4 ms·
More like an extra 100,000 years http://www.daretothink.org/numbers-not-adjectives/how-long-will-our-supplies-of-uranium-and-thorium-last/ http://www.daretothin
by read_if_gay_ 7y ago
More like an extra 100,000 years http://www.daretothink.org/numbers-not-adjectives/how-long-will-our-supplies-of-uranium-and-thorium-last/ http://www.daretothink.org/numbers-not-adjectives/how-long-w...
- melling 7y agoI don’t think going green on electricity alone is enough to solve global warming. We need cars to go electric, etc. The point is that co2 generated over the last 16 years will stay with us for some time. We could have delayed the problem by doing more sooner. A slow train wreck of decades that everyone sees coming. At this rate, we’ll be saying the same thing in 2030.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago> We need cars to go electric, etc. Yes, and that creates massive extra demand for electricity generation, which seems very hard to achieve without nuclear power.
- pysxul 7y ago> We need cars to go electric, etc. Marketing is once again far from the truth, check how co2 expensive producing a battery is. Then couple that with the fact that you need let's say 20 years of normal use of a car to "paybacck" that co2 footprint (comparing to an oil car). Last one is : are you going to keep that same electric car for 20 years?
- read_if_gay_ 7y agoBattery research should probably be the single most well funded area of research.
- danieldk 7y agoOr hydrogen production, hydrogen fuel cells, and hydrogen-based engines. Hydrogen can be created with electrolysis using solar, wind, or nuclear power. Hydrogen-based vehicles have a much better range. Refueling a hydrogen vehicle quicker than charging a battery. Also, it is easy to transport hydrogen to locations where there is no power grid. (I guess we should do both, but I feel like hydrogen as a fuel seems to be ignored.)
- pjc50 7y agoHydrogen is hard to handle - it is very good at leaking, including through things not normally thought of as porous like metals, and it has low energy density unless under high pressure. Synthetic CH4 from H2+extracted CO2 seems more likely to happen.
- jessaustin 7y agoI feel that if anyone took hydrogen seriously, they'd start talking about anhydrous ammonia. This compound actually contains more hydrogen by volume and pressure than elemental hydrogen does. It doesn't have the embrittlement issues that elemental hydrogen has. Ammonia liquefies at a much higher temperature and has a much higher heat of vaporization, which makes it easier to handle. It is a hazardous fuel, but not really more so than gasoline and definitely less so than elemental hydrogen. Anyway, there is already a well-developed infrastructure for handling anhydrous ammonia, because it is regularly used in agriculture. Any cheap and environmentally friendly process that produces hydrogen also produces ammonia, because ammonia is just hydrogen plus nitrogen. Because I very rarely see mention of ammonia as a fuel, I conclude that no one is seriously attempting to develop hydrogen fuel cells.
- C14L 7y agoCould you post a source or two? I read this claim a few times, but never seen a credible source to confirm the claim.
- melling 7y agoI’m not sure if your statement is true. https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-ev-battery-production-co2-emissions-new-study-results/ https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-ev-battery-production-co2-em... Also, consider that we are in the early stages. Battery technology will improve.
- giancarlostoro 7y agoThere are people still driving cars older than 20 years. If the car is able to last 20 years I am sure plenty of people would keep it that long. Most people trade in their car due to it giving them trouble. It winds up being cheaper to trade in for a new model.... Wonder if car companies are in on this...
- aspratley 7y agoWhere are you getting your 20 year figure from? There's a study which says 10 years but doesn't account for the energy/co2 required to refine oil. EV battery packs can also be recycled as grid storage.
- ekianjo 7y ago> We need cars to go electric, etc. Batteries making process is far from being carbon-free yet.
- read_if_gay_ 7y agoI completely agree. I imagine using electricity to power everything paired with basically free nuclear power makes for a pretty sweet future. For whatever reason though, people and even “green” politicians generally seem opposed to nuclear.
- simonh 7y agoI do believe nuclear should have a role, but please don’t peddle the ‘basically free’ fantasy.
- read_if_gay_ 7y agoCan you elaborate in what way it is a fantasy?
- baq 7y agoIt’s actually very expensive.
- ben_w 7y agoUSA electricity demand was 12071 kWh/person over 2016. Multiply by $0.1/kWh (cost of nuclear power given elsewhere in replies to this submission) means Americans would have spent $1207 on electricity, per person not per household, for that year.
- pjc50 7y agoIt's expensive to build and maintain to the required level of safety? Even if, somehow, you had a perfectly safe magic hot rock that could put out a gigawatt, all the plumbing and turbine machinery would still have a minimum cost level that would be cheap but still metered. Maybe something like half the cost of natural gas.
- cygx 7y agoBecause nuclear is more expensive than on-shore wind and solar (as well as natural gas, for that matter). The problem with renewables today is not cost, but concerns about variability of the output.
- air7 7y agoWhile car batteries are charged using fossil fuel derived electricity, you're gaining nothing, and probably losing due to inefficiency. Once electricity is green and cheap, electric cars will naturally follow.
- kragen 7y agoTypical car internal combustion engines are about 20% efficient; typical fossil-fuel power plants are about 35% efficient. So you gain significantly, even before you get to regenerative braking.
- kragen 7y ago> We need cars to go electric, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_proces... > The point is that co2 [sic] generated over the last 16 years will stay with us for some time. We could have delayed the problem by doing more sooner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_removal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_removal
- Dumblydorr 7y agoThe graph of global emissions is a nearly flat line, we will be able to look back at any decade and say it could've bended there...ultimately, we just have decisions day to day that will bend it or not.
- antr 7y agoYour're mixing a non-GHG emmitting technology with waste. Apples and oranges.
- keanzu 7y agoHow long will our supplies of uranium and thorium last? There's never been a commercially viable thorium reactor.
- mcv 7y agoThat's the big thing that keeps surprising me about thorium. It's supposed to be great, cheap, abundant, and much safer than uranium, and yet nobody is actually doing it. If the claims about thorium are true, you'd think we'd see thorium plants popping up all over the place by now.
- keanzu 7y ago> great, cheap, abundant, and much safer than uranium Some of the claims are true. Cheap, abundant and safer. It's the "economically viable" part that's tricky. No-one has solved that yet. India has a ton of thorium and are highly motivated to build a commercial reactor but haven't been successful yet.
- willis936 7y agoMSRs have to deal with some truly harsh materials for very long periods. Getting that to be reliable for 30+ years of on time is not easy.