23 ms·

Nuclear is not renewable… right? Ie there is a finite amount of nuclear material on earth and it’s not overly abundant either. Am I missing something?

rsj_hn 5y ago
Breeder reactors can create more fuel, but even without these, there is a substantial amount of uranium that this is a non-issue. By the same token, solar is also non-renewable since it requires real resources mined from the earth which are in finite supply and solar panels are not 100% recyclable (and especially not the batteries required to make solar reliable). In this sense, nothing is renewable -- even hydro will run out eventually when the earth cools and plate tectonics comes to an end.
- otherme123 5y ago
  Anyway, nuclear is never included in the "renewable" bucket, because the fuel has to be harvested and doesn't renew on a human timescale. Nuclear is green, because its net emissions are almost zero. OTOH burning wood is renewable, but not green, and also not sustainable. So nothing inherently good about being renewable. It's pointless to have a practical classification to then come with "technically..." and some weird and unpractical reason.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    > Anyway, nuclear is never included in the "renewable" bucket, because the fuel has to be harvested and doesn't renew on a human timescale. You can make the case that it does - if you count uranium in seawater. Theres enough dissolved there now to fuel all the reactors on earth for 60,000 years. Geological processes continually replenish the dissolved uranium.
    - otherme123 5y ago
      Yes, and you can argue that coal and oil are currently being created... very slowly... from dead trees and what not. So renewable vs non-renewable doesn't make any sense anymore. Lets make another name: "energy which source can get replenished in less than 100 years (a life time), as wood, or less, as solar, wind, waves, and can be practically harvested with current methods i.e. not fussion or matter dissolved in the sea". That's the whole phrase you should use from now on instead of "renewable".
      - arcticbull 5y ago
        Solar isn't something that can ever be replenished. There's a fixed quantity of fuel in the sun. Once it burns out, it's gone. That provides the input energy into the process for solar, wind and wood. With breeder reactors the uranium in seawater would last us 15 million years at current nuclear power consumption levels. If that's not renewable... There's no such thing as infinitely renewable.
        otherme123 5y ago
        I though it was already clear that we were talking human scale. And you still talk about 4,500 million years as non-renewable, but 15 million years (plus 100% magic ocean harvesting) as renewable. At no point anybody said "infinitely renewable", and you arguing it makes that a strawman argument. Renewable is defined, like it or not, as a source that replenishes in a finite human scale (roughly, 50-100 years). Sun, waves, hydraulics and wind "replenish" everyday. Wood takes about 30 years. If you find yourself saying things like "15 millions years" or "60,000" years, it's not renewable.
- ben_w 5y ago
  > solar panels are not 100% recyclable (and especially not the batteries required to make solar reliable) While I can believe that we don’t have a current recycling chain set up for these, I absolutely do not believe that they are genuinely non-recyclable. We make both of these out of a variety of literal rocks, extracting trace elements and purifying them greatly in the process of manufacture. Even in the worst case, it’s easier to start from the end products than from rocks.
  - bserge 5y ago
fennecfoxen 5y ago
There's 5.5 million tons of known uranium reserves. If you took our current reactor fleet and replaced it with fast breeders, this would supply it for 30,000 years. There's also 4.5 billion tons of uranium dissolved in seawater. Then there's thorium. You're missing that. Technically not renewable, but in the long run, neither is the Sun.
- donny2018 5y ago
  Hopefully, fusion energy will be reality way before we will be close to depleting known uranium resources.
  - cm2187 5y ago
    At the current pace, 30,000 years sounds about right,
    - AstralStorm 5y ago
      It's not that bad, currently at breakeven point for laser fusion and close to that for magnetic containment fusion. Half a century should be enough, but we lack the time.
Krasnol 5y ago
You're missing the fact that many EU countries failed to invest into renewables in the recent year and now need to greenwash what they have instead...
iso1210 5y ago
Solar is not renewable, at some point the sun will die.
pyrale 5y ago
Nothing is indefinitely renewable. In the end, the second law of thermodynamics is an immovable barrier. When we talk about renewable, it's never endless, it's renewable within reason. When it comes to nuclear though, the people claiming it's renewable usually refer to the presence of uranium in seewater, which is leeched from the ocean floor. That fits within the "renewable within reason" frame I talked about before. The issue with making that case is that collecting uraium from seawater is experimental reearch at this point ; it's definitely not an industrial process. Other examples of people conflating research with established industrial standards include people claiming we can get rid of nuclear waste with new reactors, or people claiming that we can recycle wind turbine blades. A reasonable case to be made is that, while nuclear is not renewable, the reserves we have is enough to let us buy another century of research and a reasonable chance to find more long-lasting solutions, whether it would be a great storage technology, fusion, new fission technology, a smart grid or whatever.

rsj_hn 5y ago

Breeder reactors can create more fuel, but even without these, there is a substantial amount of uranium that this is a non-issue. By the same token, solar is also non-renewable since it requires real resources mined from the earth which are in finite supply and solar panels are not 100% recyclable (and especially not the batteries required to make solar reliable). In this sense, nothing is renewable -- even hydro will run out eventually when the earth cools and plate tectonics comes to an end.

otherme123 5y ago
Anyway, nuclear is never included in the "renewable" bucket, because the fuel has to be harvested and doesn't renew on a human timescale. Nuclear is green, because its net emissions are almost zero. OTOH burning wood is renewable, but not green, and also not sustainable. So nothing inherently good about being renewable. It's pointless to have a practical classification to then come with "technically..." and some weird and unpractical reason.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  > Anyway, nuclear is never included in the "renewable" bucket, because the fuel has to be harvested and doesn't renew on a human timescale. You can make the case that it does - if you count uranium in seawater. Theres enough dissolved there now to fuel all the reactors on earth for 60,000 years. Geological processes continually replenish the dissolved uranium.
  - otherme123 5y ago
    Yes, and you can argue that coal and oil are currently being created... very slowly... from dead trees and what not. So renewable vs non-renewable doesn't make any sense anymore. Lets make another name: "energy which source can get replenished in less than 100 years (a life time), as wood, or less, as solar, wind, waves, and can be practically harvested with current methods i.e. not fussion or matter dissolved in the sea". That's the whole phrase you should use from now on instead of "renewable".
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      Solar isn't something that can ever be replenished. There's a fixed quantity of fuel in the sun. Once it burns out, it's gone. That provides the input energy into the process for solar, wind and wood. With breeder reactors the uranium in seawater would last us 15 million years at current nuclear power consumption levels. If that's not renewable... There's no such thing as infinitely renewable.
      - otherme123 5y ago
        I though it was already clear that we were talking human scale. And you still talk about 4,500 million years as non-renewable, but 15 million years (plus 100% magic ocean harvesting) as renewable. At no point anybody said "infinitely renewable", and you arguing it makes that a strawman argument. Renewable is defined, like it or not, as a source that replenishes in a finite human scale (roughly, 50-100 years). Sun, waves, hydraulics and wind "replenish" everyday. Wood takes about 30 years. If you find yourself saying things like "15 millions years" or "60,000" years, it's not renewable.
ben_w 5y ago
> solar panels are not 100% recyclable (and especially not the batteries required to make solar reliable) While I can believe that we don’t have a current recycling chain set up for these, I absolutely do not believe that they are genuinely non-recyclable. We make both of these out of a variety of literal rocks, extracting trace elements and purifying them greatly in the process of manufacture. Even in the worst case, it’s easier to start from the end products than from rocks.
- bserge 5y ago

fennecfoxen 5y ago

There's 5.5 million tons of known uranium reserves. If you took our current reactor fleet and replaced it with fast breeders, this would supply it for 30,000 years. There's also 4.5 billion tons of uranium dissolved in seawater. Then there's thorium. You're missing that. Technically not renewable, but in the long run, neither is the Sun.

donny2018 5y ago
Hopefully, fusion energy will be reality way before we will be close to depleting known uranium resources.
- cm2187 5y ago
  At the current pace, 30,000 years sounds about right,
  - AstralStorm 5y ago
    It's not that bad, currently at breakeven point for laser fusion and close to that for magnetic containment fusion. Half a century should be enough, but we lack the time.

Krasnol 5y ago

You're missing the fact that many EU countries failed to invest into renewables in the recent year and now need to greenwash what they have instead...

iso1210 5y ago

Solar is not renewable, at some point the sun will die.

pyrale 5y ago

Nothing is indefinitely renewable. In the end, the second law of thermodynamics is an immovable barrier. When we talk about renewable, it's never endless, it's renewable within reason. When it comes to nuclear though, the people claiming it's renewable usually refer to the presence of uranium in seewater, which is leeched from the ocean floor. That fits within the "renewable within reason" frame I talked about before. The issue with making that case is that collecting uraium from seawater is experimental reearch at this point ; it's definitely not an industrial process. Other examples of people conflating research with established industrial standards include people claiming we can get rid of nuclear waste with new reactors, or people claiming that we can recycle wind turbine blades. A reasonable case to be made is that, while nuclear is not renewable, the reserves we have is enough to let us buy another century of research and a reasonable chance to find more long-lasting solutions, whether it would be a great storage technology, fusion, new fission technology, a smart grid or whatever.