Life Cycle Assessment of the Epr: the Impact of Different Fuel Cycle Strategies

Using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology this paper analyses andcompares the complete fuel cycles of current (Gen II) and future (Gen III) nuclearreactor operations in order to determine the contributions to greenhouse gas(GHG) emissions from the individual stages of the nuclear energy chains. Theresearch focused on electricity generated by European Pressurised Reactors(EPR), here assumed representative of a Gen III technology, located in bothSwitzerland and France in the year 2030. These are compared to electricity fromcurrent Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) technology in Switzerland as well as arange of future fossil and renewable generating systems. The three nuclear plantsoperate under different fuel cycle strategies which provide diverse opportunities forcomparison. The LCA shows a reduction of GHG emissions by 25% for the EPR inSwitzerland in 2030 compared to the current PWR cycle which emits just below6g(CO2-eq)/kWh. Due in part to differences in cooling technologies which affectoutput capacities the French EPR is expected to achieve marginally betterreductions of almost 30%. Over half of the reductions from 2005 to 2030 areattributable to the EPR’s higher generation capacity over a longer lifetime whichimplies a lower material intensity. This is further assisted by a higher burn-up of thefuel as well as marginally higher thermal conversion efficiency. The differentstrategies result in only small overall variations in GHG emissions between theassessed EPR cycles. In general, the nuclear scenarios show very good GHGemission performance compared to the non-nuclear technologies used in thecomparison, which represent advanced future concepts for both centralised anddispersed electricity generation.