upvote

points

by graeme20 hours ago |
comments
upvoteby epistasis14 hours ago|
next
[-]
> 100% solar

100% solar is a straw man though, as much as the simplicity of it sounds nice.

> Further if we build more nuclear we'd be better at it and it would be cheaper.

This is far from being clear, nuclear is one technology that tends to have increased costs the more we do of it. Even in France!

The costs of the French nuclear scale-up: A case of negative learning by doing https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...

Human labor is very expensive, and every time we make humans more productive, that makes human labor more expensive, because their time becomes more valuable. Technological growth does that.

The cost of nuclear is primarily in labor and long-term financing, due to the very long lifetime and upfront labor cost. Until somebody has some sort of technological breathrough to decrease the labor cost of nuclear, it's not going to be able to compete. Even decades ago it had trouble, and now it's far worse.

reply
upvoteby zekrioca19 hours ago|
prev|
[-]
You are talking only about the operations of the nuclear, and ignoring all the high energy process required to mine and process uranium before it can be used as a fuel, and after as waste. But let’s pass this problem to the next generation, they will know what to do :)
reply
upvoteby wortelefant19 hours ago|
parent|
next
[-]
You underetimate the energy density of nuclear power. Yes. Uranium needs to be mined - slightly more 3xpensive if you extract it from sea water or recycle the fuel - but you need just one bathtub of fuel pellets to power a plant for 2 years. Solar and wind require more mining. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
reply
upvoteby Moldoteck19 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
next
[-]
Nuclear GHG are lowest per UNECE and NREL which do account a lot of factors. Nuclear requires least amount of mining vs any alternative so this argument makes little sense. Nuclear waste can be stored in facilities like onkalo or recycled like at la Hague(now) or Superphenix(in past)
reply
upvoteby Manuel_D16 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
next
[-]
The energy density of uranium is such that the amount of energy required to mine and process uranium is trivial relative to the amount of power produced. The carbon intensity of nuclear power is lower than solar: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2016/ph240/kountz1/
reply
upvoteby peterfirefly19 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
next
[-]
That's still essentially zero relative to the amount of energy we can get out of the uranium.
reply
upvoteby selfmodruntime15 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
[-]
Surely you include the rare earths needed for solar panels as well in all of your comparisons. Nuclear fuel is incredibly energy dense.
reply