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Nuclear isn't infinite and uranium mines are often in politically unstable countries. Niger's military junta just forbad Orano from exploiting a mine, for examp

Nuclear isn't infinite and uranium mines are often in politically unstable countries. Niger's military junta just forbad Orano from exploiting a mine, for example. What is the French government supposed to do now? Declare war for uranium? Import more uranium from Russia? As a reminder, here is where the US's uranium came from in 2022: Canada (27%), Kazakhstan (25%), Russia (12%), Uzbekistan (11%), Australia (9%), six other countries (16%) (Germany, Malawi, Namibia, Niger, South Africa, and the United States). https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/where-our-uranium-comes-from.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/where-our-uraniu...

pydry 2y ago
The main problem with it isnt with the fuel. It's not even the small chance of a $1 trillion-to-cleanup Fukushima style cleanup event. It's just horrendously expensive and takes forever to build. Nonetheless it'll keep getting built where solar/wind/storage would be cheaper and quicker because they've got very slick PR and because the military industrial complex demands a ready supply of nuclear skills and a supply chain.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  > horrendously expensive How did France manage to power their country with it, then?
  - pydry 2y ago
    Lavish subsidies. Even then they had to nationalize EDF because it was going bankrupt after posting historically unprecedented losses. The problem is that stuff like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASTRID_(reactor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASTRID_(reactor) and this: https://reneweconomy.com.au/french-nuclear-giant-scraps-smr-plans-due-to-soaring-costs-will-start-over/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/french-nuclear-giant-scraps-smr-... keeps happening. The last paragraph explains how, in spite of these losses, how to keep the power cheap: >The federal Coalition has argued that nuclear might be expensive to build, but will deliver cheaper power to consumers. It has not explained how, but it has said that its reactors would be government owned, suggesting that – like France and Ontario – the costs would be borne by taxpayers and the supply of power to customers would be heavily subsidised.
    - panick21_ 2y ago
      Totally wrong. In totality nuclear was an utterly and completely amazing deal. The whole built up of the COMPLETE green grid cost the tax payer very little as the whole buildup went on the balance sheet of the EDF. And then it was paid down over years and years. During all this time France had very low stable energy cost. And this is while the French state in the last 2 decades abused the system as if it was a magical giving tree. Forcing them to sell energy very cheaply. Forcing them to sell cheap reliable energy in bulk to fossil fuel companies (subsidizing them) and then buying it back at much higher prices when it became clear they sold to much. Forcing them to invest in solar and dispatch at cost (destroying base load nuclear economics). Then the French government in its complete delusion essentially decided that they would be cool like coal producing Germany and announced a fantasy 'transition to renewables' that had literally 0.0% chance of actually happening. They basically delayed all maintenance because the reactors would be replaced soon anyway (yeah right). And this does not even take into account the gigantic amount of money France wont have to spend to do a green transition now. Comparably other countries had higher energy prices for 40 years, and have yet to transition a green grid. AND as a final coup de grace France had much lower medical cost because they didn't have decades of breathing coal (except the coal coming from Germany of course). Talk about externalizes. By any calculation, French nuclear program has been a complete and utter success. Even with extreme conservative calculation on reactor cost Germany. Starting in 2000, Germany would have had a way cheaper transition to green energy had they much mass built nuclear like France did. If you actually apply proper economics of scale (as observed during the French mass build) the cost would be a tiny fraction what Germany has spent and will continue to spend between buildup of wind/solar/battery, the high energy prices and the massive home and industrial energy subsidizes. > ASTRID_(reactor) Investing in future reactors is not a bad idea. In fact, Superphénix was already built and working, most of the bugs were fixed and it was ready for more broad rollout. But instead of building many more, short sighted politicians (who seem to share your ideology) killed the project. One of the main problems with the French nuclear industry in general, and the high cost now is that after the first generation, the next generation went anti-nuclear. They stopped building more plants, stopped innovating and start treating what the previous generation had built up as a 'problem that had to be overcome' rather then an incredibly resource. This lead to a situation where most of the experts retired and France lost a huge amount of knowledge. Only now they realize that transitioning away to magical solar/wind isn't nearly as easy as they had thought.
- lazide 2y ago
  It’s horrendously expensive because we insist on doing it in the shittiest, least efficient way possible. Like California’s high speed rail (frankly).
- panick21_ 2y ago
  It doesnt take forever to build. Its the fastest way to scale clean energy. If Germany in 2000 had invested in nuclear they could be basically done by now and for far less money, even with incredibly conservative assumsions. Just look at the build rate UAE and South Korea were able to achieve. Apply that to Germany, even without any effects from scale, and the numbers look fantastic. And its very unlikely that you are gone have Fukishima and even if you do, most of that money isnt actually needed. Nuclear isnt getting built much compared to solar/wind in what world do you live? Its the exact opposite.
lazide 2y ago
Uh, the US could easily mine more than all those other countries combined. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining_in_the_United...] And most of those countries are not politically unstable - unless we count Trudeau’s declining popularity, or Australia and Germany’s need for excessive beer drinking. For various reasons it just went through a period it didn’t want to. Though prices have recovered enough, mines are re-opening again.
- defrost 2y ago
  Kazakhstan alone typically exports more than 20x a year than any given year of total US production. The US has uranium deposits, yes, but they are relatively low grade and sparse in comparison with the major Uranium producing hotspots about the globe. Typically the US uses in situ leach mining to dissolve sparse uranium salts from (say) breccia pipes. Other countries mine faces (or bore through and extract) dense uranium rock ores (much more uranium returned per volume). Oddly, stability has not been an issue with uranium extraction, the best mines ever in the Congo were continuously extracted throughout the height of the Cold Wat while secret proxy wars were funded and fought all about them to keep the region destabilised for ease of resource extraction to US | French companies. Today Kazakhstan sells to the US via Rosatom in an agreement ratified by past POTUS.
  - lazide 2y ago
    Look at historic US production rates. [https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/mining-of-uranium/world-uranium-mining-production https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...] See those 60’s-80’s numbers? The US historically has done standard hard rock Uranium mining. It’s all over the 4 corners part of the US. High grade ore too. The reason it stopped was due to environmental regs/health issues - and because other countries would do it for cheaper. Not because it can’t do it at scale. The little remaining may be doing in-situ leaching, but that is a tiny footnote for the vast array of available uranium mines in the US. There is no actual strategic mining threat here, any more than there is one for bauxite or iron ore, etc. If someone tried to restrict US uranium supply, it would be a couple years at most before we’d be squishing everyone else in output again.
panick21_ 2y ago
Complete nonsense. Practically speaking there is no limitation. Its only that we have minimally invested in using it well. Even with the current suboptimal use we have plenty

pydry 2y ago

The main problem with it isnt with the fuel. It's not even the small chance of a $1 trillion-to-cleanup Fukushima style cleanup event. It's just horrendously expensive and takes forever to build. Nonetheless it'll keep getting built where solar/wind/storage would be cheaper and quicker because they've got very slick PR and because the military industrial complex demands a ready supply of nuclear skills and a supply chain.

WalterBright 2y ago
> horrendously expensive How did France manage to power their country with it, then?
- pydry 2y ago
  Lavish subsidies. Even then they had to nationalize EDF because it was going bankrupt after posting historically unprecedented losses. The problem is that stuff like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASTRID_(reactor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASTRID_(reactor) and this: https://reneweconomy.com.au/french-nuclear-giant-scraps-smr-plans-due-to-soaring-costs-will-start-over/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/french-nuclear-giant-scraps-smr-... keeps happening. The last paragraph explains how, in spite of these losses, how to keep the power cheap: >The federal Coalition has argued that nuclear might be expensive to build, but will deliver cheaper power to consumers. It has not explained how, but it has said that its reactors would be government owned, suggesting that – like France and Ontario – the costs would be borne by taxpayers and the supply of power to customers would be heavily subsidised.
  - panick21_ 2y ago
    Totally wrong. In totality nuclear was an utterly and completely amazing deal. The whole built up of the COMPLETE green grid cost the tax payer very little as the whole buildup went on the balance sheet of the EDF. And then it was paid down over years and years. During all this time France had very low stable energy cost. And this is while the French state in the last 2 decades abused the system as if it was a magical giving tree. Forcing them to sell energy very cheaply. Forcing them to sell cheap reliable energy in bulk to fossil fuel companies (subsidizing them) and then buying it back at much higher prices when it became clear they sold to much. Forcing them to invest in solar and dispatch at cost (destroying base load nuclear economics). Then the French government in its complete delusion essentially decided that they would be cool like coal producing Germany and announced a fantasy 'transition to renewables' that had literally 0.0% chance of actually happening. They basically delayed all maintenance because the reactors would be replaced soon anyway (yeah right). And this does not even take into account the gigantic amount of money France wont have to spend to do a green transition now. Comparably other countries had higher energy prices for 40 years, and have yet to transition a green grid. AND as a final coup de grace France had much lower medical cost because they didn't have decades of breathing coal (except the coal coming from Germany of course). Talk about externalizes. By any calculation, French nuclear program has been a complete and utter success. Even with extreme conservative calculation on reactor cost Germany. Starting in 2000, Germany would have had a way cheaper transition to green energy had they much mass built nuclear like France did. If you actually apply proper economics of scale (as observed during the French mass build) the cost would be a tiny fraction what Germany has spent and will continue to spend between buildup of wind/solar/battery, the high energy prices and the massive home and industrial energy subsidizes. > ASTRID_(reactor) Investing in future reactors is not a bad idea. In fact, Superphénix was already built and working, most of the bugs were fixed and it was ready for more broad rollout. But instead of building many more, short sighted politicians (who seem to share your ideology) killed the project. One of the main problems with the French nuclear industry in general, and the high cost now is that after the first generation, the next generation went anti-nuclear. They stopped building more plants, stopped innovating and start treating what the previous generation had built up as a 'problem that had to be overcome' rather then an incredibly resource. This lead to a situation where most of the experts retired and France lost a huge amount of knowledge. Only now they realize that transitioning away to magical solar/wind isn't nearly as easy as they had thought.
lazide 2y ago
It’s horrendously expensive because we insist on doing it in the shittiest, least efficient way possible. Like California’s high speed rail (frankly).
panick21_ 2y ago
It doesnt take forever to build. Its the fastest way to scale clean energy. If Germany in 2000 had invested in nuclear they could be basically done by now and for far less money, even with incredibly conservative assumsions. Just look at the build rate UAE and South Korea were able to achieve. Apply that to Germany, even without any effects from scale, and the numbers look fantastic. And its very unlikely that you are gone have Fukishima and even if you do, most of that money isnt actually needed. Nuclear isnt getting built much compared to solar/wind in what world do you live? Its the exact opposite.

lazide 2y ago

Uh, the US could easily mine more than all those other countries combined. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining_in_the_United...] And most of those countries are not politically unstable - unless we count Trudeau’s declining popularity, or Australia and Germany’s need for excessive beer drinking. For various reasons it just went through a period it didn’t want to. Though prices have recovered enough, mines are re-opening again.

defrost 2y ago
Kazakhstan alone typically exports more than 20x a year than any given year of total US production. The US has uranium deposits, yes, but they are relatively low grade and sparse in comparison with the major Uranium producing hotspots about the globe. Typically the US uses in situ leach mining to dissolve sparse uranium salts from (say) breccia pipes. Other countries mine faces (or bore through and extract) dense uranium rock ores (much more uranium returned per volume). Oddly, stability has not been an issue with uranium extraction, the best mines ever in the Congo were continuously extracted throughout the height of the Cold Wat while secret proxy wars were funded and fought all about them to keep the region destabilised for ease of resource extraction to US | French companies. Today Kazakhstan sells to the US via Rosatom in an agreement ratified by past POTUS.
- lazide 2y ago
  Look at historic US production rates. [https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/mining-of-uranium/world-uranium-mining-production https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...] See those 60’s-80’s numbers? The US historically has done standard hard rock Uranium mining. It’s all over the 4 corners part of the US. High grade ore too. The reason it stopped was due to environmental regs/health issues - and because other countries would do it for cheaper. Not because it can’t do it at scale. The little remaining may be doing in-situ leaching, but that is a tiny footnote for the vast array of available uranium mines in the US. There is no actual strategic mining threat here, any more than there is one for bauxite or iron ore, etc. If someone tried to restrict US uranium supply, it would be a couple years at most before we’d be squishing everyone else in output again.

panick21_ 2y ago

Complete nonsense. Practically speaking there is no limitation. Its only that we have minimally invested in using it well. Even with the current suboptimal use we have plenty