Analysis and Assessment of the Significance of Nuclear Energy in the Context of Sustainable Development

Global climate change calls for deep structural changes in both energy production and consumption. The issue of climate change affects multiple sectors, particularly ob-served in energy, industry, transport, and residential buildings. Greenhouse gases re-main a key driver of global warming. This report examines Bulgaria’s electricity mix and explores pathways for its emission factor mitigation. An approach for nuclear technologies relevance assessment is applied in order to be evaluated an optimal elec-tricity mix and percentage share of low-emission alternative technologies for electrici-ty production. To assess the applicability of different types of technologies is used the I = PAT equation, where variables are emissions (I), population (P), electricity consump-tion per capita (A) and grid emission factor (T). Scenarios model a gradual phaseout of fossil fuel based electricity generation, compensated by increases in renewable and nuclear capacity renewable and nuclear capacity. The lowest grid emission factor is observed in the scenario with the highest percentage share of nuclear power in the mix, in which 70% of the electricity is produced by nuclear plants and the rest is pro-duced by renewable energy sources. In this scenario, the emission factor decreases to 0,01 tCO2-eq/MWh compared to 0,622 tCO2-eq/MWh in scenario, which considers the production mix in the country for the period 2010-2022. The scenario in which the produced electricity is entirely from renewables, shows a higher value for the emission factor of the grid compared to the scenarios with the inclusion of NPP in the genera-tion mix, but with the exclusion of fossil fuel-fired power plants.