Nuclear Power and Its Role in CO₂ Emissions from the Electricity Generation Sector in Iran

Abstract

Electricity demand in the Islamic Republic of Iran will continue to increase dramatically in the future due to the rapid pace of economic development leading to construction of new power plants. All forms of electricity generation have some level of environmental impact, such as air pollution, water resource use, water discharge, solid waste generation, and land resource use, and greenhouse gas emission. Concerns about greenhouse gas emissions affect decision-making about construction of new power plants. Comparison of different kinds of power plants indicates that nuclear power is not directly emitting greenhouse gas emissions. So nuclear power plants could be a suitable replacement for thermal power plants. Of course, renewable power plants could be used too, but the capacity of nuclear power plants is almost more than renewable power plants. Power plants in Iran are mainly thermal, burning fossil fuels, which emit a great deal of pollutants and greenhouse gases. The only nuclear power plant of Iran (Bushehr nuclear power plant) will be operating in 2009. This article attempts to interpret the role of Bushehr nuclear power plant in the CO₂ emission trend of the power plant sector in Iran.

Keywords:

• climate change
• CO₂ emission
• electricity generation
• emission
• greenhouse gas
• nuclear power plant

Notes

¹Energy sector in Iran means energy consumers sector, which includes the household and commercial sector, transport sector, industry sector, refinery sector, and agriculture sector.

²At the time of preparing this article, the last official statistical report of the energy sector and GHG emissions in Iran was in 2007. Thus, the data used in this article is for a 40-year period from 1968 to 2007.

^aBushehr Nuclear Power Plant.