For all the obvious ecological downsides of nuclear power - catastrophic meltdowns, waste that will be toxifying our water table until the sun explodes, giant mutant swamp monsters etc. - it's always had at least one thing going for it. Unlike coal, gas, or oil power stations, nuclear plants don't produce planet-warming greenhouse gases.
Now a new study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology says nukes may lose even that advantage. A group of Australian researchers have calculated that the greenhouse gases emitted from the nuclear power process will rise substantially in the future.
Nuclear power, of course, requires uranium as fuel. As high-grade uranium gets scarcer, locating and mining it will become more energy intensive, with companies digging deeper to find the metal, refining more ore in order to produce it, and producing more pollution in the process.
As with gas and oil, we'll also eventually run out of uranium, although estimates of when that will happen vary widely. Really, who thought this was a good idea in the first place?
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