen since September, when the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant finally shut down. But Ukraine’s reliance on the three nuclear plants still operating—as well as their vulnerability—has never been higher. //

Keeping reactors fueled may pose an even bigger challenge. Ukraine is running short of fresh fuel, which must be swapped in in every 12 months. Meanwhile, spent fuel backing up at the plants is complicating those swaps. //

Ukraine and most other European countries with Russian-design reactors use fuel from the Moscow-based nuclear-energy giant Rosatom. Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric is their only alternative fuel supplier, and demand far outstrips its supply.

Plans for the first U.S. small modular nuclear power reactor got a boost on Tuesday as some Western U.S. cities vowed to continue with the NuScale Power Corp (SMR.N) project despite a jump in projected costs.

NuScale plans to build a demonstration small modular reactor (SMR) power plant at the Idaho National Laboratory. If successful, the six-reactor, 462 megawatt Carbon Free Power Project will run in 2030.

NuScale said in January the target price for power from the plant is $89 per megawatt hour, up 53% from the previous estimate of $58 per MWh, a jump that raised concerns about whether customers would be willing to pay for the power it generates.

But the consortium of cities in Utah, Idaho, New Mexico and Nevada called Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, or UAMPS, greenlighted the project's budget and finance plan with 26 of 27 approving.

Q: Can thorium end the energy crisis?

Asked 11 years, 8 months ago

It seems that, as of lately thorium is steadily increasing in popularity, as an alternative to traditional nuclear fuels. Here's Mr. Kirk Sorensen in a TED video advocating the use of thorium. Thorium even has a nice, green website, among other resources expounding on how awesome it is.

The general picture projected by thorium advocates is that it is very much like a silver bullet for the energy crisis. This sounds wonderful, but also too good to be true. If it's as good as they say, how come thorium reactors are not common ? Surely it has disadvantages as well ?

A:

A short summary of what I understand are the key points in Kirk Sorenson's presentations. He is very good at providing sources for all his claims, so I won't repeat most of them here.

Nuclear power is essential for reducing pollution, including atmospheric CO2. This is based on its energy density (up to 6 orders of magnitude).[1]

Thorium is far more plentiful than uranium[2], and does not need to be enriched to be used as a nuclear fuel. Thorium is not fissile like Uranium-235, but it is fertile: if it is exposed to neutrons it becomes fissile in the form of U-233.

A Molten Salt Reactor, like the one demonstrated at Oak Ridge in the late 1960s, is inherently safe, and more efficient than Pressurized Water Reactors.

With a source of cheap and plentiful electricity, we could synthesize fuel usable in conventional vehicles at reasonable cost (comparable to or cheaper than present prices). These fuels would be nearly carbon-neutral because they would be synthesized using atmospheric CO2. Dimethyl ether is one suggestion as a direct substitute for diesel fuel.

Based on those points, Thorium is a very good candidate to end the "artificial energy crisis". [3]

Suggested resources:

• http://www.thoriumenergycheaperthancoal.com/
• http://www.daretothink.org/how-big-is-that-thorium-ball/
• http://www.daretothink.org/numbers-not-adjectives/lets-produce-a-gwye/

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20220523032927/https://cdn.nanalyze.com/uploads/2021/03/energy-density-of-fuel-sources.jpg

[2] http://www.daretothink.org/numbers-not-adjectives/how-long-will-our-supplies-of-uranium-and-thorium-last/

[3] http://www.daretothink.org/shortest-intro-to-molten-salt-the-thorium-reactor/

On the 50th Anniversary of the Endangered Species Act, green groups throw their once-sacred "precautionary principle" to the wind. //

Since the passage of the 1973 Endangered Species Act, environmentalists have fought for strict protections for endangered species. They have demanded that the government apply what is known as the “precautionary principle,” which states that if there is any risk that a human activity will make a species extinct, it should be illegal.

And yet here we are, on the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act, watching the whole of the environmental movement — from the Audubon Society and the National Wildlife Federation to scientific groups like the Woods Hole Institute, New England Aquarium, and Mystic Aquarium — betray the precautionary principle by risking the extinction of the North Atlantic right whale.

The cause of this environmental betrayal is massive industrial wind energy projects off the East Coast of the U.S. The wind turbine blades are the length of a football field. Sitting atop giant poles they will reach three times higher than the Statue of Liberty. The towers will be directly inside critical ocean habitat for the North Atlantic right whale.

There are only 340 of the whales left, down from 348 just one year earlier. So many North Atlantic right whales are killed by man-made factors that there have been no documented cases of any of them dying of natural causes in decades. Their average life expectancy has declined from a century to 45 years. A single additional unnatural and unnecessary death could risk the loss of the entire species. //

North Atlantic right whale population declined from 480 to 340 whales between 2010 and 2022

Is the net output of CO₂ from Nuclear Energy lower than the net output of other energy sources?

A:

• Low range estimate: 1.4 g CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hr
• Mean estimate: 66 g CO2 equivalent per kWh
• High range estimate: 288 g CO2 equivalent per kWh

This is from a metastudy of 103 studies

You can access the full text from this page on the Nuclear Information and Resource Service

Here is a link to the PDF: Sovacool, B. K. 2008. Valuing the greenhouse gas emissions from nuclear power: A critical survey. Energy Policy v. 36 (8): 2950-2963.

For comparison, a natural gas-fired power plant might emit 515.29 g CO2 per kWh (per wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_power_station#Carbon_dioxide; (conversion to metric mine & therefore mistakes are as well.) Coal and Oil-fired plants will emit more CO2 than a natural gas plant.

ETA: After more thorough checking, confirmed the neighborhood for CO2 equivalents emitted throughout the life cycle for natural gas and coal plants from Jarmillo et al. "Comparative Life-Cycle Air Emissions of Coal, Domestic Natural Gas, LNG, and SNG for Electricity Generation" in Environmental Science and Technology from 2007, link: http://www.ce.cmu.edu/~gdrg/readings/2007/09/13/Jaramillo_ComparativeLCACoalNG.pdf Natural Gas midpoint: 499 g CO2 equivalent per kWh Coal midpoint: 953 g CO2 equivalent per kWh These are close enough to the wikipedia figures (although not exactly the same) that it appears wiki is also using the lifecycle emissions. Again, the conversion to metric is mine & etc.

A lot of science and policy work treats nuclear power as having 0 CO2 emissions, but that's not quite true, and especially is less true if the higher emissions numbers are more correct. //

• I'm not sure "maximum" and "high estimate" are meant to refer to the same concept. Anyway, please take notice that nowadays gaseous diffusion is not used anymore. Lowering worst estimates by around 60-70 g/CO2 – mirh Apr 28, 2017 at 12:41
• The study cited above is Benjamin Sovacool's now (in)famous meta study. Sovacool is an ardent opponent to nuclear power and this study has been severely criticized. First: it does not include 103 studies, because the majority of those were discarded. The actual number is about 20. Second... of these 20, van Leeuwen & Smith's wildly inaccurate study is included 3 times directly and 1 time indirectly. van Leeuwen & Smith have been even more criticized for missing the goal wildly, peer review finding them to be off the mark up to 8000%. – MichaelK Oct 27, 2017 at 11:09 //

Answer: Yes, lower than combustion based sources like coal, oil, and gas. Not lower than renewable sources like solar and hydro.

National Renewable Energy Laboratory performed a similar study to that posted by @FlyingSquidwithGoggles. This might be a less biased source (NIRS page header says "Nuclear Power: No Solution to Climate Change" and contains much anti-nuke literature).

After screening articles by their criteria, they ended up with ~300 article inputs to the data, and ~1000 data points total.

Here are some of the figures listed by source: (Min, Median, Max)(in g CO2/kWh).

• Hydro: 0, 4, 43
• Solar: 5-7, 22-46, 89-217
• Nuclear: 1, 16, 220
• Nat Gas: 290, 469, 930
• Coal: 675, 1001, 1689

Source: "Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change"