9 ms·

It might be abundant and clean, but it's not renewable, and like every energy source, nuclear has associated capital and operational costs.

nightski 5y ago
By that definition I don't think there is such a thing as renewable yet considering you need storage/batteries for just about any "renewable" energy source out there. Energy will always cost us something imho.
- mattferderer 5y ago
  One alternative approach to storage/batteries is trying to provide over 100% of the average daily demand of electricity. Excess electricity could be priced lower. Consumers & industries could use those cheaper hours for certain tasks. This is already done in many areas. Run your dishwasher, charge your car, etc. at night. Which leads me to think storage/batteries is not the issue & that manufacturing, installation & infrastructure is. I also imagine getting land permits, regulations, politics, etc. is also a huge factor.
  - Paradigma11 5y ago
    Are there any simulations done on actual historical weather data on how much you need for that to work. I would be far less sceptical about massive deployment of renewables if somebody could point me to a study that shows: Given this grid, this amount of wind, solar and storage in that areas and the historical weather data of the last 30 years it would have resulted in this amount of overproduction, blackouts....
  - Manuel_D 5y ago
    Not all energy uses can be shifted. IT infrastructure, the pumps delivering plumbing to your house, streetlights, HVAC, all needs to be running at all times. Furthermore, if shifting energy demand is the plan, then renewables need to factor in the cost of shifting that energy demand into the equation.
- nanomonkey 5y ago
  Gasification of woody biomass waste streams (walnut shells, wood chips, corn stover, bigasse) is quite renewable, and can be run 24/7 regardless of weather. The CO2 emmitted comes from the atmosphere and therefore is cyclical in nature (thus sustainable). If you take biochar into account the carbon generation is actually negative, as you have carbon left over that can be used for other things or put back into the soil in a form that is stable for thousands of years and beneficial to the soil quality for life.
arcticbull 5y ago
It's renewable in the sense that there's a massive geological reservoir which replenishes the uranium dissolved in the seawater. There's 4 billion tons dissolved right now in the ocean (enough to run 1,000 reactors for 100,000 years) but that is replaced as it's extracted. [1] It's about as renewable as solar, which is to say, we will eventually run out - but at that point the heat death of the universe is a more pressing concern. [1] https://cna.ca/2016/07/27/theres-uranium-seawater-renewable/ https://cna.ca/2016/07/27/theres-uranium-seawater-renewable/
- 7952 5y ago
  The distinction is that wind/solar arrive for free without any effort. That just isn't true of nuclear fuel. I don't think that is a problem particularly. More that "renewable" is the wrong word.
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
    I don’t understand what you mean by “arrive for free”. We have to capture it. It is not free of any externalities.
    - Forgeties79 5y ago
      You don’t have to produce/extract/manufacture anything to make the wind blow or the sun shine. We capture them as they are. Edit: let’s see how many people will continue to ignore other comments to get the same point in I guess.
      - appletrotter 5y ago
        You don't have to produce/extract/manufacture anything to make the ocean hold uranium for us.
      - akvadrako 5y ago
        You don't have to build anything to make uranium radiate. That's a pointless argument and unrelated to "renewable", which means it won't get used up.
cm2187 5y ago
By that standard, solar isn’t renewable either, since the sun is decaying. Nuclear is renewable in human civilisation time scale.
- OscarCunningham 5y ago
  Well it depends on the course of human civilisation. If we wipe ourselves out in WWIII then we won't run out of coal. If we continue to grow exponentially then we will quickly run out of solar.
e2le 5y ago
By that logic, solar isn't renewable because it'll "run out" in 5 billion years.
- Jweb_Guru 5y ago
  Nuclear will run out much, much faster, though, particularly when it comes to uranium we actually know how to extract economically. People's proposals for things like extracting uranium from seawater have not even reached the prototyping stage--we don't even know if it's possible to do at the scale required to support modern civilization--but people are already willing to treat it as a done deal. It's one of the reasons I'm not nearly as enthusiastic about nuclear as many people here. For some reason, people seem very quick to point out at extremely minor problems with solar, which is technically pretty much already there and which we know can work, and has improved by leaps and bounds in a short amount of time, or argue that it can't work because of the storage problem (even though we already know how to build big batteries--pumped storage isn't sexy, but it works and can be produced at scale without requiring exotic materials or anything like that). But those same people are happy to use as-yet-unrealized technological leaps to deflect concerns about the sustainability and expense of nuclear power, even though nuclear power is a much older and better-understood technology and many of the breakthroughs being cited (like thorium breeder reactors etc.) have been studied and promised for decades without significant progress.
  - Turing_Machine 5y ago
    > Nuclear will run out much, much faster, though, particularly when it comes to uranium we actually know how to extract economically. With breeder reactors there is enough economically usable fuel to last billions-with-a-b of years.
    - Jweb_Guru 5y ago
      As I mentioned in my post, people are very quick to bring up breeder reactors, despite the fact that no commercial prototypes that can recycle fuel to that degree actually exist. I have nothing against nuclear power as a short-term stopgap to deal with climate change, but we should stick to technology that actually exists if we're talking about using it as a primary power source into the indefinite future.
asciimov 5y ago
Nothing is truly renewable as entropy gets us all in the end. Now maybe someone or something will answer "The Last Question" one day and solve that problem. I wager we wont be around to see it.

nightski 5y ago

By that definition I don't think there is such a thing as renewable yet considering you need storage/batteries for just about any "renewable" energy source out there. Energy will always cost us something imho.

mattferderer 5y ago
One alternative approach to storage/batteries is trying to provide over 100% of the average daily demand of electricity. Excess electricity could be priced lower. Consumers & industries could use those cheaper hours for certain tasks. This is already done in many areas. Run your dishwasher, charge your car, etc. at night. Which leads me to think storage/batteries is not the issue & that manufacturing, installation & infrastructure is. I also imagine getting land permits, regulations, politics, etc. is also a huge factor.
- Paradigma11 5y ago
  Are there any simulations done on actual historical weather data on how much you need for that to work. I would be far less sceptical about massive deployment of renewables if somebody could point me to a study that shows: Given this grid, this amount of wind, solar and storage in that areas and the historical weather data of the last 30 years it would have resulted in this amount of overproduction, blackouts....
- Manuel_D 5y ago
  Not all energy uses can be shifted. IT infrastructure, the pumps delivering plumbing to your house, streetlights, HVAC, all needs to be running at all times. Furthermore, if shifting energy demand is the plan, then renewables need to factor in the cost of shifting that energy demand into the equation.
nanomonkey 5y ago
Gasification of woody biomass waste streams (walnut shells, wood chips, corn stover, bigasse) is quite renewable, and can be run 24/7 regardless of weather. The CO2 emmitted comes from the atmosphere and therefore is cyclical in nature (thus sustainable). If you take biochar into account the carbon generation is actually negative, as you have carbon left over that can be used for other things or put back into the soil in a form that is stable for thousands of years and beneficial to the soil quality for life.

arcticbull 5y ago

It's renewable in the sense that there's a massive geological reservoir which replenishes the uranium dissolved in the seawater. There's 4 billion tons dissolved right now in the ocean (enough to run 1,000 reactors for 100,000 years) but that is replaced as it's extracted. [1] It's about as renewable as solar, which is to say, we will eventually run out - but at that point the heat death of the universe is a more pressing concern. [1] https://cna.ca/2016/07/27/theres-uranium-seawater-renewable/ https://cna.ca/2016/07/27/theres-uranium-seawater-renewable/

7952 5y ago
The distinction is that wind/solar arrive for free without any effort. That just isn't true of nuclear fuel. I don't think that is a problem particularly. More that "renewable" is the wrong word.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  I don’t understand what you mean by “arrive for free”. We have to capture it. It is not free of any externalities.
  - Forgeties79 5y ago
    You don’t have to produce/extract/manufacture anything to make the wind blow or the sun shine. We capture them as they are. Edit: let’s see how many people will continue to ignore other comments to get the same point in I guess.
    - appletrotter 5y ago
      You don't have to produce/extract/manufacture anything to make the ocean hold uranium for us.
    - akvadrako 5y ago
      You don't have to build anything to make uranium radiate. That's a pointless argument and unrelated to "renewable", which means it won't get used up.

cm2187 5y ago

By that standard, solar isn’t renewable either, since the sun is decaying. Nuclear is renewable in human civilisation time scale.

OscarCunningham 5y ago
Well it depends on the course of human civilisation. If we wipe ourselves out in WWIII then we won't run out of coal. If we continue to grow exponentially then we will quickly run out of solar.

e2le 5y ago

By that logic, solar isn't renewable because it'll "run out" in 5 billion years.

Jweb_Guru 5y ago
Nuclear will run out much, much faster, though, particularly when it comes to uranium we actually know how to extract economically. People's proposals for things like extracting uranium from seawater have not even reached the prototyping stage--we don't even know if it's possible to do at the scale required to support modern civilization--but people are already willing to treat it as a done deal. It's one of the reasons I'm not nearly as enthusiastic about nuclear as many people here. For some reason, people seem very quick to point out at extremely minor problems with solar, which is technically pretty much already there and which we know can work, and has improved by leaps and bounds in a short amount of time, or argue that it can't work because of the storage problem (even though we already know how to build big batteries--pumped storage isn't sexy, but it works and can be produced at scale without requiring exotic materials or anything like that). But those same people are happy to use as-yet-unrealized technological leaps to deflect concerns about the sustainability and expense of nuclear power, even though nuclear power is a much older and better-understood technology and many of the breakthroughs being cited (like thorium breeder reactors etc.) have been studied and promised for decades without significant progress.
- Turing_Machine 5y ago
  > Nuclear will run out much, much faster, though, particularly when it comes to uranium we actually know how to extract economically. With breeder reactors there is enough economically usable fuel to last billions-with-a-b of years.
  - Jweb_Guru 5y ago
    As I mentioned in my post, people are very quick to bring up breeder reactors, despite the fact that no commercial prototypes that can recycle fuel to that degree actually exist. I have nothing against nuclear power as a short-term stopgap to deal with climate change, but we should stick to technology that actually exists if we're talking about using it as a primary power source into the indefinite future.

asciimov 5y ago

Nothing is truly renewable as entropy gets us all in the end. Now maybe someone or something will answer "The Last Question" one day and solve that problem. I wager we wont be around to see it.