[jodrellblank]

https://phys.org/news/2011-05-nuclear-power-world-energy.htm... casts doubt on the future of Nuclear growing anywhere near enough to be a best-hope; scaling it up to world energy production of 15TW seems infeasible - burning through the available Uranium supplies in ~5 years - even scaling it up to 1TW would stretch many resources used in nuclear reactor construction such as rare elements.

[cthalupa]

These arguments are silly. It would be like arguing against renewables based on tech from half a century ago.

But fearmongering and people being incapable of understanding just how harmful coal is even in comparison to the worst nuclear disasters (which people frequently overestimate the harm from) has lead to significant regulations and cuts in funding, to the point where you're arguing about tech from the 70s.

There's tons of promising research, and without all of the fear, we would not be talking about uranium based BWR. We would have entire other classes of fuel, and some of the Gen4 designs that have been researched could burn all actinides.

You can create nuclear power from a lot more than just uranium.

[m4rtink]

I would assume the numbers would look very differently if breader reactors and alternative nuclear fuel sources (thorium) would be considered.

[jodrellblank]

Thorium is mentioned in the article; availability of halfnium, beryllium, and other rare metals for the containment shielding "is a new argument that Abbott puts on the table, which places resource limits on all future-generation nuclear reactors, whether they are fueled by thorium or uranium."