The Role of Nuclear Power in the Reduction of Environmental Pollutants and Climate Changes Compared to other Power Plants in Iran

Up to now, many studies have been conducted to investigate the role of nuclear energy in reducing environmental costs and climate changes considering the different economic models and energy scenarios in different countries. However, to best of our knowledge, there is no report on this subject in Iran. This study presents a model based on dynamic programming which compares the environmental costs of nuclear power plants with other power plants such as fossil, renewable, gas, steam and combined cycle plants. This model evaluates the impact of external costs in the future planning of electrical energy and by considering baseline and nuclear scenarios, impact studies of external costs are performed. In order to verify the proposed model, the results were compared with the available data and MESSAGE results, and the accuracy of this model was proved. According to this research, nuclear power is an effective strategy for reducing environmental pollution in the future.