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this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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For countries with a lot of money to spend and a lot of time to spare
The best time to build a nuclear reactor was 30 years ago, but I am sceptical that we can build the storage capacity to fully and reliably decarbonise with renewables while similtaniously decarbonising transport. This on a global scale using extremely sought after rare earths that we posess relatively little of.
Luckily nuclear reactors can be build and fueled with scraps everyone has in their backyard.
If we replace all fossil fuels with nuclear reactors we run out of uranium before we'd run out of oil and gas on our current consumption levels.
The Materials required to build reactors are cheap and abondant. The amount of Uranium required to supply a plant for 10 years is small enough that it can be stored on site. It would alse be possible to extract Uranium from seawater, a supply that would last until the sun expands and swalows the planet.
Extracting Uranium from seawater is a ridicilous idea. The hypothetical proposals for a single extractor require 100.000 Tonnes of absorbens on a surface of 1000 kmΒ² At concentrations around 3 ppb, you'd need to filter about 7,5 trillion mΒ³ of water per year, to meet the current US electric demand.
That is an environmental catastrophy abomination of ressource extraction and it is most likely still energy negative, because of the insane amount of chemicals needed.
I am sceptical that we can build the storage capacity to fully and reliably decarbonise with renewables while similtaniously decarbonising transport.
I'm not. Batteries are cheap and only getting cheaper. With sodium batteries they are also made from abundant materials.
There are no rare earths in lithium-ion or sodium-ion batteries. Also do you think uranium grows on trees? We are running out of cheap uranium fast, even without new plants.
For long term storage we'll need hydrogen and methane. So we still need to build the facilities to produce them. But we have more than enough gas caverns already. So storing them won't be a problem.
And you'd be right to say Hydrogen Storage will be key, but the problem is that Hydrogen Storage has relatively low efficiencies.
We have a reliable supply of Uranium. See my other comment. Sodium Ion batteries do offer some progress, but actually scaling up extraction and production both of sodium and lithium ion batteries and the materials required for their construction just for decarbonisation of transport alone is an immense challenge, and we don't have reliable supplies in Europe. If we also have to completely decarbonise energy production, and everybody wants to do this, then we will encounter a bottleneck very quickly.
Also finally, just to be clear, i'm not against renewables, I think they will play a key role in decarbonisation, but I think that nuclear power makes decarbonisation dramatically easier. I see nuclear providing a reliable baseload (20 - 40%) to reduce the overall need for storage, while renewables cover the rest.
And who don't have to worry about drought now or in the future.
And who don't mind that the new reactor will be finished 12 years later than expected and be much more expensive than planned, and won't contribute to the electricity grid because it will only replace an old reactor that has become too dangerous to keep running.
Not to mention that we have a nuclear reactor that is currently under threat of war.
And we're not talking about nuclear waste, because that's a problem for the future, and who cares about our future anyway?
Also it is a "net-zero industry" that is net-zero-insurable, which should make everyone think twice.
This is not a "compromise", this is lobbying at its best.
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