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You also have to extract copper and steel to build wind farms, and drive trucks to install solar panels. The net greenhouse gas emissions from nuclear is at mos
by Manuel_D 5y ago
You also have to extract copper and steel to build wind farms, and drive trucks to install solar panels. The net greenhouse gas emissions from nuclear is at most equal to, and likely less than other renewables: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_chapter7.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5...
Not to mention, there's enough accessible uranium to make concerns about the being "renewable" moot: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/01/uranium-seawater-extraction-makes-nuclear-power-completely-renewable/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/01/uranium-s...
And the huge win provided by nuclear power is it's geographic independence and consistent output. Nuclear plants work regardless of wind speed, and give the same output in the Arctic circle as they do at the equator. And this output is consistent, it doesn't fluctuate with weather or day/night cycles. This eliminates the need for storage, which is something we don't currently have the capability to build at any substantial scale.
That's what people don't realize when they compare costs of nuclear vs solar + wind. The reality is it's costs of nuclear vs. costs of solar + wind + thousands of miles of HVDC lines to move energy from rural areas to population centers + massive amounts of grid storage to accommodate intermittent generation.
- cratermoon 5y agoWhere are the production, commercially viable uranium-from-seawater plants now?
- jasonlaramburu 5y agoThere are none. Only one or two lab bench scale reactors at universities.
- Manuel_D 5y agoThe Pacific Northridge National Laboratory was able to extract uranium from seawater at $200/lb, as per the linked article. This is an order of magnitude greater than the price of conventional extraction, so it makes no sense for commercial providers. But uranium extraction amounts to a negligible fraction of the cost of nuclear power, so even if economies of scale fail to bring the price down this amounts a fraction of a cent increase in the cost per KWh. Not to mention there's at least hundreds of years worth - thousand of years if we use reprocessing - worth of conventionally accessible uranium.
- manwe150 5y agoIf output is the same, and HVDC is now available, should we actually start building them in the Arctic? Pros: no population centers, lots of cooling, no hurricanes. Cons?
- Manuel_D 5y agoTransmission losses and the cost of building thousands of miles of HVDC. Just build them where there is demand for energy, and save the money that would otherwise be spent on transmission infrastructure. Not to mention the difficult logistics of constructing power plants in the middle of nowhere.