There is only enough uranium to provide half of the world’s power for fifty years.
Not sure where that number came from, but it’s not accounting for breeding U-233 from thorium or breeding fissile plutonium from depleted uranium. Fast neutron reactors can burn most actinides, including the bulk of the so-called “nuclear waste” from lightwater reactors, and as ChristianKl already mentioned, we know how to extract uranium from seawater. This is much more expensive, but nuclear reactors require so little fuel that it amounts to a tiny fraction of their operating costs, so it wouldn’t affect the price of nuclear power much. Getting enough fuel is really not the issue.
Renewable energy sources have become cheaper than nuclear power in recent years.
Nuclear should be a lot cheaper than it is, and this is due to the red tape, as explained in the post.
Mining for uranium ore and producing uranium does occupy much land, consume much energy and emit much carbon dioxide. The reason is that there is only about one ton of uranium per forty tons of ore. (Renewables don’t consume as much land as some people say, since you can put solar cells on roofs, grow crops under the panels of solar farms etc.)
Mostly true for mining anything these days. And you still need minerals to produce solar panels, wind turbines, and the batteries required to make them work in place of baseload, etc. Nuclear, on the other hand, requires uranium in very small quantities.
I dispute that you can grow crops under solar panels. Wind turbines, sure, but they’re loud. Maybe some plants are OK with some degree of shade, but they do require sunlight, and efficient harvesting requires access with big tractors.
Smart grids can solve the base load power problem with renewables.
Smart grids aren’t good enough, but they could help. Renewables can’t easily be used for baseload without some kind of grid-scale storage, but advancing battery technology may address this in the near future.
I have since read articles about growing shade crops under solar panels. This is a thing. The panels have to be spaced out though. It’s not going to be as energy-dense as a dedicated solar plant.
Enhanced Geothermal looks really promising, particularly heat mining of hot dry rock. It’s both green and baseload, and it leverages a lot of the oil-drilling tech, including deep bores and fracking. I wonder how much Big Oil is going to transition to geothermal over the coming decade.
Fusion also looks really promising right now. The joke was that it was always just fifty years away, even ten years later. I don’t think it’s that long anymore. Tokamaks basically work now, and improved superconductors have made the required electromagnets much more compact and less expensive. There are also other promising approaches in the works. Only one has to work.
Not sure where that number came from, but it’s not accounting for breeding U-233 from thorium or breeding fissile plutonium from depleted uranium. Fast neutron reactors can burn most actinides, including the bulk of the so-called “nuclear waste” from lightwater reactors, and as ChristianKl already mentioned, we know how to extract uranium from seawater. This is much more expensive, but nuclear reactors require so little fuel that it amounts to a tiny fraction of their operating costs, so it wouldn’t affect the price of nuclear power much. Getting enough fuel is really not the issue.
Nuclear should be a lot cheaper than it is, and this is due to the red tape, as explained in the post.
Mostly true for mining anything these days. And you still need minerals to produce solar panels, wind turbines, and the batteries required to make them work in place of baseload, etc. Nuclear, on the other hand, requires uranium in very small quantities.
I dispute that you can grow crops under solar panels. Wind turbines, sure, but they’re loud. Maybe some plants are OK with some degree of shade, but they do require sunlight, and efficient harvesting requires access with big tractors.
Smart grids aren’t good enough, but they could help. Renewables can’t easily be used for baseload without some kind of grid-scale storage, but advancing battery technology may address this in the near future.
Thanks for your counter-arguments! I’ve added them to my notes.
I have since read articles about growing shade crops under solar panels. This is a thing. The panels have to be spaced out though. It’s not going to be as energy-dense as a dedicated solar plant.
Enhanced Geothermal looks really promising, particularly heat mining of hot dry rock. It’s both green and baseload, and it leverages a lot of the oil-drilling tech, including deep bores and fracking. I wonder how much Big Oil is going to transition to geothermal over the coming decade.
Fusion also looks really promising right now. The joke was that it was always just fifty years away, even ten years later. I don’t think it’s that long anymore. Tokamaks basically work now, and improved superconductors have made the required electromagnets much more compact and less expensive. There are also other promising approaches in the works. Only one has to work.