[radford-neal]

Nuclear power is "generally accepted" as non-renewable amongst people opposed to nuclear power. Since uranium fuel is not going to run out on any reasonable time scale (and thorium will last even longer), it is "renewable" by any practical standard.

It makes no sense to worry about how "renewable" or "sustainable" some technology is if the time when it would start to matter is long after the technology has likely been replaced by something else anyway. That is, it makes no sense unless you're trying to score some political point...

[cinntaile]

Considering how you formulated your reply, I'm gonna guess you're the one with the political axe to grind. No need to project it on me, I don't have anything against nuclear.

"The International Energy Agency defines it as "energy derived from natural processes that are replenished at a faster rate than they are consumed"

You want to use another definition, that's fine by me. I'll stick to the generally accepted ones.

[credit_guy]

In the end it looks like the OP wanted to say "low carbon" and said "renewable", because everyone nowadays says "renewable" when they mean "low carbon". Would you be ok if he said "low carbon" in the first place?

[cinntaile]

If he used the correct term from the start I wouldn't have mentioned it.

The OP didn't know the difference, now he does. I think that's a good thing, no? If I used incorrect terminology to describe something, I would prefer it if this was pointed out to me. It makes it easier to communicate.

[akmittal]

I actually thought Nuclear was renewable. But it doesn't matter if by defination it is not, it is much better than current Indian energy sources(mainly Coal)

[whythre]

Indeed. All this quibbling about whether it is renewable or not really just comes off as making the perfect the enemy of the good.

[radford-neal]

I don't know what political machinations go on in the International Energy Agency, but one has to wonder why they thought it was useful to define a term "renewable" in this way, considering that such a term is of no use in formulating any rational energy policy. Could it be that it lets some companies get subsidies targeted at "renewable" energy, which sound good to the voters, without also providing such subsidies to nuclear power?

[survirtual]

Hydrogen fused by the sun, which generates the energy both solar panels and wind power utilizes, are not renewable by this definition.

By the provided definition, solar and wind are non-renewable. They are just sun/fusion energy collectors, and the sun is not regenerating its fuel...

...it just has A LOT of it. Sort of like another fuel available to use, called Uranium and Thorium, and every other fissionable radioactive element in the entire universe.

By the time we run out of nuclear fuel, we will be making gravity-confined fusion reactors with shells made of solar panels, aka artificial suns for energy.

[cinntaile]

They thought of that. It is defined on a human timescale.