Areva - Reference Document 2016
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BUSINESS OVERVIEW
6.1 Markets for nuclear power and renewable energies
6.1.1.2. NUCLEAR ENERGY Nuclear power offers many advantages on the environmental, economic, strategic and operational levels: p it creates significant added value locally as well as a large number of highly qualified jobs that cannot be delocalized; p it is competitive compared with other sources of baseload electricity; p it offers stable production costs with less uncertainty concerning the price of the electricity produced; p it ensures security of supply: nuclear fuel is easy to store and uranium resources are well distributed around the world, unlike oil and gas reserves, which are concentrated in Russia and the Middle East; p it is a solution for limiting trade deficits for countries that import fossil energies, and it preserves the reserves of exporting countries by limiting their domestic use; p it offers heightened operational and safety performance, particularly with the new generation III reactors developed by AREVA, the EPR and ATMEA1 reactors (1) . Nuclear power helps combat climate change Nuclear power is already making a strong contribution to the fight against climate change. The figure below shows that greenhouse gas emissions from nuclear power are as low as those from renewable energies. p it helps combat climate change;
WORLD ELECTRIC POWER GENERATION IN 2014
6% Renewable energy
16% Hydraulic
11% Nuclear
41% Coal
4% Oil
22% Gas
Source: IEA,WEO 2016.
GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS (GHG) BY POWER GENERATION SOURCE ACROSS THE ENTIRE OPERATING CYCLE
kg CO
eq/MWh
2
1,000
800
600
400
200
0
Coal
Wind
Nuclear
Biomass
Solar PV
Hydraulic
Solar CSP
Natural Gas
Marine energy
Geothermal energy
Source: IPCC, literature review, 2014.
(1) The ATMEA1 reactor is being developed in collaboration with Mitsubishi Heavy Industry.
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2016 AREVA REFERENCE DOCUMENT
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