Vol. 16 No. 33 (2021)

Artículos

Economic and environmental benefits of nuclear energy

Published 2026-03-27 — Updated on 2021-06-21

  • David Juárez-Luna

David Juárez-Luna
Universidad Anáhuac image/svg+xml

Abstract

The objective of this article is to evaluate the economic and environmental benefits of nuclear energy. To do so, we calculate the efficient participation of nuclear energy in portfolios of three base loading technologies. In this way, the economic and environmental benefits of nuclear energy are obtained by comparing its efficient participation, with its participation in the current national portfolio. The analysis suggests that the participation of the nuclear power plant should increase in a range from 284% to 810%. Which implies a reduction of the Total Levelized Cost of Generation with Externalities (CTNGE, in Spanish) of the portfolio between $4.06 and $15.34; a significant reduction in CO2 emissions, and; a participation of Clean Energies in the Mexican national electricity generation that ranges from 35.39% to 58.01%. There are several limitations to the increase in the participation of the nuclear power plant, mainly technical, such as construction time of a nuclear power plant.

Keywords

nuclear energy, CO2 emissions, generation, electricity, efficient portfolios

PDF (Spanish)

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