Where can investors who worry about climate change put their pension?

[OKIsItJustMe]

16. “I would venture to guess a nuclear plant pays back invested carbon in the first week of operation.”

You would be quite mistaken.

http://www.bnl.gov/pv/files/pdf/abs_200.pdf

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Greenhouse-gas Emissions from Solar Electric- and Nuclear Power: A Life-cycle Study[/font]

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[font size=4]CONCLUDING REMARKS[/font]

[font size=3]An evaluation of alternative energy technologies for their potential to decrease GHG emissions requires careful analyses of all the stages in the life of the fuels and devices. Quantifying such emissions in both present-day and prospective contexts is paramount for comparing the environmental profiles of different electricity-generation options. GHG emissions in the lifecycles of solar electric- and nuclear-fuel- technologies vary, depending on the efficiencies of upstream energy, local conditions, and other assumptions. Previous studies showing nuclear technology to have a clear GHG advantage over PV are greatly outdated; while both life cycles were described by old data, the problem is especially pertinent to the fast evolving PV industry. The emissions from the life-cycles of the two cycles are comparable under today’s average U.S. conditions. Established trends in the PV cycle are expected to keep further reducing emissions in the solar-electric cycle, while planned centrifugal fuel enrichment will significantly reduce GHG emissions in the U.S. nuclear cycle after 2015. However, the estimates associated with the latter bear large parametrical- and methodological- uncertainties that can be reduced only with detailed and all-inclusive process-based analysis. In addition, estimates based on concepts (e.g., re-conversion) and untested stages (e.g., Yucca Mountain permanent repository) need to be examined in greater detail.

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