Together for climate protection

Nuclear power plants are essential in the fight against climate change.

Nuclear power generation is one of the least carbon-intensive forms of energy production, meaning it produces electricity without emitting greenhouse gases (typically carbon dioxide) into the air.


This is important in the fight against global warming.

Paks II. will save more (17 million tons) of carbon dioxide alone than the entire domestic transport sector (12 million tons) of carbon dioxide emissions. The 17 million tons of harmful substances saved are almost three times the amount that Hungary's forested areas can absorb annually (6 million tons/year).

Carbon footprint

One measure used to “quantify” the impact of human activity on the environment is the carbon footprint, which shows how much greenhouse gas emissions a given activity has generated over a given period of time.

Nuclear power plants, like solar, wind and hydroelectric power plants, do not emit carbon dioxide during operation, making them important tools in the fight against climate change.

In the case of power plants, not only these direct emissions are taken into account, but also the entire life cycle, from the time the concrete has to be produced and the construction materials have to be transported to the site, until the facility has to be decommissioned.

According to data from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the European Union Joint Research Centre, taking into account the entire life cycle, per one kilowatt-hour of electricity produced

  • the carbon footprint of gas and coal power plants is 500-1000 gramms 
  • the carbon footprint of solar power plants is 40-48 gramms,
  • while that of wind and nuclear power plants is 12 gramms.

The analysis of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is therefore clear: the carbon footprint of nuclear power plants projected over the entire life cycle is the same as that of wind power plants. This is a more favourable figure than that of solar power plants!

In addition, nuclear energy has the lowest raw material requirements, well ahead of solar and wind power plants.


This is because nuclear power plants have a planned operating lifetime of at least 60 years, with a very high load factor of over 90 percent. In contrast, solar and wind power plants have a maximum of 20-25 years. The load factor of solar power plants is 10-20 percent, and for onshore wind power plants this figure ranges from 15-35 percent.

Nuclear energy is at least equivalent to renewables in almost all indicators, and in many ways, such as its availability, it is much better than them.

Based on research from numerous independent scientific institutes, in 2022 the European Parliament also qualified nuclear energy as a sustainable energy source.