Modeling of CO2 Emissions and Uranium Resources
Last updated: December 8, 2010
Author
Hermann von Brevern
Carl-Friedrich von Weizsäcker Centre for Science and Peace Research, University of Hamburg
Published by Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security (ACDIS), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
ACDIS Research Report series
December 2010
Full text [PDF]Summary
One of the features of our rapidly changing society is its increasing hunger for energy. Viewed in this perspective, global climate change is one of the biggest challenges for humankind. The difficulty will be how to meet the needs for energy services, while simultaneously combating the emission of Green House Gases, given that these emissions cannot be cut abruptly. Based on the work of Singer and Rethinaraj, this thesis presents enhancements to the LOGICAL model and uses this to forecast development in population, gross domestic product, energy consumption, and carbon emissions. These forecasts are then used to explain and model a budget approach (in analogy with the work of Messner et. al.) to mitigating global climate change. An important difference from Messner et. al. is the assumption of 3.5 degrees Celsius instead of 2 degrees Celsius as guardrail.A great number of technologies have been put forward to reduce the carbon intensity of energy production. The present work focuses on nuclear energy from two different viewpoints. First, the question of sustainability of uranium resources is analyzed with the result that more than enough uranium ore is available to satisfy demand for more than a century. Alternate sources such as reprocessing, or extraction from seawater will stay economically unattractive. Second, an analysis of the carbon intensity of nuclear energy production (which is of course not zero), leads to the conclusion that this intensity is small compared to fossil fuels. Just how much smaller, depends on the energy sources for the remainder of the electric grid. Results range from 32gCO2 e/kWh in a de-carbonized environment to 65gCO2e/kWh if the grid is dominated by coal-fired power plants.