ANALYZING THE IMPACT OF NUCLEAR RETIREMENT ON CARBON EMISSIONS

Abstract

Decreased economic competitiveness and increased safety concerns of nuclear power plants with the introduction of renewable energy have led to decisions to retire nuclear plants earlier than licensed. Though not renewable, nuclear power enjoys the advantage of low-carbon emission and early retirement of nuclear power may exacerbate the existing environmental crisis. The knowledge of retirement impact in terms of emissions informs the planning of decision-makers and provides accessible knowledge to the public. The study explores the impact on carbon emission with both a multivariate linear regression model and a comprehensive energy model under different future scenarios of natural gas prices and retirement rates. Differences in the systems are calculated as changes in total system cost and emissions. Results indicate that early retirements lead to variations in cost and emission with specific respective to scenarios, but the differences are minuscule in scale compared with the business-as-usual scenario.