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Nuclear Power

Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Environmental Impact

Rodney C. Ewing^a1

^a1 University of Michigan, USA

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.

Rodney C. Ewing can be reached at University of Michigan, Department of Geological Sciences, 1100 N. University Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48109–1005, USA; tel. 734–763–9295, fax 734–647–5706, and e-mail rodewing@umich.edu.

Ewing is the Donald R. Peacor Collegiate Professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Michigan. He also is a professor in the Departments of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences and Materials Science and Engineering. Ewing's research interests focus on radiation effects in minerals, ion beam modifcation of materials, and the crystal-chemistry of actinide minerals and compounds. He is past president of the Mineralogical Society of America and the International Union of Materials Research Societies. Ewing has written extensively on issues related to nuclear waste management and is a co-editor of Radioactive Waste Forms for the Future (1988) and Uncertainty Underground (2006). He has received the Dana Medal of the Mineralogical Society of America and the Lomonosov Medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences.