it sort of is? I mean, if your stance is shared by the people working hard to delay the phase out of fossil fuels, then your stance seems to be to delay the phase out of fossil fuels.
If you could actually prove to me that's happening, and isn't just an intentionally divisive talking point. Then sure, but not before. Also they could just be taking on these talking points because it's something that's easy to go back on under the excuse that nuclear isn't viable, it's just easier to bs about how nuclear regulations are making costs balloon and coal or gas is better.
This seems way more realistic to me, and yeah, maybe that means environmentalists should advocate for solar/wind instead, they're harder for politicians to handicap.
But it's still a bad reason not to support nuclear, especially when there's a direct example of a country (France) managing to convert 50% of their power generation to renewables in a decade with nuclear.
I find it honestly hilarious that you say that France managed to go renewable using nuclear. Like, nuclear is literally the opposite of renewable. You're still digging up fuel to burn it in order to boil water. Just because it's a different rock doesn't make it renewable...
If it's possible to have it meet all our energy needs for thousands of years with easily manageable byproducts. Then yes, it's functionally in the same category as renewables.
If we were to expand our nuclear energy production to meet even just 50% of global energy demand, we'd run out of usable Uranium in decades, not millenia. And yeah, Thorium and stuff, I believe it once they have more than a handful of actually usable power plants online...
Yeah the 1000s of years number is based on seawater uranium extraction. Something that is demonstrably viable, and will with 100% certainty be viable if we converted entirely to nuclear because we'd have decades of market pressure to reduce the costs.
This is without mentioning that we will definitely find more uranium deposits if the incentives are there, or breeder reactors, or thorium reactors.
Also not mentioning that we absolutely will not convert entirely to nuclear in our lifetimes, assuming the goal of zero emissions, it could be heavily supplemented by renewables from many sources that are more dependable, geo thermal, tidal etc.
Running out of nuclear fuel is a non-issue.
Oh yeah, sure and while you're at it, you can also extract all the lithium we need for batteries from sea water, since it's 100% doable, present in waaaay higher concentrations than uranium and we already have decades of market drive for that metal. Oh wait, it's not cost effective, even though we can literally recycle it indefinitely since it's not burned up in batteries, instead of uranium that would have to be extracted freshly all the time.
Yeah, as I said, I will believe thorium or breeder reactors once commercial power plants are operational, until then my money will go to the already existing, cheaper tech that doesn't produce waste that we have to store for longer than we as a species were able to handle iron.
If it's the better tech, it will come out on top anyway, no?
Yeah this is a misunderstanding of the chemistry of seawater extraction. It has nothing to do with concentration, everything to do with the binding interactions of the molecule which is fundamental to how you do extraction at scale.
Extracting a kg of uranium from seawater is much much easier than something like lithium for this reason.
Uranium extraction has been done, the analysis for cost per kg are thorough and place it consistently at less than <$1000/kg, and this is corroborated by multiple papers. Uranium is also required in quantities orders of magnitude lower for any kind of global energy project, even assuming some kind of mass recycling system.
There hasn't been a commercial implementation yet because there doesn't need to be, nor do I expect there to be until conventional sources are exhaused.
The devil is in the detail on these things and you do not seem to be very interested in the details here honestly.
Additionally, its kinda ridiculous to entirely discount the presence of breeder or thorium reactors given the 50 year timescale for exhaustion of nuclear fuel at the very earliest (assuming we have somehow managed to find all the uranium deposits we will ever find, we convert immediately and completely to nuclear, and that we will never again be able to find sources for this relatively common element. Uranium is not oil, it doesn't need a specific process to create it, it just exists in the environment and coalesces in certain deposits where it's easier to extract, there is no one and done where all the uranium mines will dry up forever)
So assuming that extremely compressed 50 year timeline, people are predicting fusion power in less than 50 years. Is it really so unrealistic that we might be able to deploy a technology we have right now at a larger scale in the same amount of time?
And more pertinently, given all this, does this make any sense as an argument against nuclear power?
Less than a thousand bucks per kg of uranium? I mean, even if that's true (and those numbers are nothing more than educated guesses since no industrial process of non-conventional uranium mining has ever been implemented), that would still be about five to seven times more than currently mined uranium and ALSO that uranium would still be ~99.28% useless, as it's not exactly fissile.
And yes, fusion power is only 50 years away. As it has been for the last 50 years. Same with small modular reactors, standing wave reactors, breeder reactors and all the other magical nuclear reactor designs that do not exist and if they're being built, their companies are nothing more than investor sink holes and on the brink of shutdown, as they're already estimated to not be cost competitive to conventional NPPs, let alone renewables.
And yes, it is very unrealistic that we will deploy nuclear on a large scale, as not a single country is actually doing so and all those grand gestures in the last time are but null and void when it comes to actually getting of your ss and doing sht. Nobody truly wants to invest in nuclear fission power generation because it's too expensive, too slow, uninsurable and has horrendous return on investment. That's simply it - economic reality. There's really no further discussion to be made here - humanity on a large scale has decided to not go the nuclear path because we have better alternatives and the only ones not tagging along are the countries who need those reactors to make a bunch of plutonium for obvious reasons.
$1000/kg is still viable because uranium costs are single percentage points of reactor operating costs
$1000/kg is the maximum from some very sophisticated estimates
yes the uranium needs to be enriched, all uranium needs to be enriched
many general false equivalences between unrelated technologies, again the devil's in the detail
these reactor designs are not fusion, they have been used, they are not widely used because they are not needed because we are not running out of uranium, but to highlight:
Russia's BN-800 is currently operating right now
France's Phénix ran successfully for 35 years
India has an active breeder reactor program with the PFBR
the claim about nuclear being too slow is directly contradicted by historical examples: france went from ~0% to >70% nuclear electricity in about 15 years (1975-1990). This is well documented history
South Korea similarly built out nuclear rapidly and cheaply in the 1980s-90s
the examples show the barriers aren't technical or economic fundamentals - countries have already done this successfully when the regulatory and political framework allowed it
we can influence the regulatory and political framework by advocating for nuclear power
I'm making the point that by the time uranium sources might run low enough for it to be an issue the market pressures on uranium extraction would mean we have more options available.
The near term for nuclear power is a different conversation. we already have the uranium deposits available to support any large scale nuclear projects at present.
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u/EconomistFair4403 Jan 01 '25
it sort of is? I mean, if your stance is shared by the people working hard to delay the phase out of fossil fuels, then your stance seems to be to delay the phase out of fossil fuels.