The lifecycle carbon footprint of the electricity production at Olkiluoto is low
The carbon footprint of electricity produced at the three nuclear power plant units at Olkiluoto
is 9.1 g CO2e/kWh. That is less than one tenth of the 100 g CO2e/kWh threshold value defined for climate-friendliness*.
The calculation of the carbon footprint covers the entire life cycle of nuclear power from uranium mining to the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel and the decommissioning of plant units. If the transmission of electricity, i.e., the Finnish national grid, is also included, the carbon footprint is 13.8 g CO2e/kWh.
The carbon footprint was calculated for the year 2022 production. At that time, the Olkiluoto 3 plant unit was still undergoing the test production phase. This means that moving forward, the carbon footprint is expected to decrease further when the full production year of OL3 is taken into account in the calculation.
The carbon footprint calculation has been critically reviewed by a third party:
TVO_verification_report_AFRY_140224_approved_LS_RAn.pdf (pdf, 84.6 kt)
You can learn more about carbon footprint calculation from the attached file:
Background Report of the Carbon Footprint of Nuclear Energy Production.pdf (pdf, 285.2 kt)
*the treshold defined in EU taxonomy. The carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) describes the combined global warming potential of different greenhouse gas emissions. Different greenhouse gases have different global warming potentials (GWPs). Read more from here for example: https://www.openco2.net/en/co2-information