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Again, quantify them rather than vague hand waving. 1kW net of PV module has about 100g of metal in it and lasts 25-50 years. 1kW of fuel rod lasts 3-6 years and requires 130g of enriched uranium, a bunch of rare earths, 2kg of copper and steel for handling and requires extracting 1kg of raw uranium. The amount of lithium 'required' is zero, but if you choose to use LFP for diurnal storage, you need about 1kg. Roll together mining impact for battery, PHES, and solar and you've still not covered the uranium mine, let alone all the steel, extra copper, indium, gadolinium, chromium and so on. Inkai is over 460km^2 with a much larger zone in which the ground is too poisonous to inhabit. If you want to see how much copper is actually needed, maybe rather than using an unsourced article from 2018, look at the most recent IRENA or Frauenhofer PV reports. Racking systems have changed completely, modules are higher power and have less metal, and connection voltages are in the kV range now. > And yes, the total amount of waste produced by nuclear energy is miniscule, and could fit in a much smaller amount of space than is taken up by solar panel waste, which is well over a quarter of a million metric tons. Both are small compared to, say, coal ash, but solar disposal does have significant costs and can and does produce significant waste. Again. Compare for me the volume of the tailings pit of a typical open pit uranium mine like Husab with the volume of every solar panel ever produced. A few hundred grams of metal encased in glass for an entire lifetime of energy is not 'significant waste'. > And one last thing--you're hypersensitive and pathetic. I started this discussion agreeing with your main point and trying to observe something straightforwardly relevant and you've been having a tantrum in response the entire time. Log off. Projection much? You tried to push lies and propaganda, now you're having a tantrum when challenged. Every topic where nuclear shilling isn't immediately banned is full of the same set of talking points that have been debunked between years and decades ago. |
A fuel rod assembly with 500kg of uranium produces about 200,000,000 kwH over its lifetime (https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/publications/magazi...), which comes out to 400k kw per kilogram of uranium, or 400 kw per gram. The amount of rare earths in each solar panel may be relatively low, but it also uses a significant amount of silicon, which as a metalloid has to be mined. Beyond that, none of this even addresses the differences in intensity of production; because nuclear produces its lifetime energy much more quickly than a solar panel does, the relative density of solar that you need in order to provide a comparable level of power over time is considerably unbalanced.
"Again. Compare for me the volume of the tailings pit of a typical open pit uranium mine like Husab with the volume of every solar panel ever produced. A few hundred grams of metal encased in glass for an entire lifetime of energy is not 'significant waste'." I'm at a loss for how to explain to you that this a fallacy on your part. I'm talking about waste production, and you're trying to compare apples to oranges by bringing up uranium mines instead of comparing waste production of the different methods. That you're so intent on repeating this obvious fallacy suggests to me that it's the best you can do. I'd like to say it doesn't matter, but the anti-rational fanaticism of green energy cultists is going to push the world off a cliff.