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More nuclear energy means less mining
- simonebrunozzi 2y agoInteresting article. Turning it upside down, one could argue that anything but coal would literally save the planet. Fingers crossed.
- throwaway5959 2y agoNuclear energy is just being used as a carrot by fossil fuel companies. They don’t want renewables so they’re dangling an unrealistic option.
- usrbinbash 2y agoPray tell, what is "unrealistic" about nuclear energy as an alternative? There are only 436 nuclear reactors in the world (for comparisons sake, there are more than 2400 coal power plants worldwide, and the US alone have more than 980 natural-gas power stations (2022). And yet this small number of nuclear reactors produces 10% of global electricity.
- throwaway5959 2y agoWhen was the last nuclear plant built in California? Edit: downvoting someone you disagree with is not cool. Go outside, touch some grass.
- krasin 2y agoCalifornia is a bad example for nuclear, as it's the perfect spot for solar. On the opposite, Finland lacks sun, but enjoys their new reactor (even though, since it's another one-off project, it's over budget).
- throwaway5959 2y agoI don’t live in Finland. In fact, Finland’s population is half that of Michigan’s, so I’m sure they’d be fine with solar and wind as well. They already get a quarter of their power from hydro.
- krasin 2y ago> I’m sure they’d be fine with solar Sorry, your confidence betrays you here. Please, look up the altitude of Helsinki. In January they get 6 hours of sunlight per day and it's almost universally cloudy winter-time. Nuclear & wind are better options for Finland and they pursue both ([1], [2], [3]) 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Finland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Finland 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loviisa_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loviisa_Nuclear_Power_Plant
- throwaway5959 2y agoCool, but you cut off the sentence where it says “and wind”.
- krasin 2y ago> Cool, but you cut off the sentence where it says “and wind”. Because wind works for Finland and it's a good idea for them to invest in it (and they do). But putting solar & Finland together is nonsense.
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- bryanlarsen 2y agoThe Nordic countries are literally the only places in the world where solar isn't the best option by 2030: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2023/10/19/future-of-energy-reading-list/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2023/10/19/future-of-ener...
- tbrownaw 2y agoYeah, sure, lets take a technology where the main challenge is obstructionism by NIMBYs who bought in to too much FUD, and judge it by a state notorious for enabling NIMBYism.
- jncfhnb 2y agoNuclear energy has a levelized cost of energy that is about 5-10x more expensive than utility solar, with solar expected to continue becoming exponentially cheaper
- usrbinbash 2y agoAnd? Solar cannot do it, it's as simple as that, so the cost is irrelevant. > becoming exponentially cheaper "Exponentially" is very unlikely. It may become somewhat cheaper, at first, if supply increases. Which btw. is also true for nuclear power. But then what? We cannot power the world with solar alone, for the simple reason that we cannot store that much energy during the dark hours. Hydro storage is geographically limited, and batteries, well, let's just say the entire world output of Lithium over the last 3 decades didn't make enough to even store the electricity the US alone requires in a single day. And that is before be electrify further. Yes, we should build more solar. There is no reason to have roofs not covered in panels. But all solar can do, is help. It is not the solution to our energy demands.
- jncfhnb 2y ago> Exponentially" is very unlikely. It may become somewhat cheaper, at first, if supply increases. Which btw. is also true for nuclear power. Not “at first” but demonstrably over time and ongoing. Yes it will cease eventually but it seems like that’s not near. > But then what? We cannot power the world with solar alone, for the simple reason that we cannot store that much energy during the dark hours. Hydro storage is geographically limited, and batteries, well, let's just say the entire world output of Lithium over the last 3 decades didn't make enough to even store the electricity the US alone requires in a single day. And that is before be electrify further. Powering the us on batteries for a full day is not a realistic goal. But batteries are already cost competitive and shuttering gas peaker plants. > Yes, we should build more solar. There is no reason to have roofs not covered in panels. But all solar can do, is help. It is not the solution to our energy demands. Rooftop solar is actually more expensive than nuclear actually. Or at least a year or two ago. If you build a bunch of nuclear you will not be able to compete on price with cheap renewables during the day. But you can’t just turn a nuclear reactor on and off so you’ll have to still generate and operate at a loss. Which means to be profitable you have to raise prices to make up for it in the off hours. Which, in turn, makes you less competitive and makes it more commercially viable for batteries. Tl;dr, market forces will punish you. Renewables and batteries and fossil fuels as backup are the clear winners
- krasin 2y agoYes, I can believe that. Anyone who tries to say "let's wait for nuclear and not deploy solar/wind" is not rational, unless driven by the idea to sell more fossil fuels. My personal position - let's allow building both; nuclear and solar/wind are complementary, not exclusive; but the government funding should mostly go to solar/wind at the moment, as they are the fastest & cheapest way to reduce CO2 emissions in the places, where these resources are available. And there are a lot of places like that.
- tbrownaw 2y ago> Anyone who tries to say "let's wait for nuclear and not deploy solar/wind" is ...is being obstructionist and deceptive. Nuclear is already a thing.
- armada651 2y agoQuite the opposite, there's clear evidence that fossil fuel companies heavily supported anti-nuclear action groups. Because nuclear energy is just as much of a threat to their business as renewables are.
- krasin 2y ago> Quite the opposite, there's clear evidence that fossil fuel companies heavily supported anti-nuclear action groups. Fossil companies fund both camps. They are especially interested in closing-down existing nuclear plants, as it immediately creates a big market for them, but it's also useful to them to delay deploying new solar/wind capacity (and thus, funding the wait-for-new-nuclear or even wait-for-fusion campaigns)
- lucidguppy 2y agoIf you keep it forever in R&D you can have it as a carrot and never as a competitor. Tons and tons of cash that could go into battery or panel factories. And because they have the media in their pocket they can easily turn the knob on favor or disfavor of nuclear power. Solar is the solution now because America dithered and fumbled nuclear energy in the 60s - 80s. Now nuclear cannot be built because every estimate has been 1/10th the actual cost for plants built in this millennium. Glow rocks are dead - use fusion power from the sky.
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- bryanlarsen 2y agoThey probably flipped 5-15 years ago. Before then nuclear was the biggest threat to fossil energy. Now solar is, and pro-nuclear is the best anti-solar.
- childofzombie 2y ago[flagged]
- rbanffy 2y ago
- Gibbon1 2y agoYeah they're trying to delay the decay of their valuation. A few years ago went looking at producing hydrogen by electrolysis for ammonia production. There was the usual 'well maybe' stuff but nothing showing anyone was doing anything concrete. Few days ago checked a again and there are a bunch of corporate news items about building electrolysers and hydrogen storage to replace natural gas reformer units. The problem the fossil fuel companies have is they can convince low information stupids that oil, gas, coal and nuclear are the only viable technologies. But they can't convince the accountants.
- dauertewigkeit 2y agoYours seems like an unnecessarily cynical take. For sure oil companies try to green wash themselves with investment in green tech that seems too far fetched. Sure. But there are also many genuinely good intentioned people working on that green tech because they genuinely see a possible future application. For that matter oil companies invested in battery tech as well. For the most part they just want to appear like they are doing something. But their green washing shouldn't discredit the green tech itself.
- rbanffy 2y agoOil companies know they are going to join the original oil suppliers, the dinosaurs, soon enough and they need to invest and build IP in renewables to be able to transition over to the green side. Nobody wants to be the next Kodak.
- Gibbon1 2y agoI read an article where the author made a point that oil and gas companies aren't setup to compete in the renewables business. And they have the problem that companies that are already exist in that space. When it comes to building out a deep water oil rig they have no competition. But when it comes to set up an offshore wind farm marine services companies have the experience, equipment, and are nimble. Build solar panels? That's manufacturing and there is a whole other industry that makes commodity manufactured goods at scale. Batteries and solar panels are both extremely high volume commodity goods.
- hoerensagen 2y agoExxon did this with a carbon tax in the US. Here is a quote of an exxon lobbyist bragging about it: "Nobody is going to propose a tax on all Americans and the cynical side of me says, yeah, we kind of know that but it gives us a talking point that we can say, well what is ExxonMobil for? Well, we’re for a carbon tax," Source: https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2021/06/30/exxon-climate-change-undercover/ https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2021/06/30/exxon-climate-ch...
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y agoWeird. Would it not work? (If there was actually any support for it) I'm for a carbon tax, or renewables, or nuclear, or anything at all that works.
- jimbokun 2y agoBy itself a carbon tax in the US would be extremely regressive as the vast majority of poor people here still need to drive to work, and they would immediately see the price increase at the pump. It would have to be offset with some kind of tax rebate, but it’s harder to explain a more complex program like traffic to the voters.
- jeffbee 2y agoThey'd get it completely after the first week, if you administered it correctly. The right way to do a motor fuel tax is to fully refund it per capita, frequently. No means tests or any shit like that, just mail checks on Friday.
- nrdxp 2y agoSolar and wind are detrimental to the environment in their own respects, and will never generate enough energy to solve the problem :D
- rbanffy 2y agoYou need to back that up with numbers, because mine say otherwise. Ireland (of all places) has sizeable renewable running and solar roofs have government subsidies.
- threeseed 2y agoThis is happening right now in Australia. Conservative opposition are pushing heavily for nuclear energy in a country that has more access to renewables than almost any other. And what happens is that the arguments over why you need it, where the reactors would be placed etc. are causing doubts from investors that long term, bi-partisan support for renewables exists. And investors need stability to invest. It's an insidious plan that is actually working.
- candiodari 2y agoWhy would consensus against renewables work? Renewables work from pretty small-scale all the way up to industrial deployments (well, not in Alaska/Siberia but in Australia ...) So consensus shouldn't matter because if Joe the hairdresser or Jane the mechanic decide they, personally, want to do renewables, they can. Just by themselves. Hell, in most Australian cities ... I bet it would work in anything but the CBD.
- threeseed 2y agoWe are talking about major renewable projects not small scale solar panels on your roof. Even small scale needs stability in government support because you need to invest in the grid and energy storage to handle the excess in power generated by solar panels during the day.
- rbanffy 2y agoYou don’t need to invest in the grid for that. You can use batteries. There are chemistries that work really well for large building batteries.
- candiodari 2y agoYou could also just waste the power. Why not?
- rbanffy 2y ago
- yongjik 2y agoNuclear-happy France is burning way less fossil fuels than anti-nuclear Germany. If I'm in Germany and I want fossil fuel companies to make more money, I'll fund anti-nuclear protests.
- childofzombie 2y agoWhy would you oppose a decade long project you could upset at any time which ends up requiring short term energy planning? I think you meant protests in France.
- caseyy 2y agoWhy aren't the fossil fuel companies moving to renewables and nuclear themselves? Wouldn't it make better long-term business sense? They can then keep selling fossil fuels as long as they have a market to sell them in, but if the market dries up due to regulations — no worries. I might have a naive view of this but a dual strategy would seem to make more business sense. I mean — every dollar invested in lobbying for fossil fuels seems to have a higher expected value of money if it was spent on expanding renewable and nuclear operations.
- tsimionescu 2y agoFor the simple fact that even if it's true that renewables are cheaper than oil, it's still a much higher investment to build a renewable plant and hire people who know how to work it than it is to continue existing operations with existing people. Edit: In addition, if the environmentalits were to "win", that would turn essentially the entirety of these companies' existing capital into 0 value. So not lobbying to stop that is extremely dangerous.
- anon84873628 2y ago>it's still a much higher investment to build a renewable plant and hire people who know how to work it than it is to continue existing operations with existing people. But someone is still doing that investment and will eventually reap the returns, so it still seems short sighted for existing energy companies not to try and outcompete them. >that would turn essentially the entirety of these companies' existing capital into 0 value. Honestly, I'd be kind of happy if these companies invested in renewables (even with government subsidies) and were lobbying the government to buy back the fossil fuel infrastructure that isn't needed anymore...
- jimbokun 2y agoHow does a switch to nuclear help fossil fuel companies?
- belorn 2y agoFossil fuel companies best bet right now is to focus on natural gas and oil, to be used in thermal power stations. When power prices fluctuating, they can get more of the money from customers using less fuel, hitting the grid when supply is at the lowest point. To help this they can get governments to pay subsidies for ongoing operations in the name of grid stability. The plants can also be used in theory with bio gas, so subsidies for construction is also on the table. In Europe, natural gas even got declared as being green and the energy of choice to stop climate change. They also managed to get a bunch of exceptions added regarding oil, especially when used in industry and shipping. Coal was really the only thing fossil fuel companies needed to sacrifice in order to have a profitable future.
- throwthrowuknow 2y agoThat is the most ridiculously inverted truth I’ve ever seen regarding nuclear. This is article talks about the petrochemical industry’s long history of opposition to nuclear but you can find a lot of other information just by googling it. https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/V-Gloves-are-off-in-fossil-fuel-fight-against-nuclear-0205171.html https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/V-Gloves-are-off-in-fossi...
- borlox 2y agoLess mining on getting the uranium? Or less mining on getting the uranium plus digging the nuclear waste into an intermediate storage, plus digging it from the indermediate storage that‘s been recently flooded, plus throwing it somewhere else, and so on, for the next 100k years?
- goda90 2y agoWhy bury useful fuel?
- wffurr 2y agoMight want to read up on what’s entailed in actually using that “useful fuel” https://www.funraniumlabs.com/2024/04/choose-your-own-radiation-adventure-kneejerk-spent-fuel-solutions/ https://www.funraniumlabs.com/2024/04/choose-your-own-radiat...
- rbanffy 2y agoMSRs should be able to burn a higher fraction of the fuel at least. Did any design move forward?
- credit_guy 2y agoThere are tens if not hundreds of MSR designs. Here's a useful report published by the International Atomic Energy Agency on the status of MSR in the world [1]. There are two types of reactors that hold the promise to burn a higher fraction of the fuel: thorium based thermal reactors and uranium fast reactors. Many such reactors are MSRs, but so are other reactors. Honestly, you can think of MSR as an orthogonal dimension. In any case, to answer your question about which designs moved forward. You can think of a design moving forward if the company that promotes that design has applied for NRC approval, and how far they are in the approval process. Here's the page where you can find these details [2]. There are 12 companies listed there. Any north-american company that is not listed there, you can think of their design as "pie-in-the-sky". Among the 12 companies, there are 3 molten salt reactor designs. One is in a reasonably advanced stage (the Kairos-Hermes), but that is a classical MSR: it uses uranium and thermal neutrons, so there are no ambitions to breed new fuel or anything. That's good, you want a design to be as conservative as possible if it were to get an NRC approval. The Terrestrial Energy design is also thermal, the only fast MSR is Terrapower's Molten Chloride Fast Reactor design. However, Terrapower is in a much more advanced stage with its Natrium reactor, its MSR is basically on the back burner. My guess is we won't hear any news about this design for at least 10 years. However, the Natrium design of Terrapower has some promise, and quite solid funding. It is a sodium-cooled fast reactor. If it succeeds, such designs can burn U-238, and that is somewhat of a game-changer. [1] https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/STI-DOC-010-489_web.pdf https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/STI-DOC-010-4... [2]https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/advanced/who-were-working-with/licensing-activities/pre-application-activities/kairos.html https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/advanced/who-were-...
- bee_rider 2y agoIs the amount of mining to be done actually a serious concern of any real policymaker? This seems like a nitty-gritty detail argument between, as the article describes them, “traditional” and “pragmatic” environmentalists. Does it matter who wins? Does either have the bribe money to challenge petrochemical companies? As far as I’ve heard, the main obstacle to overcome for nuclear power is that the permitting process is too slow, because the public is irrationally frightened of the stuff. On one hand this is not a fair problem for nuclear power. On the other, unfortunately, the uninformed general public is making all the decisions, not people who care about % differences in quantities of rocks mined.
- ender341341 2y ago> Is the amount of mining to be done actually a serious concern of any real policymaker? Mines are job providers, so at least some policymakers are actively opposed to reducing it.
- djbusby 2y agoThe things that replace the mines provide jobs too. What if we compare the count, wage and type of labor? It's not like one has jobs and the other has zero.
- klyrs 2y agoManufacturing and installing heat pumps, solar panels, etc. could be a huge source of blue collar jobs too, but it isn't just about the jobs, is it?
- ender341341 2y agoright, I'm 100% on board with that, but there's a sizeable population of voters whose jobs would be disrupted that are very against it, so their representatives like Manchin are against it.
- bee_rider 2y ago
- Ma8ee 2y agoThis looks like a straw man to me. I’ve never heard opponents of nuclear power claiming that mining uranium ore would lead to less mining than renewable energy sources. The arguments usually brought up are the consequences of accidents, the lack of long term solutions to nuclear waste, it’s too slow to build (we need to reduce our carbon footprint now, not in 15 years), and that it is too expensive to compete with sun and wind.
- jeffbee 2y agoConclusion is reached by unreasonably giving PV a 25-year life, but giving nuclear an 80-year service life and 92% capacity factor.
- novariation 2y agoThat's a great catch ! Thanks for this. For anyone wondering, 25 years is pretty common as a baseline for PV [1] but a good amount of them should be able to go for longer, say at least 30 years. As a comparison, the average nuclear power plant in France is 37 years old, and the french authority considers obvious a 50 year life expectancy, and 60 is being floated [2], but no idea where they got 80 from probably from the US extensions being floated [3] — 92% capacity factor are official measurements though, it's not unrealistic [4] [1] : https://www.cnet.com/home/energy-and-utilities/how-to-make-sure-your-solar-panels-last-for-decades/ https://www.cnet.com/home/energy-and-utilities/how-to-make-s... [2] : https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profil... [3]: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=228&t=3#:~:text=Before%20expiration%20of%20the%20original,operational%20life%20of%2080%20years https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=228&t=3#:~:text=Be.... [4]: https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-generation-capacity#:~:text=The%20Capacity%20Factor&text=It%20basically%20measures%20how%20often,of%20the%20time%20in%202021 https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-generation-capacity#....
- bryanlarsen 2y agoAnd it's not like solar panels stop working at 25 years. The biggest reason to replace solar panels at 20 years or so is that new panels are so much better than old ones. If technological process stopped we'd keep panels for longer.
- jeffbee 2y agoAccording to NREL field experiments, most panels are on-track to exceed their warranted output after 30 years. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/pip.3615 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/pip.3615
- nrdxp 2y agoSad that we have to waste so much time an energy on something that is fairly obvious
- kkfx 2y agoWe ALSO need nuclear to achieve the plan ending fossil fuels usage BUT nuclear do not means just build an NPP and mine uranium, it al means exaust disposal and also mean a spread and distributed energy grid as we need today, something we will probably be unable to maintain in a changing world. Solar on contrary means "just" install some panels and batteries with relevant inverters and you have energy, at least a bit for a potentially inconstant time. p.v. + storage means quickness and small distributed scale, nuclear means slow and big. Here the issue: - we need MUCH MORE nuclear, but it took some decades to build it - we need to being able to adapt in a changing world where populations will move en masse and keep moving for a little while, with wars and so on Long story short we might be late for nuclear, at least in the current state of available tech today (small reactors are a promise, but economically are a failure today) and we are too far from good enough energy storage for renewables.