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There is also the mining and purification of the fuel which uses energy and water and generates waste in itself.

Manfredo_1 6y ago
Sure, but there's also the mining and purification of silicon to produce solar power. Same with the mining and purification of steel and aluminum to produce windmills. The energy density of uranium is much, much greater than all of the alternatives. It's is, literally, a million times more energy dense than natural gas and about two million times more energy dense than coal. You only need to mine a little bit of fuel to generate a lot of power.
- audunw 6y ago
  > Sure, but there's also the mining and purification of silicon to produce solar power. Same with the mining and purification of steel and aluminum to produce windmills. But a lot of those materials are renewable, or becoming more renewable. Most/all materials are used in dozens of other things that are essential to modern society, so investing in making mining cleaner and making recycling more efficient and cheaper is not optional. The fact that renewables create more demand for materials, and more waste, can be a good thing, as economies of scale can make investments in efficiency and recycling techniques more viable. In a solar/wind power plant, all of the materials can in principle be reused quickly, given decent recycling technology. Hell, now we're even building windmills out of wood again, and turns out they're stronger/better than with concrete/steel. It's not just the fuel that's waste, when decommissioning the power plant you also have a lot of low-level radioactive material that can't easily be recycled/reused. Not a huge problem, but at a fundamental level it's worse than renewables.
  - Manfredo_1 6y ago
    Nuclear fuel can also be recycled. Again, the energy density of fission is such that producing the same amoy of energy results in orders of magnitude less waste. Decommissioning nuclear plants doesn't change this figure.

Sure, but there's also the mining and purification of silicon to produce solar power. Same with the mining and purification of steel and aluminum to produce windmills. The energy density of uranium is much, much greater than all of the alternatives. It's is, literally, a million times more energy dense than natural gas and about two million times more energy dense than coal. You only need to mine a little bit of fuel to generate a lot of power.

audunw 6y ago
> Sure, but there's also the mining and purification of silicon to produce solar power. Same with the mining and purification of steel and aluminum to produce windmills. But a lot of those materials are renewable, or becoming more renewable. Most/all materials are used in dozens of other things that are essential to modern society, so investing in making mining cleaner and making recycling more efficient and cheaper is not optional. The fact that renewables create more demand for materials, and more waste, can be a good thing, as economies of scale can make investments in efficiency and recycling techniques more viable. In a solar/wind power plant, all of the materials can in principle be reused quickly, given decent recycling technology. Hell, now we're even building windmills out of wood again, and turns out they're stronger/better than with concrete/steel. It's not just the fuel that's waste, when decommissioning the power plant you also have a lot of low-level radioactive material that can't easily be recycled/reused. Not a huge problem, but at a fundamental level it's worse than renewables.
- Manfredo_1 6y ago
  Nuclear fuel can also be recycled. Again, the energy density of fission is such that producing the same amoy of energy results in orders of magnitude less waste. Decommissioning nuclear plants doesn't change this figure.