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You're right. Nuclear fuel is most definitely not renewable.
Well, it's inexhaustible within the next few millennia, which is the same criteria by which geothermal is considered renewable. Nuclear really should be considered renewable, the only reason it's not is politics.
In case of uranium, you're off by an order of magnitude...
In terms of renewables, i think Norway and Brazil are higher up there, with 85% and 95% of their energy coming from renewable sources such as hydroelectic plants. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Brazil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Norway
In terms of renewables, i think Norway and Brazil are higher up there, with 85% and 95% of their energy coming from renewable sources such as hydroelectic plants. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Brazil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Norway
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95% of energy production is hydro or nuclear in Switzerland, which depending on your views on nuclear either makes them very progressive or terrible.
How is nuclear renewable?
There are breeder reactor designs which convert far more abundant non-fissile isotopes to fuel-grade fissible isotopes, usually starting with U-238 or Th-232. While not technically "renewable", these do off a theoretically sustainable energy supply, with projections suggesting over 5 billion years' supply at forseable energy consumption rates (that's long enough for solar stability to be the principle limiting factor).
I heard at a power conference last week that Germany halted installation of new solar panels on homes recently due to the problems integrating solar onto the grid. As the lecturer put it: We've spent the last hundred years building systems to safely and reliably send power on a one-way trip from the utilities to businesses and homes. Modifying the electrical distribution system to be multi-directional is not an easy…
That sounds very impressive. But I wonder at what cost overall. For instance there is a great deal of talk about windenergy, but the primary customers are states and these windmills seems to require quite a lot of maintenance. So the questions of course is. Even if the energy is sustainable, is the economic model?
E.g. in Illinois, we have four major sources of energy: coal, gas, wind, and nuclear. Nuclear is of course dirt cheap on a per kWh basis. Wind is about twice as expensive as coal. However, if you factor in the enormous externalities of coal power generation (probably billions of dollars in Illinois alone) as well as coal mining, the real per kWh price of coal power is double the nominal price, and that's assuming that there is nothing to this whole "global warming" thing.
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Hydroelectric power is not very environmentally friendly either. Like the giant dams of China that destroy the whole ecosystem near the power plant.
The damage of hydro is fairly localized afaik, both spatially and temporally. Fossil fuels cause damage globally (in addition to the local damage of oil fields/coal mines, and the power plants), and the damage is much more long lasting. Also the damage of hydro does not accumulate over time afaik.
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How is nuclear renewable?
It's not renewable, but it is essentially zero-impact as far as atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions are concerned. I'm hedging only because someone will come along and cite fossil-fuel based ancillary activities related to nuclear fuel mining, processing, transport, and disposal if I say "zero". But for all intents, zero. There are breeder reactor designs which convert far more abundant non-fissile isotopes to fuel-…
As far as new breeder designs, it's a bit too late. Nuclear promised us "energy too cheap to meter" and construction and maintenance costs have kept going down. Meanwhile solar and wind have been regularly going down in price with each doubling of production.
The case against nuclear isn't environmental; it's economic.