13 ms·

We have 93 nuclear reactors? I'm on Team Greta: go nukes.

acidburnNSA 3y ago
Yes, and they make roughly 20% of our electricity, and about 50% of our low-carbon electricity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_St...
photochemsyn 3y ago
Where are you going to get the uranium ore from to run this project? Where are the high-grade uranium ores that can be economically processed into the required ~200 tons of rods that each 1 GW nuclear power plant requires each year? Let's say we have 0.1% uranium ore, that means we need 1000 tons of ore for each ton of uranium. Huge energy costs, huge waste stream to get that one ton of uranium, by the way. And each 1 GW reactor needs 200 tons - per year. So that's 200,000 tons of ore per year. Now, in comparison, a 1 GW coal-fired power plant needs to be fed with 3-4 million tons of coal per year (energy content of coal varies a bit, in relation to oxygen-based combustion at least). And, a 1 GW reliable 24/7 solar/wind/storage system needs how many tons per year? (OK battery replacement is an issue... work it out yourself).
- d4mi3n 3y ago
  Pebble bed reactors are thing. Thorium reactors are a thing. The tech has improved even if the active reactors have not.
  - bumby 3y ago
    Tbf, I think the commenter was responding in the context of the 93 existing reactors previously mentioned.
- doublespanner 3y ago
  The highest yield current mining and enriching processes beat that by about a factor of 10; there are a few sites globally that achieve that, Canada would be the most relevant. Don't forget that only the high density fuel needs to be shipped long distance as well... For a fully reliable 1gw of wind, that's something like 600 turbines (to simply), each turbine lasts about 20 years, and weighs about 200 tonnes. So about 5000 tonnes of finished wind turbine a year, with an equivalent waste stream.
- vasco 3y ago
  It's funny you'd assume they haven't done simple math of where to get the fuel for billion dollar investments.
- _huayra_ 3y ago
  It's a bit disappointing how the solar/wind folks neglect to consider the fact that such a storage system does not exist. Before one goes to the "but muh batteries" rebuttal, it's a useful exercise to see how much Lithium would need to be mined to provide reliable baseload power. Simon Michaux has already done this. It's worth a read through his reports [0]. Also, it's quite possible to reprocess spent fuel. France has been doing it for decades. [1] The price has not been enough to justify it, but eventually it will (or if other costs are imposed, like a tax on the mineral rights that would favor reprocessing fuel). [0] https://www.simonmichaux.com/gtk-reports https://www.simonmichaux.com/gtk-reports [1] https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/frances-efficiency-in-the-nuclear-fuel-cycle-what-can-oui-learn https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/frances-efficiency-in-t...
  - photochemsyn 3y ago
    If you're not limited by the need to move around, then lithium doesn't make as much sense for power arbitrage technologies. There are literally dozens of such technologies capabale of storing intermittent solar/wind inputs in physical or chemical forms that can be pumped back out onto the grid as needed. It's so ridiculous to think that human civilization would collapse just because we will eventually run out of stuff to dig out of the ground and burn, when the biosphere has been humming along on sunlight for about three billion years. Why is this so hard to explain to people?
    - ben_w 3y ago
      I agree, but we also need a storage system that can move around, and the aggregate scale of that is inherently more than enough for grid storage. This is why I'm not going to rule out hydrogen despite it having not worked out even back during the 1973 OPEC fuel crisis when alternatives were desperately needed and nuclear power (which is useful for among other things electrolysis) was The Future. (Also, on paper one doesn't need any grid storage, if only we could get governments to cope rates on a planetary grid. Texas doing it's own thing and Japan having two frequency zones shows how hard this would be in practice, but in principle it can work just fine).
    - bdsa 3y ago
- defrost 3y ago
  Assuming you're asking a literal question and want an answer, the current global total of "reasonably assured resource" uranium (known, tested to a degree of certainty by sampling, modelled for economic recovery costs) that can be extracted at less than $130 US / kg usable uranium is 3.8 million tonnes, roughly 28% of which is in Australia, 10% in Canada, ~1% in the USofA, etc. You can find a full table, distribution maps, guesstimates for known but as yet untested deposits, etc in the big Red Book of Uranium stuff (free to download): https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_28569/uranium-resources-production-and-demand-red-book https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_28569/uranium-resources-pro... > a 1 GW reliable 24/7 solar/wind/storage system needs how many tons per year? Currently panels drop to 80% efficacy after 10 years and are doorstops in 20 - replacement | recovery is an ongoing process and that currently requires raw materials that come with a cost - including slave labour. https://blog.ucsusa.org/charlie-hoffs/mining-raw-materials-for-solar-panels-problems-and-solutions/ https://blog.ucsusa.org/charlie-hoffs/mining-raw-materials-f... There are no magic problem free resources.
  - photochemsyn 3y ago
    Monocrystalline silicon panels last >30 years at near-initial production unless subjected to physical damage. Yes, investors in the uranium fuel rod production pipeline will feel a lot of pain as a result of what's going on right now, but it's not like they weren't warned. Like Theranos investors, they failed to do their due diligence. [edit] Just to add, the metric you want is ENERGY not $US, because what really matters is the amount of energy you have to put into mining the ore, extracting the uranium from the ore, enriching the uranium-235 in the ore to the point where it's useful in a nuclear reactor, and then packaging that refined product into highly expensive fuel rods made of fairly expensive materials. By the time you do that energy calculation, per-year, for the reactor (on top of ridiculously high initial construction costs), the whole thing looks like a massive long-term liability.
    - defrost 3y ago
      Monocrystalline is the most expensive one to produce, the process of manufacturing monocrystalline solar cells is very energy-intensive and produces a big amount of silicon waste. They're not especially robust in cold weather and while they do last longer, they do also degrade in output over time just as the poly versions do. To maintain a 1 GW farm requires ongoing upkeep, etc. Again, there are no magic problem free resources, just like low volume uranium mining, large volume mining and production processing to sustain solar power has toxic side effects and impacts people.
rasz 3y ago
[flagged]
wateralien 3y ago
I'm on team Generation 4 Nuclear. I think the distinction is important. Eg: https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/3-advanced-reactor-systems-watch-2030 https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/3-advanced-reactor-system...
- hanniabu 3y ago
  Generation doesn't matter, the weakest link will always be human greef, changing the spec to save cost, changing safety tests to extend the lifetime past when it should be shut down, poor maintenance, etc
  - spullara 3y ago
    Those are all just money. We could spend more for energy.
- spullara 3y ago
  I would build 100 3 mile islands instead of using fossil fuels.
  - wateralien 3y ago
    Mmmm, I think that would be a mistake. The former residents of Fukushima prefecture and Chernobyl would probably agree.
    - nickpp 3y ago
      But the millions killed each year by pollution created burning gas, oil and coal would strongly disagree - if they were still alive.
    - unglaublich 3y ago
      - 20.000 died because of the Tsunami. - 2.000 died in the evacuation attempt. - ONE person died because of actual radiation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...
arunharidas 3y ago
Greta is not pro-nukes. Most of the environment activists are not.
- SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
  To the surprise of no one that has looked behind the curtain to see “the only solution” is always you need to pay us more taxes and keep us in power.
  - cycomanic 3y ago
    That comment is hilarious considering that nuclear has recent several multiples of the subsidies that renewables received and is still much more expensive. And we are not even counting the military (the nuclear industry would likely be in a much worse state if it wasn't for the militaries demand for nuclear engineers and scientists and financing much of the R&D).
    - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
      Ok, so the argument is that we know we went nuts regulating it to oblivion, and this is a fault in the technology and not ourselves - then you go to admit that it is a massive tactical and technological advantage we need? Ok, strange flex but this about what I have come to expect from this “debate”.
      - cycomanic 3y ago
        Nuclear is not so expensive because of regulation that's another myth. Considering the scale and possible impact wind and solar often have much more regulations (just look at Bavaria where the ruling party essentially blocked all new wind installations by creating requirements that reduced potential sites to nearly 0). A nuclear power plant is essentially a thermal plant plus the nuclear part so how would it be cheaper than a coal plant?
        ben_w 3y ago
rtkwe 3y ago
The biggest issue with nuke power is it takes forever to build and we just stopped for 30+ years in the US so we're behind the curve and it wouldn't come online fast enough to hit climate goals so we need to do other faster stuff and nukes to build a baseline power support.
- manonthewall 3y ago
  we aren't going to meet "climate goals" anyway, lets opt for the sure thing. We should have done what France did, maybe even poached half their nuclear engineers.
  - rtkwe 3y ago
    Even if we aren't going all in on nuclear and not other renewable energy sources just means we'll blow past it. You can see this happening on the US right these days where there's some admission that something needs to change but it's pushed towards longer timeline changes like nuclear because it pushes out the date that existing interests like coal plants (and by extension coal mines, hello West Virginia) would be pushed out of the market. I'd love to see tons more nuclear including fuel reprocessing which the US was very resistant to for a long time due I think to proliferation concerns.

Yes, and they make roughly 20% of our electricity, and about 50% of our low-carbon electricity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_St...

photochemsyn 3y ago

Where are you going to get the uranium ore from to run this project? Where are the high-grade uranium ores that can be economically processed into the required ~200 tons of rods that each 1 GW nuclear power plant requires each year? Let's say we have 0.1% uranium ore, that means we need 1000 tons of ore for each ton of uranium. Huge energy costs, huge waste stream to get that one ton of uranium, by the way. And each 1 GW reactor needs 200 tons - per year. So that's 200,000 tons of ore per year. Now, in comparison, a 1 GW coal-fired power plant needs to be fed with 3-4 million tons of coal per year (energy content of coal varies a bit, in relation to oxygen-based combustion at least). And, a 1 GW reliable 24/7 solar/wind/storage system needs how many tons per year? (OK battery replacement is an issue... work it out yourself).

d4mi3n 3y ago
Pebble bed reactors are thing. Thorium reactors are a thing. The tech has improved even if the active reactors have not.
- bumby 3y ago
  Tbf, I think the commenter was responding in the context of the 93 existing reactors previously mentioned.
doublespanner 3y ago
The highest yield current mining and enriching processes beat that by about a factor of 10; there are a few sites globally that achieve that, Canada would be the most relevant. Don't forget that only the high density fuel needs to be shipped long distance as well... For a fully reliable 1gw of wind, that's something like 600 turbines (to simply), each turbine lasts about 20 years, and weighs about 200 tonnes. So about 5000 tonnes of finished wind turbine a year, with an equivalent waste stream.
vasco 3y ago
It's funny you'd assume they haven't done simple math of where to get the fuel for billion dollar investments.
_huayra_ 3y ago
It's a bit disappointing how the solar/wind folks neglect to consider the fact that such a storage system does not exist. Before one goes to the "but muh batteries" rebuttal, it's a useful exercise to see how much Lithium would need to be mined to provide reliable baseload power. Simon Michaux has already done this. It's worth a read through his reports [0]. Also, it's quite possible to reprocess spent fuel. France has been doing it for decades. [1] The price has not been enough to justify it, but eventually it will (or if other costs are imposed, like a tax on the mineral rights that would favor reprocessing fuel). [0] https://www.simonmichaux.com/gtk-reports https://www.simonmichaux.com/gtk-reports [1] https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/frances-efficiency-in-the-nuclear-fuel-cycle-what-can-oui-learn https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/frances-efficiency-in-t...
- photochemsyn 3y ago
  If you're not limited by the need to move around, then lithium doesn't make as much sense for power arbitrage technologies. There are literally dozens of such technologies capabale of storing intermittent solar/wind inputs in physical or chemical forms that can be pumped back out onto the grid as needed. It's so ridiculous to think that human civilization would collapse just because we will eventually run out of stuff to dig out of the ground and burn, when the biosphere has been humming along on sunlight for about three billion years. Why is this so hard to explain to people?
  - ben_w 3y ago
    I agree, but we also need a storage system that can move around, and the aggregate scale of that is inherently more than enough for grid storage. This is why I'm not going to rule out hydrogen despite it having not worked out even back during the 1973 OPEC fuel crisis when alternatives were desperately needed and nuclear power (which is useful for among other things electrolysis) was The Future. (Also, on paper one doesn't need any grid storage, if only we could get governments to cope rates on a planetary grid. Texas doing it's own thing and Japan having two frequency zones shows how hard this would be in practice, but in principle it can work just fine).
  - bdsa 3y ago
defrost 3y ago
Assuming you're asking a literal question and want an answer, the current global total of "reasonably assured resource" uranium (known, tested to a degree of certainty by sampling, modelled for economic recovery costs) that can be extracted at less than $130 US / kg usable uranium is 3.8 million tonnes, roughly 28% of which is in Australia, 10% in Canada, ~1% in the USofA, etc. You can find a full table, distribution maps, guesstimates for known but as yet untested deposits, etc in the big Red Book of Uranium stuff (free to download): https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_28569/uranium-resources-production-and-demand-red-book https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_28569/uranium-resources-pro... > a 1 GW reliable 24/7 solar/wind/storage system needs how many tons per year? Currently panels drop to 80% efficacy after 10 years and are doorstops in 20 - replacement | recovery is an ongoing process and that currently requires raw materials that come with a cost - including slave labour. https://blog.ucsusa.org/charlie-hoffs/mining-raw-materials-for-solar-panels-problems-and-solutions/ https://blog.ucsusa.org/charlie-hoffs/mining-raw-materials-f... There are no magic problem free resources.
- photochemsyn 3y ago
  Monocrystalline silicon panels last >30 years at near-initial production unless subjected to physical damage. Yes, investors in the uranium fuel rod production pipeline will feel a lot of pain as a result of what's going on right now, but it's not like they weren't warned. Like Theranos investors, they failed to do their due diligence. [edit] Just to add, the metric you want is ENERGY not $US, because what really matters is the amount of energy you have to put into mining the ore, extracting the uranium from the ore, enriching the uranium-235 in the ore to the point where it's useful in a nuclear reactor, and then packaging that refined product into highly expensive fuel rods made of fairly expensive materials. By the time you do that energy calculation, per-year, for the reactor (on top of ridiculously high initial construction costs), the whole thing looks like a massive long-term liability.
  - defrost 3y ago
    Monocrystalline is the most expensive one to produce, the process of manufacturing monocrystalline solar cells is very energy-intensive and produces a big amount of silicon waste. They're not especially robust in cold weather and while they do last longer, they do also degrade in output over time just as the poly versions do. To maintain a 1 GW farm requires ongoing upkeep, etc. Again, there are no magic problem free resources, just like low volume uranium mining, large volume mining and production processing to sustain solar power has toxic side effects and impacts people.

rasz 3y ago

[flagged]

wateralien 3y ago

I'm on team Generation 4 Nuclear. I think the distinction is important. Eg: https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/3-advanced-reactor-systems-watch-2030 https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/3-advanced-reactor-system...

hanniabu 3y ago
Generation doesn't matter, the weakest link will always be human greef, changing the spec to save cost, changing safety tests to extend the lifetime past when it should be shut down, poor maintenance, etc
- spullara 3y ago
  Those are all just money. We could spend more for energy.
spullara 3y ago
I would build 100 3 mile islands instead of using fossil fuels.
- wateralien 3y ago
  Mmmm, I think that would be a mistake. The former residents of Fukushima prefecture and Chernobyl would probably agree.
  - nickpp 3y ago
    But the millions killed each year by pollution created burning gas, oil and coal would strongly disagree - if they were still alive.
  - unglaublich 3y ago
    - 20.000 died because of the Tsunami. - 2.000 died in the evacuation attempt. - ONE person died because of actual radiation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...

arunharidas 3y ago

Greta is not pro-nukes. Most of the environment activists are not.

SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
To the surprise of no one that has looked behind the curtain to see “the only solution” is always you need to pay us more taxes and keep us in power.
- cycomanic 3y ago
  That comment is hilarious considering that nuclear has recent several multiples of the subsidies that renewables received and is still much more expensive. And we are not even counting the military (the nuclear industry would likely be in a much worse state if it wasn't for the militaries demand for nuclear engineers and scientists and financing much of the R&D).
  - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
    Ok, so the argument is that we know we went nuts regulating it to oblivion, and this is a fault in the technology and not ourselves - then you go to admit that it is a massive tactical and technological advantage we need? Ok, strange flex but this about what I have come to expect from this “debate”.
    - cycomanic 3y ago
      Nuclear is not so expensive because of regulation that's another myth. Considering the scale and possible impact wind and solar often have much more regulations (just look at Bavaria where the ruling party essentially blocked all new wind installations by creating requirements that reduced potential sites to nearly 0). A nuclear power plant is essentially a thermal plant plus the nuclear part so how would it be cheaper than a coal plant?
      - ben_w 3y ago

rtkwe 3y ago

The biggest issue with nuke power is it takes forever to build and we just stopped for 30+ years in the US so we're behind the curve and it wouldn't come online fast enough to hit climate goals so we need to do other faster stuff and nukes to build a baseline power support.

manonthewall 3y ago
we aren't going to meet "climate goals" anyway, lets opt for the sure thing. We should have done what France did, maybe even poached half their nuclear engineers.
- rtkwe 3y ago
  Even if we aren't going all in on nuclear and not other renewable energy sources just means we'll blow past it. You can see this happening on the US right these days where there's some admission that something needs to change but it's pushed towards longer timeline changes like nuclear because it pushes out the date that existing interests like coal plants (and by extension coal mines, hello West Virginia) would be pushed out of the market. I'd love to see tons more nuclear including fuel reprocessing which the US was very resistant to for a long time due I think to proliferation concerns.