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I've been screaming it for years but my real guess is the shift to nuclear power is the result of the destabilization of the global geopolitical situation showi

I've been screaming it for years but my real guess is the shift to nuclear power is the result of the destabilization of the global geopolitical situation showing that having an energy dependency on foreign nations that you can't always trust to be friendly or behave is a major national security weakness. So nuclear starts to look very attractive because of the guarantee of continual high power output with few dependencies as long as you have the uranium, and isn't as unreliable as renewables.

somenameforme 3y ago
Overall mined uranium supplies are quite limited. Numbers back in 2013 [1] put the total uranium available (including estimated undiscovered resources) at enough to maintain current operations for 230 years. Bump up usage by an order of magnitude, and you're running out in 23 years. And Western countries (mostly Canada/Australia) only produce about 20% of that total. So if nuclear ever became a staple, you'd end up needing to resort to salt-water extraction, or developing breeder reactors. Both would send costs skyrocketing. Salt-water extraction is also going to run into environmental issues given you're talking about processing literally trillions of tons of water (uranium's about 3 parts per billion in saltwater). Breeders also substantially up the stakes in terms of complexity and risk. If you'd indulge my curiosity, what would be your opposition be to something like solar + artificial hydroelectric? It's relatively cheap, infinite (well subject to access to the materials necessary for construction of solar panels), completely safe in any scenario, and things like artificial hydroelectric take care of the biggest issue of day/night production. [1] - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-glo...
rightbyte 3y ago
Ye it is quite strange. And the timing of the what I believe is an artificial sentiment shift is very much tied to a specific war. Anyhow, nuclear power plants are in them self a major national security weakness. Especially with these put small reactor everywhere cracy talk. But then again "national security" is about "security" about as much how the "defense industry" is about "defence". I sometimes feel that nuclear power is a proxy discussion for something else that is also not very popular among the voters. It kinda makes sense if you just replace "power" with "war".

somenameforme 3y ago

Overall mined uranium supplies are quite limited. Numbers back in 2013 [1] put the total uranium available (including estimated undiscovered resources) at enough to maintain current operations for 230 years. Bump up usage by an order of magnitude, and you're running out in 23 years. And Western countries (mostly Canada/Australia) only produce about 20% of that total. So if nuclear ever became a staple, you'd end up needing to resort to salt-water extraction, or developing breeder reactors. Both would send costs skyrocketing. Salt-water extraction is also going to run into environmental issues given you're talking about processing literally trillions of tons of water (uranium's about 3 parts per billion in saltwater). Breeders also substantially up the stakes in terms of complexity and risk. If you'd indulge my curiosity, what would be your opposition be to something like solar + artificial hydroelectric? It's relatively cheap, infinite (well subject to access to the materials necessary for construction of solar panels), completely safe in any scenario, and things like artificial hydroelectric take care of the biggest issue of day/night production. [1] - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-glo...

rightbyte 3y ago

Ye it is quite strange. And the timing of the what I believe is an artificial sentiment shift is very much tied to a specific war. Anyhow, nuclear power plants are in them self a major national security weakness. Especially with these put small reactor everywhere cracy talk. But then again "national security" is about "security" about as much how the "defense industry" is about "defence". I sometimes feel that nuclear power is a proxy discussion for something else that is also not very popular among the voters. It kinda makes sense if you just replace "power" with "war".