Nuclear power is the sword that can cut it: a scalable source of dispatchable (i.e., on-demand), virtually emissions-free energy. It takes up very little land, consumes very little fuel, and produces very little waste.
For balance, here are a few counterpoints, which I recently heard from a friend and have not verified myself:
There is only enough uranium to provide half of the world’s power for fifty years.
Renewable energy sources have become cheaper than nuclear power in recent years.
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.)
Mining and producing uranium also results in much waste in the form of tailings.
Smart grids can solve the base load power problem with renewables.
Personally, I haven’t made up my mind in the go nuclear/stop nuclear dimension. I don’t need to, since it’s not something I’m going to or trying to have much influence on. But the above are points I would like to see addressed when arguing for increasing nuclear energy production. They’re also great points to put numbers on and compare with renewables.
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.
There is only enough uranium to provide half of the world’s power for fifty years.
That’s what people said about oil in the 19th century. We know how to mine Uranium from seawater, so if we have a problem with mining it the traditional way we can just take it from the ocean that has plenty.
Smart grids can solve the base load power problem with renewables.
No. Smart grids do nothing to give you energy in dark winter months.
Renewable energy sources have become cheaper than nuclear power in recent years.
Wind and PV will require grid-scale energy storage. At this rate it looks like batteries will get there first, but there are other possibilities. Any fair accounting for the cost of renewables vs nuclear has to account for this part, since nuclear is a baseload source in its own right and doesn’t need the batteries. The “cheap” renewables right now are wind and photovoltaic.
However, there are many baseload renewable sources, such as hydro, ocean wave, geothermal, solar thermal, and high-altitude wind. Most of the easy geothermal and hydro sources have been tapped already, and more would be damaging to their local environment.
Solar thermal and enhanced hot dry rock geothermal have great potential as renewable baseload sources. They work practically anywhere, although not equally well anywhere.
Wind doesn’t blow everyday either. Waves do have advantages of being constant but we don’t see wave powered strom generations at the price/quantity of the others.
Thanks for your counter-counterpoints. I’ve added them to my notes.
Re. smart grids: Of course they don’t produce energy themselves. We would need the capacity to produce enough during winter. But they address the problem of supply variability. And the energy grid modelers at my friend’s company have found that they can address it sufficiently.
Supply variability happens on different time-spans. Batteries and smart grid technology allow you to handle 24 hour varability.
Unforunately, if you use mainly renewable energy, a solution that just handles the 24 hour variability while not handling the variability over longer timescales doesn’t bring you far.
You likely need to turn the surplus energy in the summer into hydrogen or methane, store that and then burn it when needed with turbines. Those turbines can then not only handle the variability over a year but also that over shorter timeframes.
Failures of handling electricity variation for an hour gives you an outage of a hour which isn’t a big deal. On the other hand failing in handling inter-month variation and having a few days of power outage is very costly.
For balance, here are a few counterpoints, which I recently heard from a friend and have not verified myself:
There is only enough uranium to provide half of the world’s power for fifty years.
Renewable energy sources have become cheaper than nuclear power in recent years.
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.)
Mining and producing uranium also results in much waste in the form of tailings.
Smart grids can solve the base load power problem with renewables.
Personally, I haven’t made up my mind in the go nuclear/stop nuclear dimension. I don’t need to, since it’s not something I’m going to or trying to have much influence on. But the above are points I would like to see addressed when arguing for increasing nuclear energy production. They’re also great points to put numbers on and compare with renewables.
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.
That’s what people said about oil in the 19th century. We know how to mine Uranium from seawater, so if we have a problem with mining it the traditional way we can just take it from the ocean that has plenty.
No. Smart grids do nothing to give you energy in dark winter months.
Not for 365/7/24 energy needs.
Wind and PV will require grid-scale energy storage. At this rate it looks like batteries will get there first, but there are other possibilities. Any fair accounting for the cost of renewables vs nuclear has to account for this part, since nuclear is a baseload source in its own right and doesn’t need the batteries. The “cheap” renewables right now are wind and photovoltaic.
However, there are many baseload renewable sources, such as hydro, ocean wave, geothermal, solar thermal, and high-altitude wind. Most of the easy geothermal and hydro sources have been tapped already, and more would be damaging to their local environment.
Solar thermal and enhanced hot dry rock geothermal have great potential as renewable baseload sources. They work practically anywhere, although not equally well anywhere.
Wind and wave are renewables.
Wind doesn’t blow everyday either. Waves do have advantages of being constant but we don’t see wave powered strom generations at the price/quantity of the others.
Thanks for your counter-counterpoints. I’ve added them to my notes.
Re. smart grids: Of course they don’t produce energy themselves. We would need the capacity to produce enough during winter. But they address the problem of supply variability. And the energy grid modelers at my friend’s company have found that they can address it sufficiently.
Supply variability happens on different time-spans. Batteries and smart grid technology allow you to handle 24 hour varability.
Unforunately, if you use mainly renewable energy, a solution that just handles the 24 hour variability while not handling the variability over longer timescales doesn’t bring you far.
You likely need to turn the surplus energy in the summer into hydrogen or methane, store that and then burn it when needed with turbines. Those turbines can then not only handle the variability over a year but also that over shorter timeframes.
Failures of handling electricity variation for an hour gives you an outage of a hour which isn’t a big deal. On the other hand failing in handling inter-month variation and having a few days of power outage is very costly.
Yeah, 24 h variability is what I meant. Producing hydrogen or methane for longer-term storage sounds interesting.