Life Cycle Assessment of Climate Change Impact of Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant

Power generation by fossil fuels causes environmental pollution especially greenhouse gases (GHGs). Although nuclear power is known as a no-GHG technology, but there is GHG emission in life cycle of nuclear power plant. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a “cradle to grave” approach for assessing different systems, which could assess all environmental impacts in life cycle of a process. Therefore In order to assessing GHG emission of Bushehr nuclear power plant, LCA is a useful tool. In environmental impacts classification by LCA, “climate change” is an impact class. The method for characterization of climate change is “GWP100”. Results of LCA of Bushehr nuclear power plant indicate that NOx and CO2 emissions have the most important impacts in life cycle of Bushehr power plant.