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Uranium is available in seawater in virtually limitless quantity (for all practical intents and purposes), so nuclear power should be considered renewable.

by adwn 12y ago

pizza234 12y ago
Actually, nuclear is not generally regarded as renewable energy by definition [0]. I can somewhat see the reason (of course, it's arguable) in the fact that there is some identification of renewable sources of energy with their "cleanness". [0] Quick google search! And wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_proposed_as_renewable_energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_proposed_as_rene...
- Filligree 12y ago
  But how can you call solar power 'renewable'? It's powered by fusion reactions in the sun, which are finite; it's going to run out. Only partly tongue-in-cheek. Fission power will also last hundreds of millions of years, so although it is "non-renewable", it shouldn't carry the same connotations of "will therefore run out".
  - Dewie 12y ago
    Nothing is renewable because of the proposed eventual heat death of the Universe...
nfoz 12y ago
One of the non-renewable aspects of Nuclear power is the storage of nuclear waste, which has specific geological requirements which are not easy to satisfy in many parts of the world. I expect that's a more limiting factor than the availability of nuclear fuel, but I could be wrong.
- krschultz 12y ago
  It has specific political requirements that are not easy to satisfy in many parts of the world. We can do it technically, it's just that no one is happy about having a nuclear waste dump in their backyard.
  - nfoz 12y ago
    > We can do it technically My understanding is that this is a difficult technical challenge and an active area of research. It is difficult to predict which geological structures on Earth will be stable and inaccessible by life forms or geologic volatility on timescales > 10,000 years. I'm not an expert in this area, just that we spent considerable time discussing the challenges in some earth science courses I took, but that was several years ago. So if you have some good review sources to suggest, that would be helpful. My starting point is merely: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#Long_term_management_of_waste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#Long_term_ma...
rosser 12y ago
Uranium is available in seawater in virtually limitless quantity... So is gold, which is back up over US$1200/oz, while the spot price on U3O8 is US$39.50/pound. If it isn't economically viable to extract Au from seawater, it's certainly not for U.

Uranium is available in seawater in virtually limitless quantity (for all practical intents and purposes), so nuclear power should be considered renewable.

by adwn 12y ago

Uranium is available in seawater in virtually limitless quantity (for all practical intents and purposes), so nuclear power should be considered renewable.

pizza234 12y ago

Actually, nuclear is not generally regarded as renewable energy by definition [0]. I can somewhat see the reason (of course, it's arguable) in the fact that there is some identification of renewable sources of energy with their "cleanness". [0] Quick google search! And wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_proposed_as_renewable_energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_proposed_as_rene...

Filligree 12y ago
But how can you call solar power 'renewable'? It's powered by fusion reactions in the sun, which are finite; it's going to run out. Only partly tongue-in-cheek. Fission power will also last hundreds of millions of years, so although it is "non-renewable", it shouldn't carry the same connotations of "will therefore run out".
- Dewie 12y ago
  Nothing is renewable because of the proposed eventual heat death of the Universe...

nfoz 12y ago

One of the non-renewable aspects of Nuclear power is the storage of nuclear waste, which has specific geological requirements which are not easy to satisfy in many parts of the world. I expect that's a more limiting factor than the availability of nuclear fuel, but I could be wrong.

krschultz 12y ago
It has specific political requirements that are not easy to satisfy in many parts of the world. We can do it technically, it's just that no one is happy about having a nuclear waste dump in their backyard.
- nfoz 12y ago
  > We can do it technically My understanding is that this is a difficult technical challenge and an active area of research. It is difficult to predict which geological structures on Earth will be stable and inaccessible by life forms or geologic volatility on timescales > 10,000 years. I'm not an expert in this area, just that we spent considerable time discussing the challenges in some earth science courses I took, but that was several years ago. So if you have some good review sources to suggest, that would be helpful. My starting point is merely: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#Long_term_management_of_waste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#Long_term_ma...

rosser 12y ago

Uranium is available in seawater in virtually limitless quantity... So is gold, which is back up over US$1200/oz, while the spot price on U3O8 is US$39.50/pound. If it isn't economically viable to extract Au from seawater, it's certainly not for U.