Environment
Our Local & Global Environment
A Commitment to Today and Tomorrow
According to the U.S. Department of Energy and the Energy Information Administration report Voluntary Reporting of Greenhouse Gases 1997 (published June 1, 1999), the single most effective emission control strategy for utilities was to increase nuclear generation.
Nuclear energy accounted for about 72% of U.S. emission-free generation in 2000. The total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions increased from the 1990 baseline of 1,641 million metric tons of carbon equivalent to 1,832 tons in 1999.
Nuclear generated electricity avoids on average 155 million metric tons of carbon equivalent per year in the U.S. This figure is equal to the amount of reductions needed to achieve the 1990 levels agreed to in the United Nations Climate Change Treaty signed in Rio de Janiero in 1992. Worldwide nuclear energy avoids on average the emission of 550 million tons of carbon per year.
Without the emission avoidances from nuclear generation, required reductions in the U.S. would increase by more than 50 percent to achieve targets under the Kyoto Protocol.
Nuclear generation avoids 2.4 million tons of nitrogen oxide and 5.1 million tons of sulfur dioxide annually in the U.S.
Increased nuclear capacity and improved efficiency at nuclear power plants since 1993 represents one-half of voluntary carbon reductions from U.S. industries.
In the U.S. Acid Rain program, 21 states showed between 1990-95 a 16.4 percent increase of nuclear generation that avoided 480,000 tons of sulfur dioxide (37 percent of the required emissions reduction). Under the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, no credit was allocated to the nuclear plants. But, based on the average value of publicly traded sulfur dioxide credits, this contribution would have been worth about $50 million.
Source: NEI's Clean Air Report
THE LOCAL ENVIRONMENT
To replace the 2,000 megawatts from Indian Point will require a fleet of new power plants and/or transmission lines strewn throughout the region.
THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
According to the U.S. Department of Energy and the Energy Information Administration report Voluntary Reporting of Greenhouse Gases 1997, the single most effective emission control strategy for utilities was to increase nuclear generation.