| I'm going to hesitate to say this article is very short sighted... it talks about "nuclear is expensive, renewables are cheap and we don't know how to store nuclear waste". Nabla's comment is a good start on the conversation (good frame but no real apples to apples comparisons). Personally, with the talk about "what about all that nuclear waste"... where's the talk about the recyclable waste? Batteries, solar panels, wind mills are all very hard to recycle and add "after the fact" costs like nuclear does that's being unaccounted for - and is happening at a MUCH larger scale currently. Where's the talk about all the "rare earth minerals" that's going to have to be strip mined around the world to keep up with "clean energy"? I think this article has some valid points wrapped up in talking points to strengthen its argument while ignoring massive talking points that go unmentioned (True comparisons of costs, storage/recycling of materials and the massive increase in "plundering" Earth goes unmentioned... to name a few). Edit: Not saying I'm "pro nuclear" or "anti renewable"... I'm more of a balanced approach person - I think the future will include Coal, Gas, Nuclear, Solar, hydro and various mixes there-of and we need to work on making all of them better because none of them are going anywhere any time soon - and they ALL have strengths and weaknesses. https://fee.org/articles/the-environmental-costs-of-renewabl... > Far from it. The transition to renewables is going to require a dramatic increase in the extraction of metals and rare-earth minerals, with real ecological and social costs. https://www.futurity.org/nuclear-waste-recycling-2355402-2/ New, better ways of recycling Nuclear "waste" is being researched constantly > A new simple, proliferation-resistant approach offers a way to reduce nuclear waste, researchers say. https://fortune.com/2020/02/05/wind-turbine-fiberglass-landf... > Tens of thousands of aging blades are coming down from steel towers around the world and most have nowhere to go but landfills. In the U.S. alone, about 8,000 will be removed in each of the next four years. Europe, which has been dealing with the problem longer, has about 3,800 coming down annually through at least 2022, according to BloombergNEF. It’s going to get worse: Most were built more than a decade ago, when installations were less than a fifth of what they are now. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23... > The problem of solar panel disposal “will explode with full force in two or three decades and wreck the environment” because it “is a huge amount of waste and they are not easy to recycle.” |
Everything the world creates is unprofitable to recycle except for aluminum soda cans. Compared to the average commercial waste, batteries, solar panels and wind blades are straightforward to recycle.
> Where's the talk about all the "rare earth minerals" that's going to have to be strip mined around the world to keep up with "clean energy"?
There's no talk because the commonly used batteries and solar panels don't contain any.
A lifepo4 battery consists of Lithium, Iron and Phosphate, all of which are abundant.
> about 8,000 will be removed in each of the next four years.
IOW, about 40,000 tonnes of waste. About the same amount of waste as a small town.