Lifecycle emissions is exactly what I was talking about (although I didn’t use that term in the post). The main thrust of the post was that the “zero-emissions” claim on nuclear power is incorrect – nuclear will incur an emissions “cost” not only during construction but through its operating life as part of processing its fuel.

Its true that “traditional” renewable sources like wind and solar incur an initial emissions cost too, accounting for construction. Some studies, such as the one you quote, have indeed found that the end-lifecycle emissions (typically in grams of CO2/kwH) are comparable.

But there is a big divergence in numbers in different studies (ain’t it always the way!). A Swedish study (Environmental Inventories for Energy Systems, Final Report, Institute of Energy Technology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) found that nuclear incurred a lifecycle cost of 39.1 g CO2/kwH – 4 to 8 times more than wind’s cost of between to 5-10g/kwH.

In my opinion, nuclear is definitely better than coal, at least in terms of emissions. But renewable sources are better again, and don’t suffer from the same waste issues, or proliferation issues.

http://www.nei.org/keyissues/protectingtheenvironment/lifecycleemissionsanalysis/