People are going to have to get used to the idea that nuclear is part of the solution to getting rid of fossil fuels.
this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
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Why? Specifically, with numbers.
Because we cannot store power from intermittent sources efficiently. You need a strong baseline, which, right now is only achievable with fossil energies or nuclear power. There is literally no other option right now to get rid of fossil fuels than nuclear, not until we find an efficient way of storing energy, and even then it will still probably be needed.
But the demand is far from constant and nuclear likes constant , it has a very hard time regulating up and down quickly to follow the changes in demand. Solar and wind can by switched on and off near instant or even act as short term buffer in the case of wind to stabilise the grid
Well, nuclear works better on a planning indeed. And you can definitely plan for demand according to previous years. The issue with solar and wind is that sometimes it just doesn't work at all, like at night or when there is no wind. It works well but it's intermittent. The ideal mix would be, for the time being, 50/50 at least to phase out fossil fuels, then lowering the part of nuclear should be within reach. Personally I don't believe in 100% wind and solar year long, but a 60/40 or 70/30 mix (plus hydro, geothermal and such depending on the region of the world) should be achievable.
What about the newly conceived thorium reactors that use the nuclear "waste" (spent fuel) to create energy? I think nuclear as we know it might be out of date,but that doesn't mean the technology can'tcontinued to develop in new and better ways.
I'd say they are not yet commercially usable on a big scale, but then again the same has to be said about battery usage for renewables.
The again, both areas need money and funding and I think it would be better directed towards storage solutions, because they don't come with the downsides of Nuclear. I have to admit tough that I am not well read about thorium rector, so if there are flaws in this view by all means point them out.
Thorium and molten salt reactors are extremely hard to build because of corrosion from the salts. I believe newer designs (like accelerated neutron ones) can use the current waste and produce more fuel if needed.
I am not an expert, nor do I love nuclear power. But as I understand it with renewables we need to solve the storage problem. Wind and solar intermittent, and battery options are terrible in efficacy, cost, and environmental impact. Plus the north american grid is old and built around power being always-on - there isn't (yet) the ability to shuffle power from areas with to areas without to the scale we'd need.
So I have a feeling that despite all these issues nuclear will be part of the solution. Lucikly it's so expensive and has such low public opinion that I doubt governments will go "all-in" on nuclear any time soon.
Building coal power plants is so much better.
Best and most obvious reason: nuclear waste.
Nuclear waste can be managed, in any case much better than dumping CO2 in the atmosphere.
Unfortunately, for baseline, the alternative is either fossils or nuclear. We can't afford more of the former. So it's the latter or lights out.
We have technologies for getting more than enough power. It's just not as profitable as the old technologies.
Thing is we need to find a place where you safely can storage the waste but for how long?
IIRC, there is also concern about warning generations in the distant future.
How might language evolve over only another thousand years? How much would symbolism change between now and then? Would a future society still recognise the current symbols as nuclear waste, or will we eventually forget about it, like many of human histories mysteries?
Is it actually safe storage overall, or is it only safe storage for half a century? Saving it for future generations to deal with would be wrong, imo. Will the the structure around the radioactive materials hold up to time, and is it safe from rising water levels? Are they prone to hurricaines or tornados, and will they be in the future?
So many things to find an answer to. I hope that we find solutions or a new method of power generation soon.
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Could you make an example of baseline power production technologies that are neither fossil or nuclear and are scalable enough to replace both?
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Most nuclear waste is low-grade and can be reprocessed, and the disposal tech is improving, see e.g. https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/new-iaea-report-presents-global-overview-of-radioactive-waste-and-spent-fuel-management
1: On- and offshore wind, connected across an entire continent.
Wind turbines and solar power is something that produces enough energy. The thing is that it needs to be set up and brought into the system. Most Windparks for examples aren't hooked up to the network.
But these are not baseline. They are dependent on wind speed. It's not enough to have enough energy. You need to have energy when you need it. And storage is for now too expensive.
The average wind speed over all of North America or all of Africa etc. is quite constant year round.
Sources of your claim?
USA, for example: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/images/2015.02.25/chart2.png
Generating fluctuates between 20something and 30something % of the maximum installed capacity. The larger the area, the more the curve flattens.
Ok, but this is a monthly average, not daily or even hourly. It means that there might be times during the day or even whole days without (enough) wind.
Days without (enough) wind across the entire continent? Have you got any sources that show that this has ever happened?
If you really want to convince me that wind power can fully replace fossil fuels, it should be you proving that there can be no time when wind output lets the grid down. The US grid can absorb up to 700 GWh during some times of the year. If you have one day at 1000 GWh and the following day at 500GWh, you'll have brownouts throughout the US.
And it's not just about days. One hour without electricity in the whole continental US would be a national disaster.
Even the UN admits that decarbonization goals without nuclear power "will not be met" in Europe.
It's up to you to prove them wrong.
It's not only wind, you know? There's solar, there's storage, and better grid management and integration.
Sure, but storage at this point in time is very very expensive. Battery storage costs $350-400/KWh. Reservoir storage costs $250/KWh and it's not scalable or applicable everywhere.
By night the sun does not shine. On cloudy days, the sun does not shine. And if by any chance, the wind also does not blow, you have a national emergency in your hands.
No amount of optimization is going to solve this.
Article is wrong in the opening paragraph: "[Nuclear has] mining lung cancer, and waste risks. Clean, renewables avoid all such risks." As well all know, There is no mining involved in the manufacturing of solar panels or wind turbines, and certainly not in batteries.
Any anti-nuclear piece that mentions mining as a downside of nuclear power is being intentionally dishonest (Spoiler alert human activity in a non-agrarian society requires mining.)
The next issue is the cost argument. We need to get over this idea that cost matters if our goal is environmentalism. No matter what we do, it will cost money and it will cost more money then what we are currently doing. If it didn't cost more money, (and people weren't currently profiting off the status quo so that they can push articles like this), we would already be doing the things described in the article. But instead we have Germany that used to meet something like 28% of it's national energy needs with nuclear, now building coal plants and strip mining old growth forest.
If the choice is between nuclear and coal, and you pull a Germany, you are 100% wrong. For non-germans, the choice is never between nuclear and wind/solar, it's between Nuclear and Fossil Fuels. And nuclear will always be the greener technology and should always be preferred by environmentalists.
I suggest you read the article, before you make a point that if addresses just a few paragraphs in.
Uranium mining causes lung cancer in large numbers of miners because uranium mines contain natural radon gas, some of whose decay products are carcinogenic. A study of 4,000 uranium miners between 1950 and 2000 found that 405 (10 percent) died of lung cancer, a rate six times that expected based on smoking rates alone. 61 others died of mining related lung diseases. Clean, renewable energy does not have this risk because (a) it does not require the continuous mining of any material, only one-time mining to produce the energy generators; and (b) the mining does not carry the same lung cancer risk that uranium mining does.
I absolutely read the article. However it does a sleight of hand that you either agree with or fell for. It doesn't compare uranium mining to other mining activities, it compares uranium mining to smoking. Radon gas is a naturally occurring gas from granite, not uranium ore per se, though I'd forgive you if you thought Radon had something to do with uranium specifically, that is what the article implies. Yes Radon gas exists when you mine uranium but it also exist when you mine cobalt, coal, gold, or salt.
I did indeed not know this, thank you for informing me. In this case I have to agree with your point, renewables and uranium both require mining that can be harmful to the miners and it therefore can not be used as a counterpoint against nuclear energy.
Solar power is technically nuclear …
Yeah but no. It's fusion power, not fission, so something quite opposite, yet similar.