Nuclear energy is long-term sustainable

#1

Post by gone35 » Fri, Nov 12, 2021, 2:51 PM UTC

Nuclear energy is long-term sustainable
whatisnuclear.com

Re: Nuclear energy is long-term sustainable

#2

Post by andy_ppp » Fri, Nov 12, 2021, 3:20 PM UTC

I'm not sure I want every country in the world to have the potential to build nuclear bombs...

Re: Nuclear energy is long-term sustainable

#3

Post by OscarCunningham » Fri, Nov 12, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

The calculations don't take into account growing energy usage. But anyone who understands exponential growth already knew that from looking at the title.

EDIT: Title on the article is currently 'Nuclear fuel will last us for 4 billion years'. I recall that that was also the HN title when I wrote this comment, but I could have got mixed up.

Re: Nuclear energy is long-term sustainable

#4

Post by rootsudo » Fri, Nov 12, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

It's amazing how gasoline itself was only used from 1892 to current time. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/gasoline/history-of-gaso...

So imagine 150 years of gasoline usage help lead the world to be green and change to an energy source for "4 billion years."

That's so cool, and puts alot of conversation about environmentalism into prospective.

Re: Nuclear energy is long-term sustainable

#5

Post by dr_orpheus » Fri, Nov 12, 2021, 3:29 PM UTC

rootsudo wrote: post #4

It's amazing how gasoline itself was only used from 1892 to current time. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/gasoline/history-of-gaso... So imagine 150 years of gasoline usage help lead the world to be green and change to an energy source for "4 billion years." That's so cool, and puts alot of conversation about environmentalism into prospective.

I'm not sure I totally understand your point here. How did 150 years of gasoline usage help lead the world to be green?

And we as of yet have not changed to 100% nuclear and/or recyclable and don't have the technology yet to achieve that goal of nuclear energy for "4 billion years"

Re: Nuclear energy is long-term sustainable

#6

Post by throwaway5752 » Fri, Nov 12, 2021, 3:29 PM UTC

1) there are no working thorium reactors 2) breeder reactors are hazardous 3) uranium seawater extraction doesn't exist 4) if uranium seawater extraction were made to work it would use enormous amounts of energy not reflected in this.

The depressing truth is this shows that current uranium oxide reserves and nuclear tech could supply global energy needs for only 6 years.

Re: Nuclear energy is long-term sustainable

#7

Post by mikepurvis » Fri, Nov 12, 2021, 3:31 PM UTC

Aren't breeder reactors mostly still on the drawing board? I get that they're very promising, but my understanding is that there remain some non-trivial issues to work out around corrosion and so on.

Anyway, I'm totally a believer in nuclear power for a greener future (yay Michael Schellenberger), but we need to keep these discussions honest: the path forward is to right now be building hundreds of copy-paste instances of existing, proven designs, not making the discussion about what might be possible with technology that's in development or not really in use at scale.

Re: Nuclear energy is long-term sustainable

#8

Post by nine_k » Fri, Nov 12, 2021, 3:33 PM UTC

OscarCunningham wrote: post #3

The calculations don't take into account growing energy usage. But anyone who understands exponential growth already knew that from looking at the title. EDIT: Title on the article is currently 'Nuclear fuel will last us for 4 billion years'. I recall that that was also the HN title when I wrote this comment, but I could have got mixed up.

No form of exponential growth is sustainable; another name for it is "explosion".

In practice, most things that look exponential end up as S-shaped / sigmoid curves

Re: Nuclear energy is long-term sustainable

#9

Post by zeryx » Fri, Nov 12, 2021, 3:33 PM UTC

It's incredibly frusturating that this isn't part of the public discourse, where are the pro-nuclear candidates? Which parties are pro-nuclear?

Re: Nuclear energy is long-term sustainable

#10

Post by mikepurvis » Fri, Nov 12, 2021, 3:33 PM UTC

andy_ppp wrote: post #2

I'm not sure I want every country in the world to have the potential to build nuclear bombs...

"More than 20 countries have developed nuclear power industries without building nuclear weapons. On the other hand, countries that have built and tested nuclear weapons have followed other paths than purchasing commercial nuclear reactors, reprocessing the spent fuel, and obtaining plutonium. Some have built facilities for the express purpose of enriching uranium; some have built plutonium production reactors; and some have surreptitiously diverted research reactors to the production of plutonium. All these pathways to nuclear proliferation have been more effective, less expensive, and easier to hide from prying eyes than the commercial nuclear power route."

https://www.britannica.com/technology/nuclear-power/Prolifer...