[Kon5ole]

Here are three arguments that I personally find both reasonable and convincing.

1) Nuclear fuel and waste are clearly dangerous. Your linked article makes a logical fallacy in that it claims a dangerous activity is safe because few people have died from it. But we know things are dangerous even when nobody dies from it. The level of security surrounding nuclear is beyond anything else, and it's required to keep it safe. These security measures are expensive to maintain but are dwarfed by the expenses when they fail.

2) Nuclear is much more expensive than we are led to believe.

This is quite clearly deduced from official writings from nuclear agencies, international treaties controlling who will actually pay if things go south, and also demonstrated in the market where nuclear operators are deeply in debt after selling nuclear power for unrealistic prices for decades. (See France).

Nuclear energy is most likely many times more expensive than any numbers presented to date from anyone operating nuclear power plants. This cost is covered "in blanco" by governments, meaning taxpayers now and in generations to come. I am convinced that the energy we consume from nuclear today will be paid for by our great-great-great-grandchildren and theirs too.

3) Renewables are better long-term so all efforts should be spent on inventing and implementing systems to make renewables the source of all energy. (Storage implied).

Money spent on nuclear is not available for renewables so it's reasonable to be opposed to nuclear for that reason too.

All that being said, it is of course very reasonable to keep plants running for a while longer given the current circumstances. :)

[purplerabbit]

These are all valid. However, if only nuclear can get us past "bottleneck events" (e.g., oil supply chains falling apart due to deglobalization or the world's oil running out, either of which would (or possibly will) cause catastrophic effects), then that supersedes #2 and #3, and probably #1 as well in most analyses.

I'm not well-versed enough in hard evidence to assert that we absolutely need nuclear to make it through bottleneck events. But it's plausible that we do. And so we shouldn't rule it out unless there is high-certainty evidence we don't need it.

In other words: I think the burden of proving that nuclear is unnecessary is on the anti-nuclear crowd. I've heard plenty of arguments that wind/solar will be enough, but haven't seen an analysis that seems to prove it based on numbers. (If you know of any such analysis, please share!)

[Kon5ole]

You make a good point, and I like the term "bottleneck event". :)

I think a case could be made that nuclear itself causes a bottleneck event in that we get addicted to the energy since it's deceptively cheap for current generations (as long as nothing goes south). It will also cause a problem that vastly outlasts the bottleneck itself. We will have to actively maintain nuclear waste for longer than humanity has used oil as fuel for example.

But to be fair, we already have the problem anyway, so keeping existing plants running makes sense to get through the bottleneck. A few more years of operation won't make a big difference.

But the amount of money needed for new plants, that will be operational 10+ years from now, should in my mind clearly be invested in things like green hydro, pumped storage etc.

[clemensley]

1) Can you point to negative implications of nuclear waste? Anyone that got hurt or harmed in Germany for example?

2) If it's too expensive it will not happen, no need for the government to step in.

3) Have a look at the link, some renewables like Biomass emit a lot of C02, all energy sources are trade offs

[Schroedingersat]

> 2) If it's too expensive it will not happen, no need for the government to step in.

The government steps in for every second of operation of every nuclear reactor on the planet.

Feel free to pay for your own insurance sans liability caps, find your own loans (without government enforced payment from end users for projects that produce no power), pay for the overruns in decomissioning, and pay for the labour of the regulatory bodies stopping the industry from rendering entire countries uninhabitable.

While you are at it you can control the pollution from uranium mine to the same standard that you'd want in your own back yard and pay for security.

Electricity is a utility and a natural monopoly. The government is always involved and they need to make decisions for what is best in the long term. If you don't have your own enrichment and processing industry then that decision isn't 'become dependent on russia for fuel'. We just saw how well that went.

[Kon5ole]

1) Again, we know it's dangerous even if nobody has been harmed in Germany yet. Related relevant reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orphan_source_incident...

2) The only reason nuclear power exists is because governments have stepped in to support it and cover most of the expenses. If you remove that support, it can't exist. No organisation of any kind anywhere in the world can afford to run a business where income is generated for 50-60 years but expenses continue for 1000+ years after. France recently learned this: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/france-keeps-edf-buy...

3) There are a lot of viable energy solutions with better tradeoffs than nuclear, and it seems reasonable to build them instead of building nuclear power plants. Heat storage, gravity storage, synthesized fuel, hydrogen gas to name a few. The costs of a nuclear power plant invested in any of these concepts would go a long way.

[evilos]

1) It is dangerous yes. That is the nature of the energy being so concentrated. But this concentration is a blessing because you don't need to mind nearly as much material, and it is far far easier to keep an eye on the waste. Where does the waste from coal/gas go? Into the air. It costs way more to try to contain the harms of those substances because they are the opposite of energy dense.

Nuclear waste is such a tiny tiny amount that we just keep it on site. It's solid. It's not going to leak out of its containers. It just sits in concrete casks on site. Even better, it still has 98% of the energy in it so you don't really want to get rid of it. It can be used in breeder reactors to extract more energy. I quote this too much, but all the nuclear waste the US has ever generated would sit in a single football field, 10 yards high.

2) Nuclear is capital intensive AND the only energy generation that is forced to pre fund its own decommissioning and cleanup. The increased operating costs of nuclear plants is largely due to intentional mismanagement b/c of politics. For example, in France they force nuclear plants to stop outputting power when renewables are generating. They prioritize renewables because that's what politics dictates. They also mandated a cap on power allowed to be generated by nuclear plants, forcing the closure of perfectly good and already paid for plants, so they could buy more renewables. These privatized energy markets don't want stable cheap energy because there's no money in it.

In addition, the US has largely forgotten how to build big things. But it can be done. The UAE just finished 4 1250MW reactors in 10 years. It will generate a quarter of their electricity, (basically) carbon free for 60+ years. Cost was 6B per reactor. Over 60 years, it's a steal. Renewables are only "cheap" in LCOE because the storage costs and capacity factor costs are often not included. Even if you build a megawatt of solar/wind, you really only get 20 to 40% of that peak capacity on average. In Virginia, we are building a wind farm for 10B that is 2640MW. And it is intermittent, off shore is usually 40%. You could get a 1250 MW stable nuke for that much. And it would last twice as long.

3) The main issue with solar/wind though, is that we literally don't have enough material to build enough of it. Not to mention the battery storage. It's not a matter of we can't mine fast enough, we literally don't know of the mineral reserves needed. Here's a presentation going over a report that find this: https://youtu.be/MBVmnKuBocc?t=2403

[Schroedingersat]

> I quote this too much, but all the nuclear waste the US has ever generated would sit in a single football field, 10 yards high.

Well you couldn't because you'd have a stew of fissioning soup. But once you include all the concrete and steel and low level waste that needs decades of storage it's about the same size as a 4hr battery for the entire country.

> But this concentration is a blessing because you don't need to mind nearly as much material

> 3) The main issue with solar/wind though, is that we literally don't have enough material to build enough of it. Not to mention the battery storage. It's not a matter of we can't mine fast enough, we literally don't know of the mineral reserves needed. Here's a presentation going over a report that find this

False. If it's a problem for PV it's a much worse problem for existing nuclear plants.

Olympic dam is one of the world's largest uranium mines. It produces 7.5g of silver and 30kg of copper for every kg of Uranium.

You need 10kg of natural uranium for 1kg of PWR fuel.

PV is made of sand, copper, and silver.

70g of silver is enough for 3.5kW net of solar at 5mg/Watt (after needing 5g for the fuel and control rods which you have yet to supply indium, cadmium, and zirconium for).

The solar panels will produce ~1.8TJ in their lifetime and be recyclable. The nuclear fuel will produce 500GJ and require large quantities of steel and concrete for storage and transport.

You get triple the net energy from a uranium mine compared to nuclear.

The silicon, glass, frame, and power electronics take less resources than the rest of the plant.

The story for wind is not so hilariously one sided (for example it uses more concrete than nuclear), but it's still fine. The blades of a >3MW turbine have about the same energy density as packaged nuclear waste. There are also at least 3 storage technologies undergoing commercialisation that use abundant materials.

[evilos]

The report that the presentation is covering goes over this in fine detail: https://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/42_2021.pdf

> False. If it's a problem for PV it's a much worse problem for existing nuclear plants.

There's basically unlimited quantities of uranium in sea water. Plus you can breed it from thorium if you want to.

> But once you include all the concrete and steel and low level waste that needs decades of storage it's about the same size as a 4hr battery for the entire country.

I highly doubt it but I'd love to see the math on that.

The author of the report I linked concludes that fission cannot be main power source of the future because of the limits of mineable uranium. However he completely ignores the ocean as a source of uranium, which is basically inexhaustible. We don't get it from there today because demand is low and it's cheaper to get it from the ground but ocean uranium capture has been demonstrated.

Solar panels by themselves don't require a lot of rare material but they do require tons of high heat and carbon to "bake". A large part of how cheap they are today is due to the fact that they are made using coking coal in China. But of course the material constraints of the storage needed for solar/wind is the main obstacle. Until we demonstrate cheap storage at scale, wind/solar won't cut it.

[Schroedingersat]

> I highly doubt it but I'd love to see the math on that.

It was very rough hyperbole/fermi estimate. Can't find figures for the US, so using europe.

Europe has 2.5 million m^3 of low level waste and 1.5 million m^3 that's fairly imminent from refurbishments/decommisioning and replacement (an array of 6 by 6 football fields stacked 20 yards). This is only about ~50 years, so it will go up over time.

Europe uses about 2660TWh/yr or 300GW

At 500Wh/L (high but existing) that's 4 hours for the 2.5. At 300Wh/L it's 4 hours at 4 million m^3

A lot of that waste probably doesn't need containment after a decade or two, so it's only a ballpark. (and a real battery can't be that densely packed without overheating). Conversely 5% or so of it needs multiple centuries or millenia so it would accumulate much higher.

[Schroedingersat]

> The author of the report I linked concludes that fission cannot be main power source of the future because of the limits of mineable uranium. However he completely ignores the ocean as a source of uranium, which is basically inexhaustible.

In addition to ignoring sea uranium mining which does not exist in any meaningful way he also ignores a bunch of things which actually do exist like LiFePO4 batteries, the last 10 years of PV research, trains, LEVs and affordable offshore wind.

It also ignores things that are much more likely to exist than uranium sea mining like prussian blue batteries, AlS, iron air, perovskite solar panels and affordable tidal power (all of which are presently undergoing large scale industrialisation).

[evilos]

It doesn't exist industrially because there's no need for it. Uranium has been incredibly cheap for decades. But the cost of fuel is such a small factor in the cost of nuclear energy that you could 10x the fuel costs and the LCOE wouldn't move much at all.

LiFePO4 batteries still need lithium, and any wind turbine > 1MW requires literally tons of copper. These solutions are simply too material intensive, ie not energy dense enough.

[Schroedingersat]

> It doesn't exist industrially because there's no need for it. Uranium has been incredibly cheap for decades. But the cost of fuel is such a small factor in the cost of nuclear energy that you could 10x the fuel costs and the LCOE wouldn't move much at all.

That's a great way of saying 'I believe the capital and operational costs for nuclear are at least 5x as much as renewables and will stay that way'.

Fuel is $1660/kg currently using fairly generous assumptions https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspec...

This is $5/MWh in an AP1000 and $10/MWh in lower burnup models. Once the cheap Uranium goes, that doubles. If Rio Tinto or Kazatomprom actually cleaned up their mess properly, that doubles again. Your proposed 100000km^2 sea mining operation is unlikely to be cheaper. There are subsidy free solar farms already at around $13/MWh with more normal prices being in the $30-50 range.

A vestas 660kW turbine uses around ~500kg or 3t per MW net of copper (less than a nuke plant) in the nacelle, busbars and cabinet https://www.copper.org/environment/green/casestudies/wind_en... everything else including transmission can be made from Aluminum. Bigger turbines are more mass efficient as are ones placed offshore. If you wanted to scare monger about wind, focus on the permanent magnets as that's not solved commercially yet.

PV already uses less than a tenth of this. A TopCon or Perc cell uses about 5-10x as much silver as an AP 1000, but silver plated copper metallization reduces this by a factor of 10 and is already being used in demo plants. There are also Aluminum foil backed cells being trialled commercially.

> LiFePO4 batteries still need lithium,

SIB, Fe-Air, AlS and NaS batteries do not, and supply chains for them are better developed than those for PWRs or for still-fictional mining methods.