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Well they started doing that. Then Schroeder blocked it on behalf of Gazprom (where he is now a board member) followed by the right wing gaining power. And Nu

Well they started doing that. Then Schroeder blocked it on behalf of Gazprom (where he is now a board member) followed by the right wing gaining power. And Nuclear isn't low carbon for much longer (or if you expand it) because all the good Uranium mines are running dry, and mining 70,000 tonnes of ore for 1t of fuel is pretty carbon intensive.

Kuinox 4y ago
> Well they started doing that. They are still one of the most committed in europe to renewables. And still one of the worse CO2 emitter at that. There is more than 100 year of uranium left, and thousands of years of fuel left with fast breeders reactors. > all the good Uranium mines are running dry Of anything, you blame nuclear for the mining, 1t of nuclear, is 1TWh, how many solar panel do you need for that ? Then how many batteries ? (You need at least more than 100 thousands solar panel)
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  > There is more than 100 year of uranium left ..with the current fleet. Renewables added about a quarter of that last year to surpass it by about 10%, and within a few years will be adding that much every year. You'd need to mine well over half of it just for a first load to replace 100% of existing electricity (then you'd have 6 years left to get the rest to refuel), then there's the rest of primary energy. > and thousands of years of fuel left with fast breeders reactors There are no and have never been any breeder reactors that run a full load of fuel in breeding mode and come back with more. If you believe in them then stop pushing PWRs and give the billions to terrapower or whichever breeder you're backing. > Of anything, you blame nuclear for the mining, Yes, because it is worse. Worse than gas. Worse than anything except coal (and if you look at Church Hill and the various other disasters that's even questionable). > 1t of nuclear, is 1TWh 60,000t of U gets mined annually. You are trying to claim that nuclear reactors produce 200% of global electricity. Please make your lies believable or at least interesting 1t of Natural Uranium (from 3000t of ore at present, or 10,000t if you expand it) is <0.005TWh in the current fleet, maybe 0.01TWh with all new reactors. Consider Olympic Dam. It's primarily a copper mine but is also one of the largest Uranium mines in the world (and is much higher concentration than any of the big mines outside Canada) and also produces a little silver as a byproduct. 1t of ore has 0.6kg of Uranium and 5g of silver depending on year -- which is the most destructive and most limiting resource in solar. The 5g of silver can produce roughly 1 modern ~500W PERC panel (2 with existing technology that is being rolled out and 12 if tandem cells can be brought down in price to mass production levels) or 100-150W net for 30 years or about 2.5-4 kW-years including degradation. You still have it at the end. The 0.6kg of Natural Uranium becomes about 50-80g of fuel depending on reactor and produces 3-5kW years of power (or down to half that if the load fluctuates too much). You need to babysit it for a decade at the end and then find a way to dispose of it. The ore required to expand the nuclear fleet is <15% as dense as olympic dam. Mining it to meet 2030 goals will require mining a greater volume of ore than the entire iron industry and require nearly doubling world sulfuric acid production. Some mines can use ISL, but that requires even more sulfuric acid and mostly just skips the step where you pretend you're not pouring the heavy metal filled tailings into the groundwater. Also by the time a PWR is built, odds are that metallization improvements and tandem cells will have reduced the silver requirements of the solar cells to less than what the nuclear reactor requires (it is 5-10x now, with proven tech to bring it down to 2-5x being rolled out and a tech that has passed endurance tests but doesn't have a complete pathway to commercialisation to bring it to 0.5-1x). So you haven't really reduced that any. Wind is similar. Enercon's turbines use a small amount of copper (far less than a NPP), and some zinc but otherwise all abundant materials. They barely use more steel (regular not stainless so no chromium) than a NPP and it is all recyclable (rather than half ending up in a LLW containment area). They use a lot more concrete (about triple) -- this is far less destructive than the Uranium mining and is also going down per watt. They use a great deal of Aluminum and glass, but this is largely embodied energy (and both can be mostly-dispatchable loads), and some hydrocarbons (but negligible compared to all the fossil fuels in the 0.01% concentration uranium mine). The NPP also needs significant (probably world-limited) amounts of indium and chromium. The enrichment facilities are all top secret so noone can check how many rare earth magnets they use or how much CFCs they emit and how much needs to be made out of exotic materials that are both strong and resistant to UF6 or other fluorides. Nuclear is a decent tool that is worth the downsides for the few countries without good resources for at least two of wind, hydro and solar (so mostly just Poland). For the rest, either demonstrate a cheap, reliable breeder in exchange for the hundreds of billions or trillions that have been spent, or stop trying to sabotage the one solution that can demonstrably solve at least part of the problem and let nuclear keep adding the 2% share which is the most it can really provide of world primary energy.
  - Kuinox 4y ago
    > Yes, because it is worse. Worse than gas. Worse than anything except coal (and if you look at Church Hill and the various other disasters that's even questionable). Of course it's well known we can create solar panel out of thin air, and you just need to dig a hole to grow a wind turbine.
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      Maybe read the rest of the comment before coming out with the embarassingly predictable reactionary drivel that I already addressed in detail? Solar panels are sand, silver, and aluminum with an ever shrinking steel mount that could be made from anything. Many wind turbines use rare earths, but the fact that they live in the real world where there isn't an infinite money spigot that means the ones made almost exclusively of aluminum, steel, fiberglass, and concrete are starting to dominate. The only resources that a mix of renewable generation requires more of than nuclear per unit of net power is silver. And the silver problem is being dealt with to the point that total consumption goes down in spite of prodiction increasing, and will be less than a PWR uses before one started now can even open. Please at least come up with a novel lie so I can learn something new whilst pointing out how reality is the opposite of what you are saying.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]

Kuinox 4y ago

> Well they started doing that. They are still one of the most committed in europe to renewables. And still one of the worse CO2 emitter at that. There is more than 100 year of uranium left, and thousands of years of fuel left with fast breeders reactors. > all the good Uranium mines are running dry Of anything, you blame nuclear for the mining, 1t of nuclear, is 1TWh, how many solar panel do you need for that ? Then how many batteries ? (You need at least more than 100 thousands solar panel)

Schroedingersat 4y ago
> There is more than 100 year of uranium left ..with the current fleet. Renewables added about a quarter of that last year to surpass it by about 10%, and within a few years will be adding that much every year. You'd need to mine well over half of it just for a first load to replace 100% of existing electricity (then you'd have 6 years left to get the rest to refuel), then there's the rest of primary energy. > and thousands of years of fuel left with fast breeders reactors There are no and have never been any breeder reactors that run a full load of fuel in breeding mode and come back with more. If you believe in them then stop pushing PWRs and give the billions to terrapower or whichever breeder you're backing. > Of anything, you blame nuclear for the mining, Yes, because it is worse. Worse than gas. Worse than anything except coal (and if you look at Church Hill and the various other disasters that's even questionable). > 1t of nuclear, is 1TWh 60,000t of U gets mined annually. You are trying to claim that nuclear reactors produce 200% of global electricity. Please make your lies believable or at least interesting 1t of Natural Uranium (from 3000t of ore at present, or 10,000t if you expand it) is <0.005TWh in the current fleet, maybe 0.01TWh with all new reactors. Consider Olympic Dam. It's primarily a copper mine but is also one of the largest Uranium mines in the world (and is much higher concentration than any of the big mines outside Canada) and also produces a little silver as a byproduct. 1t of ore has 0.6kg of Uranium and 5g of silver depending on year -- which is the most destructive and most limiting resource in solar. The 5g of silver can produce roughly 1 modern ~500W PERC panel (2 with existing technology that is being rolled out and 12 if tandem cells can be brought down in price to mass production levels) or 100-150W net for 30 years or about 2.5-4 kW-years including degradation. You still have it at the end. The 0.6kg of Natural Uranium becomes about 50-80g of fuel depending on reactor and produces 3-5kW years of power (or down to half that if the load fluctuates too much). You need to babysit it for a decade at the end and then find a way to dispose of it. The ore required to expand the nuclear fleet is <15% as dense as olympic dam. Mining it to meet 2030 goals will require mining a greater volume of ore than the entire iron industry and require nearly doubling world sulfuric acid production. Some mines can use ISL, but that requires even more sulfuric acid and mostly just skips the step where you pretend you're not pouring the heavy metal filled tailings into the groundwater. Also by the time a PWR is built, odds are that metallization improvements and tandem cells will have reduced the silver requirements of the solar cells to less than what the nuclear reactor requires (it is 5-10x now, with proven tech to bring it down to 2-5x being rolled out and a tech that has passed endurance tests but doesn't have a complete pathway to commercialisation to bring it to 0.5-1x). So you haven't really reduced that any. Wind is similar. Enercon's turbines use a small amount of copper (far less than a NPP), and some zinc but otherwise all abundant materials. They barely use more steel (regular not stainless so no chromium) than a NPP and it is all recyclable (rather than half ending up in a LLW containment area). They use a lot more concrete (about triple) -- this is far less destructive than the Uranium mining and is also going down per watt. They use a great deal of Aluminum and glass, but this is largely embodied energy (and both can be mostly-dispatchable loads), and some hydrocarbons (but negligible compared to all the fossil fuels in the 0.01% concentration uranium mine). The NPP also needs significant (probably world-limited) amounts of indium and chromium. The enrichment facilities are all top secret so noone can check how many rare earth magnets they use or how much CFCs they emit and how much needs to be made out of exotic materials that are both strong and resistant to UF6 or other fluorides. Nuclear is a decent tool that is worth the downsides for the few countries without good resources for at least two of wind, hydro and solar (so mostly just Poland). For the rest, either demonstrate a cheap, reliable breeder in exchange for the hundreds of billions or trillions that have been spent, or stop trying to sabotage the one solution that can demonstrably solve at least part of the problem and let nuclear keep adding the 2% share which is the most it can really provide of world primary energy.
- Kuinox 4y ago
  > Yes, because it is worse. Worse than gas. Worse than anything except coal (and if you look at Church Hill and the various other disasters that's even questionable). Of course it's well known we can create solar panel out of thin air, and you just need to dig a hole to grow a wind turbine.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    Maybe read the rest of the comment before coming out with the embarassingly predictable reactionary drivel that I already addressed in detail? Solar panels are sand, silver, and aluminum with an ever shrinking steel mount that could be made from anything. Many wind turbines use rare earths, but the fact that they live in the real world where there isn't an infinite money spigot that means the ones made almost exclusively of aluminum, steel, fiberglass, and concrete are starting to dominate. The only resources that a mix of renewable generation requires more of than nuclear per unit of net power is silver. And the silver problem is being dealt with to the point that total consumption goes down in spite of prodiction increasing, and will be less than a PWR uses before one started now can even open. Please at least come up with a novel lie so I can learn something new whilst pointing out how reality is the opposite of what you are saying.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]