The impact of uranium ore grade on the greenhouse gas footprint of nuclear power T. Norgate, N. Haque * , P. Koltun CSIRO Minerals Down Under Flagship, Box 312, Clayton South, Victoria 3169, Australia article info Article history: Received 14 August 2013 Received in revised form 31 October 2013 Accepted 8 November 2013 Available online xxx Keywords: Nuclear power Greenhouse gas Ore grade Uranium resources Demand Future projections abstract A life cycle assessment of nuclear power production based on the uranium nuclear fuel cycle has been carried out, with greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as the environmental impact of interest. The study focussed mainly on the once-through cycle with current technologies. The present life cycle-based GHG emissions of nuclear power production for a uranium ore grade of 0.15% U 3 O 8 was estimated to be in the order of 34 kg CO 2 e/MWh, which is significantly less than for fossil fuel-based electricity. However, expected falls in uranium ore grade over time will narrow this gap due to the additional amount of ore that must be mined and processed in order to extract the same amount of uranium. This effect of ura- nium ore grade was examined in some detail, with the greenhouse gas footprint increasing to 60 kg CO 2 e/MWh when the ore grade falls from 0.15% to 0.01% U 3 O 8 . Projections indicate that the average ore grade of the world’s uranium resources will fall to this level in about 50 years. Should the contribution of nuclear power to global electricity generation increase significantly beyond that expected over this period, these lower ore grades and associated higher greenhouse gas footprint would be reached much sooner. While the impact of new and improved technologies anticipated in the future in the various stages of the nuclear fuel cycle will help offset the effect of falling uranium ore grades in the near to medium term, the long-term future of nuclear power as a low greenhouse gas source of electrical power would appear to be strongly dependent on the widespread deployment of fast breeder reactors which will significantly increase the lifespan of current uranium resources. However, extrapolating results based on current resource and ore grade data into the future is fraught with uncertainties, and is done here to give indicative rather than definitive values for future uranium ore grades and the likely impact on the GHG footprint of nuclear power. Crown Copyright Ó 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Nuclear power currently accounts for about 11% (2346 TW h) of the world’s electricity production in 2013 e falling from about 13% in 2011 e ranging from 75% in France, 19% in the United States,16% in Germany,15% in Canada, 2% in Japan, to zero in many countries, including Australia (WNA, 2013a). Worldwide, there were 432 nuclear reactors in operation in mid-2013, with 68 reactors under construction. A further 478 nuclear reactors were planned and proposed in mid-2013, with 171 in China (WNA, 2013a). Current world nuclear generating capacity is in the order of 375 GW e (IAEA, 2011) and is predicted to increase at an average annual growth rate of 1.9% to about 580 GW e in 2035 (IEA, 2012a). Global electricity generation is projected to increase to 36,600 TWh in 2035 with nuclear power predicted to contribute about 12% to this total, not dissimilar to today’s level. Fig. 1 shows the projected world nuclear electricity supply to 2050 based on the above growth rate. There is growing international concern about global climate change primarily caused by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions resulting from the burning of fossil fuels. Electricity production is a significant contributor to these anthropological GHG emissions, accounting for about 41% of total emissions globally (IEA, 2012b), and about 37% in Australia (Australian National Greenhouse Accounts, 2013). Nuclear power has been proposed as a GHG-free alternative to fossil fuelebased electricity. Although nuclear po- wer is often claimed to GHG-free, various studies have shown that on a life cycle basis this is not the case, due to the GHG emissions during the upstream processing required to produce the uranium fuel. In spite of these findings, conflicting arguments are often re- ported in the literature and media as to the GHG status of nuclear * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ61 (0)3 9545 8931; fax: þ61 (0)3 9562 8919. E-mail address: nawshad.haque@csiro.au (N. Haque). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro 0959-6526/$ e see front matter Crown Copyright Ó 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.11.034 Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2013) 1e8 Please cite this article in press as: Norgate, T., et al., The impact of uranium ore grade on the greenhouse gas footprint of nuclear power, Journal of Cleaner Production (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.11.034