Reduction of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions is advocated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. To achieve this target, countries have opted for renewable energy sources, primarily wind and solar. | Why nuclear energy is essential to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission rates EPJ Nuclear Sci. Technol. 1 3 2015 Nuclear Sciences A. Alonso et al. published by EDP Sciences 2015 amp Technologies DOI epjn e2015-50027-y Available online at http REGULAR ARTICLE Why nuclear energy is essential to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission rates Agustin Alonso1 Barry W. Brook2 Daniel A. Meneley3 Jozef Misak4 Tom Blees5 and Jan B. van Erp6 1 University Politecnica de Madrid Madrid Spain 2 University of Tasmania Hobart TAS 7005 Australia 3 CEI and AECL Ontario Canada 4 UJV-Rez Prague Czech Republic 5 Science Council for Global Initiatives Chicago Il USA 6 Illinois Commission on Atomic Energy Chicago Il USA Received 6 May 2015 Accepted 8 September 2015 Published online 27 November 2015 Abstract. Reduction of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions is advocated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. To achieve this target countries have opted for renewable energy sources primarily wind and solar. These renewables will be unable to supply the needed large quantities of energy to run industrial societies sustainably economically and reliably because they are inherently intermittent depending on flexible backup power or on energy storage for delivery of base-load quantities of electrical energy. The backup power is derived in most cases from combustion of natural gas. Intermittent energy sources if used in this way do not meet the requirements of sustainability nor are they economically viable because they require redundant under- utilized investment in capacity both for generation and for transmission. Because methane is a potent greenhouse gas the equivalent carbon dioxide value of methane may cause gas-fired stations to emit more greenhouse gas than coal-fired plants of the same power for currently reported leakage rates of the natural gas. Likewise intermittent wind solar photovoltaic systems backed up by gas-fired power plants also
