The Day's editorial, "Cooling towers, the unreasonable option," (Sept. 29), includes the oft-made claim that nuclear plants (in this example the Millstone facility), produce no greenhouse gases.

But accounting only the generation stage of the total nuclear fuel cycle ignores substantial greenhouse gas emissions associated with ore mining, transportation and processing, isotope enrichment, and in the final stage spent fuel storage (and fuel reprocessing in some global regions).

In addition there is major contribution of carbon dioxide attributable to the fabrication of plant components and final construction.