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You're talking about scifi. I'm talking about the next 8 years. You're also completely failing to distinguish between fertile and fissile. So realistically, a

You're talking about scifi. I'm talking about the next 8 years. You're also completely failing to distinguish between fertile and fissile. So realistically, at the same scale of ore extraction as coal mining. How much power is available?

trashtester 4y ago
> So realistically, at the same scale of ore extraction as coal mining. How much power is available? This article estimates that regular supplies is enough for 230 years at the current rate of consumption: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-glo... If we triple the the number of plants, that would be approximately a 75 year lifetime for existing plants. Beyond that, the main directions to take would be to use breeder reactors, which would be enough for 30000 years at today consumption, using regular fuels or to extract uranium from seawater, which would provide enough uranium for 60000 years at present rates (and much more if combined with breeder reactors). In total, there is enough uranium to last thousands of years, even consumption goes up 10x or more. Obviously, costs will gradually go up, or at least the extraction will require more advanced technology. Even just 75 years is a long time, and a lot can change by year 2100. Thorium or fusion power could be solved by then, or we could have space based solar covering our needs.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  I said realistically. And this decade. Not in some weird scifi scenario where we have enrichment facilities that are 10x more effective and efficient and you have the reprocessed waste before you start. Tripling generation by adding 600GW is nothing. 8 years. 2TWe net installed by the end of it and producing around 300GWe net of new capacity per year. Renewables are on track (and 2TW is extremely pessimistic). What's your plan? How much ore? Where is the scale? Ignore the cost. You gotta demonstrate it's possible before you can gaslight about costs.
  - trashtester 4y ago
    > 8 years. 8 years is barely enough to start changing course in how things like energy production is organized. Is there a specific reason you insist on this kind of velocity? Global warming is going to gradually increase as a problem over the next 200 years, if we continue our current course, it's not like the world is ending in 2030. In fact, on our current trajectory, the truly hellish outcomes are not expected until around 2150-2250 (based in IPCC reports). But precisely because it takes so long to change course, we need to start turning the ship now. > Tripling generation by adding 600GW is nothing. Watts is not a unit of energy, it's a unit of power. Peak capacity is not very interesting. What matters is actual production as well as the cost of producing the power when there is demand (including the cost of storage, if needed). Nuclear produced 2.8TW last year, which is roughly identical to Solar+Wind. That's about 10% each. If we add hydro to this mix (currently 15%), we have a total of 35%. The depressing part is that this has been relatively constant since 1985, meaning we haven't made any progress over the last 37 years. https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix However, if we restart investments in nuclear, while continue our renewable investments, we may be able to triple both over the next 15-20 years. If hydro remains constant, we may produce enough energy to cover 75% of 2021 consumption by 2040 (which would perhaps be 50% of 2040 consumption). That should be enough to replace most fossil fuels for electricity in the EU+US, at least. To reach such a level is highly non-trivial, both for nuclear and wind/solar. For nuclear, it means a u-turn is needed on several fronts, and for wind/solar, there are economic and geographic limitations (some areas are getting saturated). For this plan and time horizon, there are plenty of uranium deposits that can be mined, perhaps most interestingly for western countries, a lot of this is in Australia and Canada. If we restart construction of nuclear plants, we will also drive incentives to go looking for more sources elsewhere. As for your "Peak Uranium" hypothesis, I suggest looking at the history for "Peak Oil". Oil was predicted to reach its peak in year 2000, but the reality is that production is still increasing. I would be very surprised if the same is not happening for uranium. And as far as I can tell, we DO need it (or nuclear in some other form), if we're supposed ween ourselves off fossil fuels this century. Wind and solar may be competitive in some locations up to some production volumes, but they seem to have very diminishing returns above some level, due to storage costs and available land areas. Maybe we can, some day, have solar panels carpeting the Sahara or even in Outer Space, but that's definitely scifi.
__pache__ 4y ago
billions of years of energy ? https://whatisnuclear.com/nuclear-sustainability.html#:~:text=Breeder%20reactors%20can%20power%20all,construction%20performance%20and%20public%20acceptance https://whatisnuclear.com/nuclear-sustainability.html#:~:tex....
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  Failing to understand the distinction between power and energy doesn't make you seem very credible. And neither does saying failing to understand what a breeder is. You need fissile material to start a reactor of any kind. Working breeders with a real closed fuel cycle don't exist but if we pretend they do it's about 5 tonnes per GW. You can't start breeding until they're built and the breeding ratio of proposed designs takes on the order of a decade to fuel another reactor. How many billions of tonnes of ore do you need to extract the uranium from per year to meet net zero installed power roadmaps? How do you get to 2TW by 2030 to come close to the scale of the renewable roadmap?
  - __pache__ 4y ago
    They don't do it because fuel is so cheap, lol.
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      How much fissile material do you need to meet net zero by 2050 with all nuclear?

trashtester 4y ago

> So realistically, at the same scale of ore extraction as coal mining. How much power is available? This article estimates that regular supplies is enough for 230 years at the current rate of consumption: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-glo... If we triple the the number of plants, that would be approximately a 75 year lifetime for existing plants. Beyond that, the main directions to take would be to use breeder reactors, which would be enough for 30000 years at today consumption, using regular fuels or to extract uranium from seawater, which would provide enough uranium for 60000 years at present rates (and much more if combined with breeder reactors). In total, there is enough uranium to last thousands of years, even consumption goes up 10x or more. Obviously, costs will gradually go up, or at least the extraction will require more advanced technology. Even just 75 years is a long time, and a lot can change by year 2100. Thorium or fusion power could be solved by then, or we could have space based solar covering our needs.

Schroedingersat 4y ago
I said realistically. And this decade. Not in some weird scifi scenario where we have enrichment facilities that are 10x more effective and efficient and you have the reprocessed waste before you start. Tripling generation by adding 600GW is nothing. 8 years. 2TWe net installed by the end of it and producing around 300GWe net of new capacity per year. Renewables are on track (and 2TW is extremely pessimistic). What's your plan? How much ore? Where is the scale? Ignore the cost. You gotta demonstrate it's possible before you can gaslight about costs.
- trashtester 4y ago
  > 8 years. 8 years is barely enough to start changing course in how things like energy production is organized. Is there a specific reason you insist on this kind of velocity? Global warming is going to gradually increase as a problem over the next 200 years, if we continue our current course, it's not like the world is ending in 2030. In fact, on our current trajectory, the truly hellish outcomes are not expected until around 2150-2250 (based in IPCC reports). But precisely because it takes so long to change course, we need to start turning the ship now. > Tripling generation by adding 600GW is nothing. Watts is not a unit of energy, it's a unit of power. Peak capacity is not very interesting. What matters is actual production as well as the cost of producing the power when there is demand (including the cost of storage, if needed). Nuclear produced 2.8TW last year, which is roughly identical to Solar+Wind. That's about 10% each. If we add hydro to this mix (currently 15%), we have a total of 35%. The depressing part is that this has been relatively constant since 1985, meaning we haven't made any progress over the last 37 years. https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix However, if we restart investments in nuclear, while continue our renewable investments, we may be able to triple both over the next 15-20 years. If hydro remains constant, we may produce enough energy to cover 75% of 2021 consumption by 2040 (which would perhaps be 50% of 2040 consumption). That should be enough to replace most fossil fuels for electricity in the EU+US, at least. To reach such a level is highly non-trivial, both for nuclear and wind/solar. For nuclear, it means a u-turn is needed on several fronts, and for wind/solar, there are economic and geographic limitations (some areas are getting saturated). For this plan and time horizon, there are plenty of uranium deposits that can be mined, perhaps most interestingly for western countries, a lot of this is in Australia and Canada. If we restart construction of nuclear plants, we will also drive incentives to go looking for more sources elsewhere. As for your "Peak Uranium" hypothesis, I suggest looking at the history for "Peak Oil". Oil was predicted to reach its peak in year 2000, but the reality is that production is still increasing. I would be very surprised if the same is not happening for uranium. And as far as I can tell, we DO need it (or nuclear in some other form), if we're supposed ween ourselves off fossil fuels this century. Wind and solar may be competitive in some locations up to some production volumes, but they seem to have very diminishing returns above some level, due to storage costs and available land areas. Maybe we can, some day, have solar panels carpeting the Sahara or even in Outer Space, but that's definitely scifi.

__pache__ 4y ago

billions of years of energy ? https://whatisnuclear.com/nuclear-sustainability.html#:~:text=Breeder%20reactors%20can%20power%20all,construction%20performance%20and%20public%20acceptance https://whatisnuclear.com/nuclear-sustainability.html#:~:tex....

Schroedingersat 4y ago
Failing to understand the distinction between power and energy doesn't make you seem very credible. And neither does saying failing to understand what a breeder is. You need fissile material to start a reactor of any kind. Working breeders with a real closed fuel cycle don't exist but if we pretend they do it's about 5 tonnes per GW. You can't start breeding until they're built and the breeding ratio of proposed designs takes on the order of a decade to fuel another reactor. How many billions of tonnes of ore do you need to extract the uranium from per year to meet net zero installed power roadmaps? How do you get to 2TW by 2030 to come close to the scale of the renewable roadmap?
- __pache__ 4y ago
  They don't do it because fuel is so cheap, lol.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    How much fissile material do you need to meet net zero by 2050 with all nuclear?